How To Write The Future

151. Writing Inclusive Fantasy for Modern Readers with Sci-Fi Fantasy Author, Aspry Jones

• BETH BARANY • Season 1 • Episode 151

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“If I could go back in time and tell 22-year-old me not to go into TV, but instead to center on what your heart was, the writing, and the creating stories, and creating characters and people. Do that instead.” — Aspry Jones


In this episode of the How To Write the Future podcast, host Beth Barany talks to sci-fi fantasy author Aspry Jones, about his writing journey from TV and comics to fantasy, including the importance of representing diversity in his characters. Together, they share the challenges of independent publishing, being a fan of science fiction, and the excitement of his debut novel, Protectors of the Light Crown.


ABOUT ASPRY JONES

Broadcast TV industry veteran Aspry Jones, from Asbury Park, NJ hits the literary scene. Growing up a comic book geek and chronic TV watcher, it was a given for this author to seek a career in television. Having retired from the profession after 25 years, Aspry has returned to his first love, writing, with debut novel, "Protectors Of The Light Crown.”

Website: http://aspryjones.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asprywrites/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aspry.jones


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 and get curious about the future of humanity.


ABOUT BETH BARANY

Beth Barany, an award-winning fantasy and science fiction novelist, teaches novelists how to write, edit, and publish their books as a coach, teacher, consultant, and developmental editor.


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  • SHOW PRODUCTION BY Beth Barany
  • SHOW CO-PRODUCTION + NOTES by Kerry-Ann McDade

c. 2025 BETH BARANY

https://bethbarany.com/

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BETH BARANY:

Welcome everyone to How to Write the Future. I'm your host, Beth Barany. I am a writing teacher, creativity coach, speaker, podcaster, and novelist. I love science, fiction and fantasy, and I have this podcast to bring in resources for writers and anyone who cares about the future because I believe with creativity and our imaginations, we can help shape a better world for everyone. I'm so excited to have a special guest with me today, sci-fi fantasy novelist, Aspry Jones Aspry, welcome. So glad you're here.

ASPRY JONES:

Hi Beth. Thank you very much for having me. I'm very excited.

BETH BARANY:

Excellent. So everyone gets understanding of who you are. I'm gonna read your awesome bio that you sent me. Get to know Aspry. Broadcast TV industry veteran Aspry Jones from Ashbury Park, New Jersey hits the literary scene. Growing up, a comic book geek and chronic TV watcher, it was a given for this author to seek a career in television. Having retired from the profession. After 25 years, Aspry has returned to his first love, writing, with his debut novel, Protectors of The Light Crown. And for those of you watching on YouTube, you will see his book displayed in front of him. Looks like an amazing book. Aspry, why don't we start off by you telling us a little bit about this novel, like our bite-sized little book description of what this story is about.

ASPRY JONES:

Fantasy books are pretty much mostly all the same: a few unlikely characters get together, become friends, and they try to kill the devil. My book is no different than that, but, I throw in what I like to call, a few curve balls because My story is based around the multiverse. And, it's in its own particular universe itself, unlike ours, but very much like ours. There are subtle differences and there is a character named Dexter Park, and Dexter can visit different universes in his dreams, and the story starts out based around him and gradually becomes a thing where he becomes part of a team who eventually evolved into the Protectors, meaning superheroes in their world. And, they try to kill the devil. Like I said, the venomous wretch, an ancient demon who used to be a king, and he is wrecking havoc all over their world, and they have to stop it.

BETH BARANY:

Oh, wow. Sounds like such an adventure. So when did you first start writing? Everyone always wants to know this question, right? I get it as well.

ASPRY JONES:

I was a huge comic book geek, so I started out writing my own comic books and drawing them too. I have a short background in art and sketching. And I actually interviewed for being an artist for Harris Comics. I don't know if you are aware of Van Perella? I had a friend of mine named Louis Small. He was a penciler for Harris Comics and he got me an interview and that interview was my first foray into humiliation. As it turned out, that I was nowhere near as good as I thought I was. And so instead of centering on sketching and drawing, I centered on the writing aspect of basically from the poetry comic books that I made myself. I never wanted to get into, novel writing. I never wanted to get into anything that demanded a huge commitment. I've written screenplays that didn't really go anywhere. But, eventually after my years in television, I realized that if I could go back in time. This is"how to write the past" in this particular case. If I could go back in time and tell 22-year-old me not to go into TV, but instead to center on what your heart was, the writing and the creating stories and creating characters and people. Do that instead.

