Science Fiction Brainstorming: Two Essential Tips

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Quote from How To Write the Future podcast episode Science Fiction Brainstorming: Two Essential Tips

Science Fiction Brainstorming: Two Essential Tips – How To Write the Future podcast, episode 153

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“Just really let your creativity flow. No censorship, no stopping to, is this right? Is this wrong? It doesn’t matter.” — Beth Barany

In this How To Write the Future podcast episode, host Beth Barany answers a question from a listener and shares her advice for those in the brainstorming stages of their novel. In “Science Fiction Brainstorming: Two Essential Tips,” Beth highlights the importance of letting your creativity flow and shares about her book, Plan Your Novel Like A Pro, co-written by Ezra Barany, might be a great next step.

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

This podcast is for you if you have questions like:

– How do I create a believable world for my science fiction story?

– How do I figure out 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.

Transcript for Science Fiction Brainstorming: Two Essential Tips 

[00:00] Introduction and Podcast Overview 

Hey everyone. Welcome back or welcome to my podcast, How To Write The Future. I’m in a little bit different setting than normal, trying something different. This podcast is for people who want to write positive, optimistic futures into their stories. I am a writing teacher, writing coach, career coach for creative entrepreneurs and an award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer.

Just so you know, I’m not coming from some theoretical perspective. I’m actually coming from a lived perspective. 

[00:34] Client Question: Brainstorming a Novel 

So today I have a question from one of my clients. I’ve been asking all my writing clients for their questions that might be good for the podcast. 

Rodrigo’s question is essentially: what advice would you give someone who’s brainstorming their novel? They’re at the brainstorming stage for their novel.

In his case, it’s science fiction novel. But of course this will go for fantasy novel as well, or any novel. 

I specialize in helping science fiction and fantasy writers because it’s what I write and it’s what I love. 

So he said, What advice would you give to someone who’s at the brainstorming stage, and they want to start writing?

They wanna start writing their story, but there’s so many options they’re still weighing so many different things. Especially he said when it comes to technology, because he’s writing a futuristic story. Lots of choices and lots of options. It can be overwhelming.

I basically said, oh, so world building is a lot, right?

You could spend all your time world building. And never get to your writing. 

Or you might feel really impatient about all the world building and you just wanna get to your writing. And also, you might be overwhelmed by all the different ideas that you have for your story.

All the different directions things could go. 

So what do you do? What do you do with all of that? And I’ve been faced with this many times.

[01:58] Tip 1: Timed Writing Sessions

I wanna give you one tip on how to, number one, get started, and number two, get organized. 

Those two things can go a long way. 

So if you are brainstorming or you wanna be brainstorming on your story world for your science fiction and fantasy novel, how do you begin? Where do you begin?

And I would say: You begin with short timed writing.

And this will allow you to have a container, like a playground, a structure where you can put all of your ideas in.

I wanna give you the permission slip to put all of your ideas down on paper. 

So the first assignment is basically to free write, brainstorm without any censorship for at least 20 minutes.

So set your timer for 20 minutes and allow yourself to follow whichever of the ideas comes to mind. Follow that as far as you can go. Or you might be somebody who really just needs to get out all the ideas. Maybe you have 10 different competing ideas for your story, or 20 or 50, or maybe just five. 

Then use your brainstorming time, your timed 20 minute session to write everything down.

And very importantly, just really let your creativity flow. No censorship, no stopping to, is this right? Is this wrong? It doesn’t matter.

In fact, all that censorship- internal censorship and internal critic and internal editor- is often what stops authors from just moving forward and writing it all down.

So that’s my main tip for you is to use timed writing sessions and get all of your ideas on the page. 

Now, if one 20 minute session isn’t enough, guess what? Do another and then do another and do another. And spend your time, your writing time, just with getting your ideas all down. 

[03:47] Tip 2: Organizing Your Ideas 

Now, once you’ve done with that, and I want us to talk about organization.

Once you’re done writing all your ideas, give yourself time to do it. 

Give yourself a few days, a few weeks, a few months. It really doesn’t matter when, especially for first time novelists, there’s no rush, there’s no race. This is for you to put your ideas on the page, and then secondly, for organization.

When you’ve had a clear mind, come back. Give yourself some space from what you’ve written. Now come back and notice and reread your work. Take your time. Reread all of your brainstorms. 

Notice there’s probably a pattern in there. There’s probably some ideas that you might have been repeating over and over, or some things that get you more excited than others.

What I want you to do is organize this material in terms of the things that really excite you. 

And then notice you can break it down even further. Maybe you’ve already been describing things about your characters, things about your story world, things about your plot, and put those into three categories.

I use Scrivener for this. I highly recommend Scrivener. I’m not an affiliate, I’m just a hardcore, longtime user. Really love them. There are other tools out there where you can organize your work. 

Notion is good. I hear some people use Notion as well. I use Notion for other things, but not for organizing my stories.

[05:07] Conclusion and Additional Resources

Alright, that is it this week for you everyone. Please brainstorm your story, give yourself full permission to do it, and then with a fresh pair of eyes, look at your work and organize it and discern for yourself. 

Where is the excitement? What have you put down into your brainstorm?

And that will give you a personalized roadmap on what to do next.

[05:29] A resource for you

Now if you are looking for even more tips on how to get organized to brainstorm and plan and prepare to write your novel, then I highly recommend that you check out my book that I co-wrote with my husband, Ezra Barany. 

We wrote Plan Your Novel Like A Pro. Yes, this is an ad. Check out Plan Your Novel Like A Pro.

It is designed to help you plan your entire novel in bite-sized bits. I hope you enjoy that. Get writing. That’s the most important thing is just get writing without censorship and you will find your way through. 

Alright everyone, write long and prosper.

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ABOUT BETH BARANY 

Image of 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.”

 

Learn more about Beth Barany at these sites: 

 

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

CONNECT

Contact Beth: https://writersfunzone.com/blog/podcast/#tve-jump-185b4422580

Email: beth@bethbarany.com

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CREDITS 

C. 2025 BETH BARANY

https://bethbarany.com/

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