Uncertain Times: Five Creative Superpowers

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Uncertain Times: Five Creative Superpowers – How To Write the Future podcast, episode 200

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“What is creativity? Here’s the short of it. For me, creativity is about combining disparate elements, elements we might not even think of putting together. For us, for us as science fiction and fantasy writers, what might this look like? Well, this will be a fusion of tropes and genres and settings and your own personal spin.” – Beth Barany

In the latest How To Write the Future podcast episode titled “Uncertain Times: Five Creative Superpowers” host, Beth Barany shares what creativity means to her and what the five “superpowers” are that writers can use to enhance their writing.

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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. We cover tips for fiction writers. This podcast is for readers too if you’re at all curious about the future of humanity.

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

Transcript for episode 200 – Uncertainty: Five Creative Superpowers

Uncertainty and Opportunity 

BETH BARANY: We are living in a deep age of uncertainty. Societal, economic, political. All the rules of the road are shifting fast and have been shifting fast for a while. And it’s all, it’s clear to everyone that we are in a age of uncertainty. 

Here’s the good news. I think that creative people, especially fiction writers, we can bring our creative skill sets into real life for decision making in this time of uncertainty.

And of course, we can really lean into those skills for our writing. 

[00:37] What Creativity Means 

First off, I wanna talk about what is creativity and also welcome you. Welcome to How to Write the Future Podcast. I’m Beth Barany, your host, award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer, podcaster, filmmaker, and writing teacher and creativity trainer.

So what is creativity? Here’s the short of it. For me, creativity is about combining disparate elements. Elements we might not even think of putting together. For us as science fiction and fantasy writers, what might this look like? This will be a fusion of tropes and genres and settings and your own personal spin.

For example, I’ve been writing science fiction mysteries where I’m blending detective tropes using cultural and sociocultural, anthropological look at different groups, and of course, themes of justice. Or I know a writer who’s taking fairytales and using those as inspiration into writing modern day novels with thriller elements.

Those are just a few examples.

Now, today I wanna talk about what are our superpowers or skills that we can use to enhance in our own writing, but also transfer into our daily lives if we want to, to help us handle this age of uncertainty. And today I’m gonna talk about five skills or superpowers.

Five. ’cause we like five. Five is a, five’s a good number. 

[01:59] Skill One: Flow State 

Number one. Core creative skill number one is our ability to flow or to channel. No matter the stage you’re in, whether you’re drafting, editing, or planning your story, there is an element of listening. Listening to something we don’t even know what, and then capturing that on the page. That listening, that being in the flow, being connected to the ideas and putting them on the page, that is an amazing skill.

So how can you use that in your daily life to make decisions? Are you listening to what is coming in? Just like the way you listen when you are writing your stories.

[02:38] Skill Two Many Options 

Core creative skill number two. This is about knowing how to generate lots of possibilities and then choosing the one we’re gonna use. And this shows up at any stage of the creative process, whether you are designing your story, planning it, plotting it, you are choosing amongst many ideas and you’re putting that down. Whether it’s editing, picking the best word, or maybe changing a scene a little bit and deciding what your characters are gonna say, or maybe even changing the motivation for your character, or maybe even changing the setting or adding more details or changing the telling detail.

We are making a choice at every moment when we’re creating stories. This is an amazing muscle that we have built, maybe without even realizing it. And then when you are choosing this word or that, this plot point or that plot point, this story structure or that story structure. Where to end a scene, where to start a scene. What lets you know that you are making the right decision?

[03:37] Somatic Compass and Titles 

I have a personal somatic compass. Somatic meaning the body. I feel it in my body a certain way, a certain zing, a certain kind of energy that goes through me. Or sometimes it’s a relaxation, a way I take a deep breath when I’ve settled on an idea that just feels right. So what is your somatic compass? How do you know that your decision, out of all the possibilities, feels right?

And here’s a, an example that actually happened to me for one of my books in my Janey McCallister mystery series Book two. It’s called Lured by Light, but it took over 60 brainstorming options with my book concept designer to figure out which was the best one. 

We had some parameters. It needed to have a color. It needed to be two or three words. It needed to feel in alignment with the other three titles that had already been chosen. And we both needed to be excited about it. And Ezra, my husband, was there and he was listening to us as we were brainstorming, and he was responding also to all these titles that we were coming up with. And he too had a really positive response to the one we finally landed on, which is Lured By Light because picking a title, it’s a marketing tool. It needs to convey emotion, it needs to have intrigue, and it needs to feel in alignment with your genre. This was a process. It took us maybe an hour, I don’t even remember.

