How To Write The Future
How To Write The Future is a podcast for science fiction and fantasy writers who want to imagine better worlds—and write stories that bring those futures to life. Each episode offers practical craft guidance, creative prompts, and big-picture inspiration to help you draft, revise, and publish with purpose. By science fiction and fantasy author and fiction writing coach, Beth Barany.
Episodes
247 episodes
22. Broaden Your Story’s Boundaries
Broaden Your Story World: Expanding Geographic Boundaries for More Story PotentialIn this episode, Beth Barany discusses how to broaden a story’s geographical boundaries, drawing on Houston Howard’s You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Story.<...
225. How to Convey Backstory for Secondary and Tertiary Characters
“You only need to reveal backstory when the reader absolutely needs to know it.” - Beth BaranyDo you want to know how to add backstory to your secondary characters without slowing down the main plot and action of your...
21. Two Worldbuilding Essentials: Unfamiliarity and Definable Location
Worldbuilding Essentials: Unfamiliarity and Definable LocationIn this episode, Beth Barany discusses two of eight story-world elements from Houston Howard’s You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Story, focusing on revising and editing.First ...
224. Dictating Fiction: Tools and Workflow
“Dictation can be a creative process partner, meaning it can help you think through ideas at the idea phase.” — Beth BaranyIn the latest How To Write the Future podcast episode, titled “Dictating Fiction: Tools and Workflow,”...
20. Advanced Revision Diagnostic
Revision Stories and Support: Lessons from Revising Big, Ambitious NovelsBeth Barany shares personal revision experiences as a novelist (17 written, 12 published) to accompany her Advanced Revision Diagnostic and invites listeners to rea...
223. Shamanic Writing: Traveling Between Fictional Worlds
“We are traveling all the time. We are traveling into our science fiction worlds, into our fantasy worlds, into worlds that we may not even have labels for at first.” - Beth Barany In this How To Write the Future...
19. How to Weave Flashbacks and Backstory into Your Novel: Four Techniques
4 Techniques to Weave Flashbacks and Backstory Into Your NovelIn this premium Edit Lab episode, Beth Barany teaches writers how to weave flashbacks and backstory—anything that happened to the POV character before page one—into a novel us...
18. Speculative Sci-Fi Adventure vs. Sci‑Fi Fantasy Boundaries
Grounding the Impossible: Sensory Detail and Logic in Speculative Science FictionIn this Premium Edit Lab episode, Beth discusses how to balance speculative science fiction adventure with genre boundaries by leaning into supernatural or ...
222. Inside Book Coach Sessions with Beth Barany
“Where do you want to take your writing? Where do you want to take your writing career? And let's keep an eye on that, and we're building towards that. So it's fun, it's rigorous, it's deep, and this is my life's work.” - Beth Barany&n...
221. Back To School Vibes for Writers
“I was a very good student, and I loved learning, and I love going back to school. And now that I'm not in school, I'm just learning all the time, and I'm following my nose. I'm following what's interesting to me. So I hope you will do the ...
17. Weaving Multiple Plot Threads Without Losing Causality
Weaving Multiple Plot Threads Without Losing CausalityIn this Edit Lab premium episode, Beth Barany answers a member question from Amanda about weaving multiple plot threads without losing causality.She defines causality as a clea...
220. Constructive Critique Basics
“It is so, so important on how to give constructive feedback to other writers, and also how to receive that feedback from other writers, and how to create a safe space.” - Beth BaranyIn this How To Write the Future podcast episo...
16. Embedding Setting Details
Embedding Setting Details and Explaining Acronyms Through POVIn this premium Edit Lab episode, Beth Barany answers Amanda’s question about embedding setting details without interrupting action and handling long scientific terms that beco...
219. Read, Write, Restart: Writing Tips for Sci-Fi and Fantasy Writers
“Everybody's starting line is different. Everybody's starting ingredients are different. We can still do what we want to do.” - Beth BaranyIn this inspirational How To Write the Future podcast episode, titled “Read, Write, Resta...
15. Building Your Writer Community
Build Your Writing Community While Editing Your NovelIn this episode, Beth Barany discusses why building community is essential while editing a science fiction or fantasy novel, even though writing and revising are often solitary....
218. Building Your Inner Circle of Support: How to Find Beta Readers
This short episode packs a punch!“We may write alone, but we actually edit together.” - Beth BaranyDid you know building trusting relationships with your beta readers can make the process easier when it comes to your next...
14. How to End Book One in a Series
How to End Book One in a Sci-Fi or Fantasy SeriesIn this episode, Beth Barany explains how to end book one in a sci-fi or fantasy series when more books may follow, emphasizing that multiple arcs are in play—relationships, externa...
217. How A Character's Breathing Reveals Their Emotion in Your Novel
“It all starts with awareness of yourself and noticing how you're feeling at different moments and how you're breathing and your emotional state, how we tie them together in our own awareness.” - Beth BaranyDid you know the five...
13. Constructive Critique Basics
How to Give (and Receive) Constructive Critique in a Writing GroupBeth offers tips for giving and receiving critique in a way that is constructive, respectful, and supportive.She recommends first asking writers what specifi...
216. How to Restart Your Writing after a Break
“Do not make yourself wrong. Life is busy. We have multiple commitments that we're juggling, all of us.” - Beth BaranyIn this How To Write the Future podcast episode titled “How to Restart Your Writing after a Break,” hos...
11. Five Plot Points and Story Grid
Four Story Structure Maps (Part 1): Five-Point Plot Structure and Story Grid’s Five CommandmentsIn this episode, Beth Barany introduces four story structure maps that have influenced her writing, noting that many more exist and that stru...
12. Hero's Journey and Virgin's Promise
Story Structures for Writers: The Hero’s Journey and The Virgin’s PromiseBeth Barany outlines the 12 Stages of the Hero’s Journey, briefly defining each step from the ordinary world through the call to adventure, refusal, mentor interven...
10. Three-Act Structure Overview
Understanding the Three-Act Structure: Key Plot Points from Hook to DenouementIn this episode, Beth Barany explains the three-act structure, attributed to Plato, as a plot-driven framework with key plot points.Act One covers the h...
09. Tropes with Jennifer Hilt
Using Tropes as Story-Building Blocks: Jennifer HiltIn this episode, Beth Barany interviews Jennifer Hilt, author of several books on tropes for fiction writers, to explain what tropes are, why they matter, and how writers can use...
215. Make Your Environment Writer-Friendly
“I really like to have physical objects in my environment to inspire my creativity so that when I look at them, the story comes to mind very easily.”In this How To Write the Future podcast episode, “Make Your Environment Writer-...