BETH BARANY:

Wow.

ASPRY JONES:

I'm trying to catch up now.

BETH BARANY:

Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting what we would tell our younger selves. And what about fantasy? Why fantasy? What brought you to this genre?

ASPRY JONES:

You know what, I'm gonna go deep on that. I could give you the short answer, but, I think the longer answer is stronger. As a comic book fan, there's a gentleman who, was a comic book artist and he used to create characters. He created characters like Black Lightning, Black, Goliath. see where I'm going with this? When he was a kid, he would talk to his black friends and they would discuss how, wow, I wish there were more characters in comic books that looked like me. So I had those same feelings. Sure. We had Black Panther, we had Luke Cage, but we're talking about 5% here out, out of a hundred percent. And, the heroes by and large were white males. And they were incredible. They were great. And I loved them to death, and I still do, but there was something missing there. And the same thing is happening and has been happening in fantasy. So I is trying to be an agent of change. I said to myself, I prefer fiction, well over nonfiction, autobiographies, things like that. What I love to read is the creativity coming out of somebody's head. And what I want to do is add characters of color into the world of fantasy that you're not going to find in Lord of the Rings. You're not going to find in the Belgariad. You're not going to find in Harry Potter. Not really. And then go further than that. I have a gay character. I have an elderly character. I have the rich, I have the poor, I have a Native American angel, or in that universe, what passes as the Native American I try to cover some more bases so that when somebody reads my novel, they can say to themselves, wow, this character looks like me, and I would appreciate that. I would love that. That's what I'm trying to do. So I chose fantasy as my outlet for that expression.

BETH BARANY:

I love it. I love it so much. Really reflecting the diversity of humanity, what humanity really looks like and not this narrow slice. Yeah. Love that. And really for me, writing my Henrietta the Dragon Slayer stories was about putting a girl in an adventure and all that I read as a kid were boys going on adventures. I'm like, where's the girl? And now I'm adapting that into short film and it turns out that My actors are Asian American, just landed up that way and some interesting reasons. And I'm just loving it, loving the energy, loving the change, loving thinking about the rest of my stories and bringing in a diverse cast for that. And also my crew is already very diverse and, loving that, and wanting, craving it, craving all the different perspectives and voices. And, it inspires me as a reader and also as a writer. So I'm really glad that you're doing that.

ASPRY JONES:

I took some pages from some, female writers that I came across and I decided, I was like, you know what I'm gonna do in my book? I'm going to make the main character, which is a black male. I'm going to make him the weakest guy on the team, and the strongest one on the team is going to be female. So I tried to do a little bit of that myself.

BETH BARANY:

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I'm sure a lot of girls do too. I'm infinitely curious about this. Tell us a little bit about your writing process, in terms of your daily practice as well as anything-- I don't know anything that surprised you? I'm curious, how do you go about shaping your writing life? And what works for you?

ASPRY JONES:

When I'm ready to write, I'm rolling. I don't need motivation. I don't need help. I just sit down and I just keep grooving to it. I just bop my head to that music and I am in the process right now of gathering the appropriate inspiration to begin book two, the Protectors of the Light Crown. This is the beginning. It's a trilogy. I knew my ending when I wrote the beginning. So what makes sense to me before I start writing is that I outline every single chapter. So that I can line up certain things that flow; so that I can plant seeds for the next book in the book that I'm writing, so that I can plant Easter eggs for people who want to reread the story. They can go back and be like, I love that. Some people have told me that they did that, and it was a very cool experience and I love hearing that. So what I do when I've outlined the entire story is I just sit down and at chapter one I'm off to the races. There's nothing stopping me, and I just keep on writing and it feels good. I see those people who talk about having writer's block and they can't come up with certain, things to do with their characters and stuff like that. I'm so lucky that way. I don't have those problems. Once I do my outline, I can just skate and it feels great. Luckily for me, I'm in a blessed situation where I don't have to go out and do a nine to five. Especially now, my profession, my job, my whole thing. My career is novelist now, so I can focus on that. And the only thing that's really, demanding any of my outside attention is my dog, who is an angel. And that's her name.

BETH BARANY:

Aw Angel, that's so wonderful. and do you write every day, all day, part of the day? You gotta take the dog for a walk. how do you divide up your writing time? Are you a nighttime writer, morning writer, or midday writer?

