198. Beginning, Middle, End — And Mess

“Life is messy. Life is unpredictable, and so is creating. Make room for that. Create compassion.” - Beth Barany

In this How To Write the Future podcast episode, titled “Beginning, Middle, End — And Mess” host Beth Barany shares why embracing the mess in creativity can have powerful results.

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• SHOW PRODUCTION BY Beth Barany
• SHOW CO-PRODUCTION + NOTES by Kerry-Ann McDade
• EDITORIAL SUPPORT by Iman Llompart

c. 2026 BETH BARANY

https://bethbarany.com/

Transcript

198. Beginning, Middle, End — And Mess

Introduction and Personal Anecdote

BETH BARANY: Mr. Rogers changed his shoes. I changed my glasses. Hi everyone. 

[00:10] Understanding Story Structure

Today, I wanted to talk about how working on a book is not a one-size-fits-all operation. It's highly tailored, highly customized to you, and that can look all kinds of ways. For me, I didn't really understand what plot meant, but over the years, I've come to understand what people want it to mean.

But what I prefer is the word structure. 

To me, writing a novel is like building a house. There's structure to it. There's foundational work, there's scaffolding work, there's filling in the details. And then making sure it is a great experience for the people who are going to live in the house. 

For the people who are gonna read your book, you wanna make sure they have a wonderful experience.

Well, that comes toward the end with the massaging of the words, but also, you think about them at the very beginning. When you think about, well, what kind of story do people wanna have? Just like you think about what kind of house do you wanna live in or do you wanna create for someone else to live in?

So story is to me a very structural process, and if you don't know story structure, then it can be very challenging to understand what is meant by beginning, middle, and end, which is the most basic structure. There are a lot of different kinds of stories in the world that we have read, seen, and heard all our life.

So I wanna say pay attention to story structure and pay attention to beginnings, middles, and ends of the kinds of stories that you like and the kinds of stories that you want to write. 

[01:46] Tailoring Your Writing Process

I'm gonna give some examples, and, but first I also wanna talk about what are some of the other things that are tailored to you in this writing process. And then I also wanna talk about being messy. So when you write, what time of day you write is specific to you. There's no one right way. Some people are morning writers, some people are nighttime writers. I, myself, am mostly an afternoon writer, early afternoon too, not too late.

I like to write just after lunch, ideally for fiction. I do other writings at other times of day. I tend not to do creative work after about three or four o'clock,

What's important is that you honor when is your highest, creative time and you give that to yourself. 

[02:33] Embracing Messiness in Creativity

Lastly, I wanna talk about messiness. Here I was talking about structure, and now I'm gonna talk about messiness because part of being creative is trying new things, and that's gonna look every which way. You will not know how something will come out. And that is beautiful. The mystery of being creative is multiple. We don't know where ideas come from. We don't really understand how we are this way. I mean, we could point to our training and our upbringing and and all that kind of thing, but we don't really truly understand how it all works. 

Life is a mystery, and that is such a beautiful thing. So that means that your first drafts are gonna be messy. That is the nature of creation from a human standpoint. And even if you look at nature, of which we are a part, just like my cat, who, if you're watching the video, you might see his tail pop up in the video.

We need to leave room for the mystery and for the mess. It's only toward the ending parts of cleaning up a story that things in my stories start to look neat and nice and tidy and powerful and amazing. There's a lot of mess in the creative process. 

Life is messy. Life is unpredictable, and so is creating. Make room for that. Create compassion. What I would love for you is to make friends with the messiness, make friends with the best time of day for you. 

[03:54] Conclusion and Final Thoughts

And when I work with clients in my one-on-one programs, they're not specific programs. there's not a map. I mean, there is a map to follow, but it's very tailored to you, to the client.

So remember: story structure, messiness, compassion.

Alright, everyone, that's it for this week. Write long and prosper.