This was an example of generating lots of ideas and then choosing and using our bodies, and not just mine, but my cover design concept artist and my husband, who’s also a writer together, we are figuring this out. Titles are really a group exercise because it’s for the reader. It’s for many readers.

All right, so that’s core creative skill number two. Being able to generate a lot of possibilities and then choosing which is the best one. 

As I said, core creative skill number one is about flow channeling, really listening to the idea and then capturing it.

[05:36] Skill Three: What If 

So let’s move on to core creative skill number three. This is your ability to say what if. Writers, we are using what if all the time to build our story ideas, to build our scenarios. I don’t know about you, but I come up with lots of what ifs before I land on a story idea that I really love. One of my stories was inspired by two different images on the wall.

One was an image of a street scene of Paris, and one was an image of a dragon, a beautiful drawing, like out of a fantasy novel. So I asked myself, what if there was a dragon in Paris? And that was one of my stories. And I knew immediately it would be perfect for the series that I was writing at the time, which was paranormal and set in different parts of France.

Now, how does this apply to you in the real world? In, in the real world. IRL, in your walking around world, when you’re not writing?

You could even use it to help yourself come up with different ideas to challenges that you’ve never seen before.

Because yeah, with all this uncertainty, that means we’re gonna be presented with scenarios we have never seen before.

So we could ask ourselves, well, what if I did this instead of that? Or, what if this could happen? Or what if that could happen in the different areas of our life, be it about work or money or lifestyle or relationships.

So remember your what if tool as a story writer and practice it in your daily life. 

[07:00] Skill Four Commit Anyway 

Here is the fourth core creative skill. And this is about commitment, despite incomplete information. When we’re writing a story, whether you’re planning it, writing it, or editing it, I don’t know about you, but it always feels like I could be making it better.

Or if I just did a little bit more research, it would be whizzbang way more interesting. But at some point I have to stop and I have to let the story go. So I just trust in myself and I am committed to the process. And I know that even though I don’t know everything, the story is doing its job. I know enough. I don’t know if you would consider this a superpower, but I do because when we show up to write every day and work on our stories or on a regular basis, however you show up, we are operating off of incomplete information. And yet we are still committed to writing our stories.

How does this apply to you in daily life?

There’s a lot of times we are faced with decisions, needing to make a decision, and we don’t have all the information, but we need to commit and make a choice and move on.

So think about how you already are committed to your creative work and how that kind of commitment and trust in going forward and taking step after step can show up in your daily life.

[08:16] Skill Five: Evoke Empathy 

And lastly, number five. Our core creative skill number five is about evoking emotion. Novelists, our job in fiction is to evoke emotion. And by the way, all art, I believe that’s their job, is to evoke emotion. Well, when we evoke emotion in our audience, that emotion leads to empathy because our job is to help our readers step into another person’s life and experience it through their eyes. And have an emotional roller coaster and do it in a way that feels seamless and organic and really earned. And it’s very powerful when done well.

So I believe that us as creative writers, writing science fiction and fantasy and all genres, actually, our job is to really enhance human’s ability to feel for other kinds of people who are different than them. And when we write in a different point of view from our own, we also build empathy in our own, in ourself, and we expand what is possible for ourselves.

So writing fiction really builds empathy for the reader and for the writer. Now there’s a lot of things we can do with this skillset. We can put complicated ideas into our stories and let the readers feel and learn about the different angles and come to their own choice. We can show compassion for people and times that aren’t, maybe in the mainstream or even aren’t considered normalized in today’s culture, and we can expand people’s hearts through our art. 

[09:50] Five Skills Recap 

So those are my five skills or super powers. These five core creative skills. 

Number one, this ability to flow, listen to our creative idea and write it down. 

Number two is to generate lots and lots of possibilities, and then choose the one that feels right using your somatic compass, your body.

Number three is using the What If scenario building of course in our stories, but also in our real life to open up the possibilities, give us more choices. 

Number four is about commitment, follow through. The step-by-step work we do to write, especially write long form, write novels and still trust that this is turning into something.

And number five is really this, writing, building empathy. We are building empathy through our stories for ourselves and for others.

All right, those are my five points on your creative superpowers. 

[10:44] Final Encouragement 

In this age of uncertainty, I believe in you. The world needs your stories. All right. That’s it for this week, everyone.

Write long and prosper. 

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ABOUT BETH BARANY 

Beth Barany

Beth Barany teaches science fiction and fantasy novelists how to write, edit, and publish their books as a coach, teacher, consultant, and developmental editor. She’s an award-winning fantasy and science fiction novelist and runs the podcast, “How To Write The Future.”

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