ASPRY JONES:

Oh, wow. You know what? That's a very good question. Whenever the feeling strikes, and I would try to do a chapter every sit down. But, when you come into my book, I can have some long chapters, 12, 13 pages. So it's not feasible for me to expect me to knock out a chapter in one sitting, but in two sittings, I can knock out a chapter and I would say that, about an hour and a half of writing is enough for one day.

BETH BARANY:

Yeah, People always wanna know, especially beginning writers. For comparison, yeah, I can write one to two hours a day sometimes, but sometimes I'm only writing for 15 or 20 minutes and I'm still making progress. So I just wanna share with our listeners that, it doesn't have to be an hour or two. It can be 15, 20 minutes and you can still make progress.

ASPRY JONES:

Now what's that?

BETH BARANY:

I have a lot of experience writing in 20-minute blocks. Yeah. When I was first starting out writing blog posts, I would set the timer for 20 minutes just to see what I could get done because especially when I hadn't written blog posts and I was just seeing what I could do. And when you try something new, sometimes setting a timer can make it feel less painful because you're like, I don't know what I'm doing, but let's try it for 20 minutes. Who knows what will happen? And so I developed that practice for non-fiction and I brought it into the fiction space and I found it helped me, especially when I had a really busy mind. And it was hard to focus or hard to settle because I have a lot of things on my mind all the time. And it would give me a sense of focus and I've done it so many times, I know that I could write 600 words in that amount of time about, and that's two pages. That's a little over two pages of prose or nonfiction. And it just was a sense of accomplishment just because I run a business helping writers. And I'm a writer and I like to write in the middle of the day, which means there's things before it and things after it. And it was just a way to focus and get stuff done, even in a busy life. So it's a fun exercise. I recommend it for folks. sometimes I tell beginning writers: write for five minutes. Stand in your kitchen while you're heating up your coffee in the microwave and write and see what that's like. Especially for beginners who don't have the Insta write button that you have. And my husband has it too. I didn't have the Insta write button. I had to learn. but some people like you, like my husband, you can just sit down and boom. flows and that's beautiful.

ASPRY JONES:

You hit me with that five minutes. That's really something. How about try that?

BETH BARANY:

Yeah, try that. You're waiting in line, you're on hold on the phone. and also dictation. I use dictation a lot, as well for nonfiction. I haven't really done the dictation for fiction thing.

ASPRY JONES:

Oh, my, I could never do that. That's really not, that's deep. I'm so old school with this. I literally, I a notepad and a pen. That's how I wrote Protectors of the Light Crown.

BETH BARANY:

That's beautiful.

ASPRY JONES:

And that's probably why it took 10 years. it's a lot of extra work. Do you do that?

BETH BARANY:

I did it for Henrietta, the Dragon Slayer Book one. Okay. As I hand wrote the whole thing, and then I dictated it into probably Microsoft Word and edited it there. But now I wanted to speed up the process, so now I go direct to typing. And, a lot of, verbal brainstorming sometimes my husband who's a writer as well. With a friend. yeah. Now I'm working on a script, that I was trying to dictate, but my dictation tool wasn't working. So I'm typing it.

ASPRY JONES:

You gave me some things to think about.

BETH BARANY:

Oh, good. I'm so glad. So have you won an award for your novel?

ASPRY JONES:

Yes. I'm a very lucky I think a lot of things just fall into my lap. I was playing around on the internet and I wasn't even looking at the writing stuff, I'm aware of the Nobel Prize and the Pulitzer and things like that, but it didn't dawn on me to enter a writing award contest. So I was playing on the internet and I saw on the sidebar it was like, put your manuscript into our database. We'll enter it into the content and they were the International Impact Book Awards. And, just like everybody else, the book awards got to eat. So they, there was a fee and, I paid the fee and I said, sure, I'll enter your contest. And I won, which was amazing because, it is not like I have any self-doubt or anything. But, it was just so funny that it landed in my life the way it did, and I won for Best Fantasy Adventure. And it's pretty much what I've been looking forward to my entire life, honestly, since I was about 16. I've been published professionally since I was 16 years old, and, I always wanted to get on a stage and accept an award for my writing because-- Any woman who says, wow, you're a good looking man, that's nice, but you know what I really wanna hear? I love your writing. That's really good stuff. That's what I wanna go through life people telling me. If I stand on a stage and accept an award, I feel really good that, people like the writing. Okay, great. And July 25th. I'm flying out to Phoenix, Arizona to get on stage and accept the award and, so forth and so on. There's gonna be a TV interview. it's a phenomenal experience and I couldn't be more grateful.

