How To Write The Future
The How to Write The Future Podcast offers fiction writing tips for science fiction and fantasy authors who want to create optimistic stories because when we vision what is possible, we help make it so. By science fiction and fantasy author and fiction writing coach, Beth Barany.
Episodes
118 episodes since 2022
118. Dealing with Perfectionism, Interview with Melissa Dinwiddie, part 3
“If you are having fun and you're playing and you're experimenting, it is all gonna feed into what you're doing.”-- Melissa Dinwiddie In this How To Write the Future episode, “Dealing with Perfectionism, Interview...
September 16, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 118
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16:20
117. Let's Play A Game, Interview with Melissa Dinwiddie, Part 2
“I'm leading people through some kind of an activity. So often when I tell people that I use play-based methods, or particularly if I tell people that I use improv, they will often jump to the conclusion that I'm doing some kind of role pla...
September 09, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 117
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12:28
116. Bring Improv to Your Life, Interview with Melissa Dinwiddie, Part 1
“So every day after breakfast, I lead these creative catalyzing sessions, which is basically a bunch of improv games to get people laughing and moving. And people will say often that it's their favorite part of the retreat.“ --Melissa ...
September 02, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 116
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18:53
115. How to bring magical elements into your contemporary story (Q&A)
“It's very common in the urban fantasy genre for there to be a group of magical beings of various kinds.”In the latest How To Write the Future episode, host Beth Barany answers a question from a listener on “How to bring magi...
August 26, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 115
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6:39
114. How do I rein in all my ideas? (Q&A)
“Do you need to think bigger? Do you need to think of a map that would encompass all of your story worlds, and maybe they're all connected.”In this How To Write the Future episode, “How do I rein in all my ideas? (Q&A),...
August 19, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 114
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5:15
113. Where to insert backstory (Q&A)
“You want the reader to experience backstory from the perspective of your point of view character, who is living in the present and responding and going after their goal and accounting obstacles.“In this podcast episode of ...
August 12, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 113
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6:13
112. How do I know if I’ve added too many details to my novel? (Q&A)
“How do you tell if there are too many details? It all comes down to the reader experience. What is the reader experience that you want your readers to have?”In this episode of How To Write The Future podcast, host Beth Bar...
August 05, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 112
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5:38
111. The Challenge of Imagining Thrutopias with Jennifer Browdy, Pt. 2 of 2
“I think maintaining our own individual health is a really important part of being able to contribute to broader social health.”-- Jennifer BrowdyIn this latest How To Write the Future podcast episode, host Beth Barany ...
July 29, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 111
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12:25
110. The Challenge of Imagining Thrutopias with Jennifer Browdy, Pt. 1 of 2
“Human creativity, the amazing thing about it is that we can come up with a thought that's never been thought before. We have these dreams that come to us that are totally unique and nobody but each one of us can have that particular perspe...
July 22, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 110
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13:51
109. Interview with Michael Kilman, Co-Author of Build Better Worlds, part 2 of 2
“Every culture is telling different stories to some degree. And when we share our each other's stories and we read and learn and engage and practice empathy, then we stand a better chance of understanding the ways in which our diversity is ...
July 15, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 109
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14:44
108. Interview with Michael Kilman, Co-Author of Build Better Worlds, part 1 of 2
“I think if you're writing truthfully, because that's what we're trying to do a lot of times as author, telling a good story, but being honest in our writing and in terms of the human experience, I think it really helps to have some sort of...
July 08, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 108
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11:21
107. The Name of the Game is Change
“I want to encourage you to have it rooted in heart. In fact, I bet you, it already is. What you care about is what you're writing about. So, Where is the heart in your work?”In “The Name of the Game is Change” episode, novelis...
July 01, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 107
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8:24
106. Books to films: Why the Switch
“Humans have been shaping culture from the very beginning. And we are obviously continuing to do so even today.And. I really believe that through the stories we tell ourselves, through the stories we tell each other through ...
June 24, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 106
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11:26
105. Your Creativity vs. ChatGPT
“All this to say, exercise your creativity. Find ways to put disparate things that don't normally go together, put them together and see what happens. Ask yourself: "What if...?" Such a powerful question. Every day find ways to learn someth...
June 17, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 105
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9:31
104. Upcoming Writerly Events, June 2024
“I will invite you to bring all the parts of you into creating an author marketing goal or goals. And a plan, a plan that is doable, sustainable, and oh my gosh, fun.”In this episode, “Upcoming Writerly Events, June 2024” H...
June 10, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 104
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7:25
103. Economics: More Than Money and Markets (Build Better Worlds, 4 of 4)
“My point here is I want to encourage you that even if you don't see anybody else crafting the kind of story, or living the kind of life that you are, that number one, you're actually not alone because all artists are trying to do that. Uh,...
June 03, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 103
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14:13
102. The Sacred: Religion and Mysticism (Build Better Worlds, 3 of 4)
“So how does religion or mysticism fit into your story and how can you make it complex and nuanced and not homogeneous, which is the authors here say is one of the biggest problems they see in people's fictional worlds.”In ...
May 27, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 102
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12:25
101. Myth, Imagined Past, and Cultural Purity in Fiction (Build Better Worlds, 2 of 4)
“So I lived in France. After the meal, we would have cheese for dessert. That was a common dessert. And when I was in the country, outside of Paris in the Dijon area, dessert was pears and cheese. That was like, oh, the best dessert to be p...
May 20, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 101
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10:34
100. What is Cultural Context? (Build Better Worlds, 1 of 4)
“Assumptions are great. What are our conscious and subconscious assumptions of the culture?”In this episode of How To Write the Future, podcast host Beth Barany celebrates her 100th episode with a special thanks to listener...
May 13, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 100
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12:30
99. World Building with Andrew Zimba
“When it comes to telling a story or crafting or condensing it into a book or a film, what kind of story do you want to tell? And I think that first question is, do I wanna tell an allegorical tale? Or what I'll call a world building ta...
May 06, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 99
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21:04
98. Feminine Sovereignty, Envisioning Positive Futures, and Revolution with Maggie Ostara (part 2)
“We are the culture makers. And your book, I feel, really invites people into that in such a beautiful way. “-- Beth BaranyIn this episode of How To Write the Future, podcast host Beth Barany talks with Amazon bestselling a...
April 29, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 98
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17:31
97. Storytelling to Share Complex Ideas with Maggie Ostara (part 1)
“Human brains work. We live in story.”-- Maggie OstaraIn this episode of How To Write the Future, podcast host Beth Barany talks with Amazon Bestselling author, Maggie Ostara. Together they discuss the concept of Femini...
April 22, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 97
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15:50
96. Confidence and Purpose with Writing Coach, Kirsten McNeill
“I really wanna be able to help writers focus on themselves, be themselves, figure out what they wanna write, and create, a community and a, a library of fiction novels or any kind of novels that they've written and live life and have fun b...
April 15, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 96
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14:45
95. Know Yourself, part 4 of 4
“Editing is challenging. So whenever you get lost, feel overwhelmed, confused, just in a state about the editing process, come back to your goal, motivation, conflict about why you write. "“Know Yourself” In episode 95 of t...
April 08, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 95
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11:03
94. Tropes for Fiction Writing with Jennifer Hilt
“I'm trying to be creative and original and all that and so I was like, thinking, yes, but how come we need to have these words in common in order to build a story?” -- Jennifer HiltIn this episode of How To Write the Futur...
April 01, 2024
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Season 1
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Episode 94
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26:49