How To Write the Future podcast Ep. 1: Introduction to Writing Optimistic Stories About the Future

by Kerry-Ann McDade · Published July 6, 2022 · Updated April 4, 2023

“How To Write The Future” is a new podcast from award-winning author Beth Barany.

In the first episode, Beth introduces listeners to her future plans for the podcast and discusses How to write optimistic stories set in positive futures.

ABOUT BETH BARANY

Beth Barany is an award-winning novelist, certified creativity coach for writers, and a workshop leader & keynote speaker. Beth has published books in several genres including young adult fantasy, paranormal romance, and science fiction.

Learn more about Beth Barany at these sites:

Author site / Coaching site / School of Fiction / Writer’s Fun Zone blog

SHOW NOTES

Do you find yourself wondering how to write optimistic stories about the future?

How to write optimistic stories about the future has been on my mind too, and that’s why I created this podcast to share the solutions with you.

In this episode, I share the what and the why of this podcast on how to write optimistic stories set in positive futures.

In this episode, you will learn the following:

How to use systems theory to worldbuild in science fiction stories.
How to use information from experts in various domains to build realistic worlds.
How to use different mental models of reality to create new realities.

ABOUT HOW TO WRITE THE FUTURE PODCAST

The How To Write The Future podcast is for science fiction and fantasy writers who want to write positive futures and successfully bring those stories out into the marketplace. Hosted by Beth Barany, science fiction novelist and creativity coach for writers.

Tips for fiction writers!

This podcast is for you if you have questions like:

How do I create a believable world for my science fiction story?
How do figure what’s not working if my story feels flat?
How do I make my story more interesting and alive?

This podcast is for readers too if you’re at all curious about the future of humanity.

WHY I STARTED THIS PODCAST

I have always loved science fiction and fantasy, the worlds, as much as the adventures. But I know how it can be a struggle to build those immersive worlds. So I was excited to create the “How to Write the Future” podcast for science fiction writers who want to write positive futures.

In this podcast, I’ll share core principles of world building and interviews with experts to tease out practical questions that you can use today. These come from wide ranging domains to help you brainstorm the details of your story world and bring that world to life.

TRANSCRIPT

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the podcast ” How to Write the Future”.

In this podcast, we will explore how to create optimistic stories. The How to Write the Future podcast is for science fiction writers who want to create positive futures. Because when we build positive futures through our fiction, we are visioning what is possible and therefore we help make it so,

Hi everyone. I’m Beth Barany. I am an award-winning science fiction and fantasy novelist and fiction writing teacher. I’ve built multiple worlds for my three fiction series. And I’ve taught hundreds of writers to do the same, helping them bring complex worlds to life that feel real, as real as this reality, if not more so.

I’m still writing and publishing in my science fiction mystery series. So this podcast is for me too.

I will be sharing core principles of world building and interviewing experts to tease out practical questions that you can use today. These will be coming from wide ranging domains to help you brainstorm the details of your story world and bring that world to life.

Welcome to my first episode. In this episode, I will share with you what this podcast is about and why I’m starting it. This is a work in progress. So bear with me as I stumble, get up again, stumble, get up again, you know. Nine times fall, 10 times get up. And that’s actually part of my journey. I wanted to be a writer since I was a child, and I wanted to be a fiction writer since I was about 18.

Finally, when I was 30, I sat down to truly commit myself to learning how to write fiction.

So we are here to explore how to write the future specifically over the last six or so years I have been focused on writing my science fiction mystery series, and I realized it wasn’t enough to just be curious about science and have a great love of science fiction, but also needed to understand what my new world was going look like. So I started digging into how do futurists and foresight leaders predict trends to help organizations and governments and NGO and multinational companies.

And as I dove into those tools and came across systems theory, I realized, wow, these would be great to bring in to my fiction, to help me design my future worlds and also help other writers.

Because I’m a teacher at heart, as well as a creative storyteller, I love taking what I’ve learned and putting them into lessons for other people. And because I’ve read tons of fairy tales, and, folk tales, since I was a child, and have been steeped and fantastical stories since the very beginning, when my parents were reading stories to me, I, I just love being transported into those new worlds.

Also, I’ve always loved science. I was pre-med from age six to about 19 when I said, Nope, no more pre-med but I kept my love of science. So I’m bringing all of these passions to you to help you create vivid worlds. I know readers love my stories. I, they tell me, they’re like, ah, I could be there too. And that’s what we want to do with our fiction. You want to bring our readers there. So that world feels real.

Because I have experience helping people take ideas and turn them into tangible stories, I will be bringing that useful hands-on insight, so that what we’re learning in these episodes is going help you specifically.

Some of the episodes will be me just talking about my interests and turning that into a practical how-to for you. So I will ask you questions and invite you to bring it into your story writing. Other times, I plan to interview experts in various fields.

I am so excited to bring to you some of the topics that I am planning to dive into. Some of the topics include specifically systems theory and how can we use our understanding of systems –we’re all living inside of multiple systems — how can we use that understanding in creating new systems?

I also plan to interview experts in various domains. I’m very interested in the space industry, so that will be one of the domains, but I’m also very interested in consciousness and what makes us human and AI. So I’ll be bringing those to you.

There are a lot more topics that I plan to bring in, including different kinds of story structures from around the world, bringing in tools of foresight around how to read the signals, bringing in different mental models of reality and how we can use those to create new realities and a lot more.

I’m really excited to bring this adventure to you. I hope that you will join along. Tell your friends, bring your questions to me via Twitter and LinkedIn. I will also have a way for you to sign up so you can be notified when I release a new podcast. My ideal is to release a podcast episode every week. We’ll see how that goes. I’m new to this. So bear with me.

I have always loved science fiction and fantasy. The worlds as much as the adventures, but I know how it can be a struggle to build those immersive worlds. So I’ll be bringing tools and insight and great questions for you to bring into your story world in upcoming episodes.

Thank you so much for listening. Signing off. Live long and prosper.

RESOURCES

Plenty of Writing Resources available on Writers Fun Zone.

https://writersfunzone.com/blog/?s=writing

Connect with Beth Barany

Twitter | LinkedIn

CREDITS

EDITED WITH DESCRIPT

https://www.descript.com?lmref=_w1WCA (referral code)

MUSIC CREDITS

Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/fuzz-buzz License code: UMMKDRL02DFGKJ0L. “Fuzz buzz” by Soundroll.

Commercial license: https://musicvine.com/track/soundroll/fuzz-buzz

Distributed by Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1994465 (referral code)

SHOW PRODUCTION BY Beth Barany

SHOW NOTES SUPPORT from Kerry-Ann McDade

For more “How To Write the Future” episodes, go here.

If you’d like to invite Beth onto your podcast, drop her a note here.