BETH BARANY:

I know what you mean. I won an award for Henrietta the Dragon Slayer Grand Prize in this California Indie Fiction Contest that I had no idea that I could win. I did enter the book contest, but just having someone who, people who don't know us, find our work gratifying. Yeah. so exciting. that's such a pinnacle experience.

ASPRY JONES:

And to happen so early, I'm I'm and appreciative. I'm surfing on a cloud.

BETH BARANY:

Yeah. Oh, that's so wonderful. And from a marketing aspect, it does bring attention to your work. It does make people double consider your work. Like, Oh, that's interesting. Oh, he won an award. It makes people lean in even more because it has what's called third party endorsement, right? People who don't know you, who aren't related to you said, wow, this book, check it out, people. This is an awesome book. So I just think it's a beautiful opportunity. And I also encourage writers to go for awards. it's one of my marketing choices, I would say. And it's so beautiful that it came to you like this and that you took action as well. That beautiful meeting of opportunity and action.

ASPRY JONES:

Yeah. You know what? Nothing happens if you do nothing. You know what I mean?

BETH BARANY:

That's so true. It's so true. And lastly, as we wrap up for today, tell us some of your future plans. I understand you have a second book in the works. And what else you got in the works?

ASPRY JONES:

I'm striking while the iron is hot, so I entered some more awards contests. I'm still flying with Protectors of the Light Crown. I just, got pushed through Ingram Spark. I was on Amazon all this time. So now, my book can be shuffled into Walmart, Barnes and Noble, independent bookstores, so forth and so on. And now I can get a much broader sense of exposure. After this, I'm gonna try to ride this horse as far as it'll go, and then I'm gonna start book two. book two-- it takes place somewhat later after this ends. And it has its own self-contained story while also following the flow of, events that were planted with Protectors. So I'm going to do that. I'm almost done with the outline for that and it feels really good because I was a little bit stuck on my outline. I'm really huge on meditation. I'm an advanced meditator, so I was on my back deck and I was trying to search my mind for a great avenue that the book should pick. And something just popped into my head and I'm very excited about getting it on paper because I think it's a really great idea. Oh, that is so exciting. Wonderful. I love that you're an advanced meditator. I think having the quiet, and learning how to quiet our minds and really go deep within and listen to ourselves is so valuable. Yeah, I think so too. I'm glad you said that.

BETH BARANY:

I'm a big believer in that, and for me, meditation comes through the form of walking. and, being aware of my surroundings and talking to nature And talking to the animals that come along my way.

ASPRY JONES:

Do you like to do it in nature?

BETH BARANY:

Yeah, I like to be outside and connect to the plants. And I'm here in, Northern California, in Oakland, near San Francisco. And just lots of things are blooming and it's actually through walking, not sitting, In my twenties I did a sitting meditation training and that was great, but there's something about moving.'cause I sit so much as a writer at the desk and on the Zoom and the editing and all the editing, both for the podcast and people's manuscripts and my own work. So movement becomes a way to process, just release and get into the body, get outta the mind. And be in the emotions, be appreciative of nature and everything around me and the people and even though this is an urban environment, it's also lots and lots of plants, roses and, all the flowers blooming.

ASPRY JONES:

They say movement is a raisor of the vibration. Not to get overly woowoo on you guys. Hope we didn't go off on a, left field tangent here, but, I could talk about this stuff with you all day actually. I don't talk about it with my many people.

BETH BARANY:

I agree with you. I have a quote on my wall from Einstein."Creativity is intelligence in motion. I really feel writing is a physical act in my opinion, right? We got our hands on the keyboard or across the page, or even if we're speaking, dictating. And so to really get into the body and kinesthetic experience, emotional experience, and then to really be the channel to be creative, right? Creativity comes from, we don't know, but to do this well, we have to work our instrument, which is our entire body. To me this is holistic and important and relevant

ASPRY JONES:

Yeah, me too. It's just that, I have learned from talking too much that it's not for everybody. Not a lot of people will vibe with what you're trying to express. You know what, you're in California, you probably don't have that experience.

BETH BARANY:

Not here in Northern California. I studied intuition when I was in my twenties. I At the Berkeley Psychic Institute, I did clairvoyant studies for a year. Wow. Talk about Woo. Yeah. And I came to my own conclusion that intuition is in the body. It's our deep body knowing that we've lost touch of a lot of us. and so I took it upon myself actually starting around age 19 to start to really pay attention to my body as a barometer for the simplest choices. And then later as I got serious about fiction, now I use it for fiction. And now I use it for everything so that I use my inner knowing, which is my body and mostly my gut. cause most people we have all these bacteria or microorganisms that live in our gut that run the show. They pretty much run the show, so pay attention to them and nurture the good ones and right. Eat healthy and exercise and good drinking habits, lots of water. All these things feed our physical vessel so that we can be the awesome creative channels that we wanna be.

ASPRY JONES:

Oh, you talk my language.

BETH BARANY:

So if you have any parting advice to beginning writers out there who are really wishing and wanting to have their novel out in the world. What advice do you have for them?

ASPRY JONES:

I would say that, there is beauty in independent publishing, self-publishing, It can take you a long way if you're willing to put a lot into I would say that, I would imagine that if I were taken up by a publisher with an agent, so forth and so on, things would go, have gone a lot easier for me, probably, but I also enjoy-- not that I'm a control freak or anything, but I have enjoyed the control that I've been able to enact in the entire start to finish with this thing. But there are rough spots. There are rough spots. Be ready for things to go wrong and roll with the punches. Be ready to accept the editor actually knows what they're talking and it can be a lesson in humility to find that out. Be ready to get a bad publicist, be ready to spend some money, and have that money get thrown out the window. Be ready to spend some money and score because this whole thing is not going to run itself. It needs your help. You didn't just write it. it's the end of it, and it just walks off into the world of success on its own. It's going to need you to keep pushing and pushing. And I speak from experience, and maybe there are other people out there who have different stories to tell, and it went a lot easier. But this was not an easy, cake to bake, but in the end. I couldn't have been more happier because everything just fell into place on a lot of things. the guy who did the artwork for this is named Cole Munro-Chitty, and I just happened to meet him in a dog park outta nowhere. And I said, you're an a graphic artist, aren't you? And he said, yeah. I said, I need an anime feel for the cover of my book. And he showed me his stuff. Perfect. I was like, wow, that couldn't have gone easier. So there are some things that actually fell right into place, but the bulk of it, it'll make you sweat, it'll make you cry, it'll make you bleed.

BETH BARANY:

Yeah, I'm right there with you As an independent, published author, it's sometimes smooth sailing. Other times bumpy, but it's all part of the process. So I have one last bonus question for you. I see you've got a helmet behind you. Looks like you know the Mandalorian there.

ASPRY JONES:

Yeah.

BETH BARANY:

Yeah. Are you a big fan, the Mandalorian?

ASPRY JONES:

I'm a big fan of the Mandalorian. I love the Mandalorian. I love Marvel movies. Falcon. Yeah, you came to see us. Alright. Hello Star Trek. Yeah. Hello. That's my bat signal. I went outta my way to be as nerdy as I possibly could be for this interview.

BETH BARANY:

Oh, I love it. I love it. Aspry, I wish you the best of luck. I'm now eager, very eager to read your novel.

ASPRY JONES:

Oh, that would be wonderful. Thank you very much.

BETH BARANY:

Yeah, check out Aspry's novel protectors of the Light Crown. And if people wanna find you, what's the one link that rules them all there in your world.

ASPRY JONES:

@AspryWrites on social media. I have a website It's AspryJones.com.

BETH BARANY:

Beautiful. I was checking it out Before our show. people can sign up for your newsletter. Get notified when your book comes out and all your awesome news. Aspry, I really wanna thank you so much for taking the time today to share your novel Protectors of the Light Crown with our How to Write the Future audience and, we'll have to have you back when Book two comes out.

ASPRY JONES:

Magnificent. I would love to be back. You took good care of me. I appreciate you. Thanks.

BETH BARANY:

Oh, you're so welcome. So welcome. and I wish you all the best and we'll see you next time.

ASPRY JONES:

Absolutely.

BETH BARANY:

All right. Take care. And that's a wrap. All right everyone. That's it for this week. Write long and prosper.