Beth Barany's Blog, page 18
November 8, 2022
When Should I Register My Trademark? by Kelley Way
Let’s welcome back monthly columnist Kelley Way as she shares with us “When Should I Register My Trademark?” Enjoy!
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Before jumping into the details of trademark registration, it’s important to remember what a trademark is and why having one is important.
TrademarksA trademark serves as a source identifier in the marketplace, so buyers know who they’re buying from and sellers can build a reputation that makes people want to buy from them.
Anything that serves as a source identifier can be a trademark. Common examples are
Company NamesProduct NamesLogosSlogans.Registering Your TrademarkSince the purpose of a trademark is to act as a source identifier for goods and services, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office wants to see proof that you are actually using the mark in the marketplace.
It is possible to “reserve” a mark before you start selling, but you have to pay an extra fee, and you only get a limited window before you have to show that you’ve started selling.
With these restrictions, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to register before you open a business unless you’re very concerned about infringers wanting to copy your mark.
Another possible reason to register early is that you want to attract investors, who will be more interested in your company if you can show a portfolio of assets that you have exclusive rights to.
The next logical time to register your trademark would be when you first open your doors.
While there is nothing wrong with registering at this point, I personally feel that, unless one of the above reasons applies to you, there may be better uses for your limited funds.
So, When Should You Register Your Trademark?Trademark registration is quite expensive, and while it gives you added security, it’s not going to improve your bottom line.
In addition, infringers tend to want to copy trademarks that already have a good reputation in the marketplace, so the odds of a deliberate infringer are low when you’re getting started. And, if you were creative enough with your mark, the odds of unintentional infringers are also low.
I feel that the best time to register is after you’ve started making money and have established a reputation in the marketplace.
At that point you have something worth protecting, and you have the funds to give it that protection. The exact timeline for this will vary from business to business.
If you would like to learn more about when you should register a trademark, or if you would like to discuss the timing of your trademark registration, please feel free to email me at kaway@kawaylaw.com.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kelley Way was born and raised in Walnut Creek, California. She graduated from UC Davis with a B.A. in English, followed by a Juris Doctorate. Kelley is a member of the California Bar, and an aspiring writer of young adult fantasy novels. More information at kawaylaw.com.
Also by Kelley Way
https://writersfunzone.com/blog/2022/09/06/key-items-in-an-author-illustrator-contract-by-kelley-way
https://writersfunzone.com/blog/2022/06/07/when-should-i-copyright-my-work-by-kelley-way
The post When Should I Register My Trademark? by Kelley Way appeared first on Writer's Fun Zone.
November 7, 2022
18. What if… and Your Brain
In this episode titled What If… and Your Brain, creativity coach and podcast host, Beth Barany shares an exercise with you that can be completed in minutes and invites readers to get involved by sharing their What-If ideas.
Listen to the podcast on: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Buzzsprout | Amazon Music | Podcast Addict | Podchaser
ABOUT BETH BARANYBeth Barany is an Award-winning Novelist, master neurolinguistic programming practitioner, and certified creativity coach for writers, including being a Workshop Leader & Keynote Speaker. Beth has published books in several genres including young adult fantasy, paranormal romance and science fiction.
Learn more about Beth Barany at these sites:
Author site / Coaching site / School of Fiction / Writer’s Fun Zone blog
RESOURCES
I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Go to speakpipe.com/howtowritethefuture to leave your What-if positive future scenarios, up to 60 seconds, and get featured on an upcoming How To Write The Future episode. Be sure to include your name and your book title, if applicable.
HORIZONS MODEL
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2012061/11553661-16-the-horizons-model-for-story-tellingMIRROR NEURONS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron#In_humansWHAT THE BRAIN THINKS IS REAL
https://drdavidhamilton.com/does-your-brain-distinguish-real-from-imaginary/https://brainworldmagazine.com/imagine-that-imagination-is-lot-like-the-real-thing-to-your-brain/https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisonescalante/2021/05/25/scientists-discover-what-really-happens-in-the-brain-when-we-imagine-the-future/https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/12/181210144943.htmSHOW NOTES“The best our imagination has, in my opinion, is the question: what if.”
In this podcast episode of How To Write the Future, your host, creativity coach and science fiction and fantasy novelist Beth Barany, asks the question, “What If?” in different scenarios. She shares an exercise you can complete in minutes to inspire you to think differently. Lastly, she invites listeners to get involved by sharing their What-If ideas in a 60-second or less audio to be featured for an upcoming episode.
ABOUT THE HOW TO WRITE THE FUTURE PODCASTThe 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. Tips for fiction writers!
This podcast is for you if you have questions like:
How do I create a believable world for my science fiction story?How do figure out what’s not working if my story feels flat?How do I make my story more alive?How do I determine my genre, especially if I’ve created something not seen before?This podcast is for you, if you’re at all curious about the future of humanity.
TRANSCRIPT for Episode 18 What If… and Your BrainIf you would like to get some promotion for you and your books, and you have some fun quirky interesting wacky potential positive future scenarios to share with us, I would love to hear it.
And I’ve created an opportunity for you to share it in a 60-second message or less with me, and with all the listeners of this podcast.
If you’re up for that and you want to play, all you need to do is go to speakpipe.com/HowToWriteTheFuture to leave a message have up to 60 seconds. And you will get featured on a future episode of How to Write The Future.
I really want to hear from you. Whether you’re a writer. Whether you’re a reader, whether you like thinking about the future, or you just like to wonder what-if, please do share your vision with us.
WELCOMEBETH BARANY 01:17
Hi everyone. Welcome to our next episode of How to Write the Future. This is a podcast for science fiction and fantasy writers who want to create optimistic stories because when we vision what is possible, we help make it so.
I’m your host, Beth Barany. I am a science fiction and fantasy writer myself and a creativity coach, focusing on helping science fiction and fantasy authors with their stories.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO LEARN HOW TO WRITE THE FUTURE?
BETH BARANY 01:51
Why is it important to learn how to write the future? From a biological perspective, humans seem wired, so that what we envision in our mind feels real to our brain.
At least that’s what brain scientists have shown. They’ve also shown that our brainwaves mimic what another person does or describes.
So another person doesn’t have to be doing a thing for our brain to match it.
They just need to tell a story about it.
Imagine you could tell a story that induces the listener or viewer or reader to forget about their now and to feel they’ve gone there. In that way, places like the bridge of a starship, or the dusty planet of Tatooine, or the castle wall of Helm’s deep seems real.
We go there. Not only do we forget our lives for a little while, we get a break, we also get to rehearse what it would feel like to face those challenges that in our normal lives we’d never usually run toward.
In a previous podcast episode, I shared about the horizons model.
That was an episode 16 called the Horizons Model for storytelling. You can see the link in the show notes. In that episode I shared what was the Horizons Model and I’ll summarize it for you here.
In essence, people and therefore the organizations and companies and institutions that we create can have primarily one of three orientations.
They can either be focused in the past. We call that H one or they could be focused in the present. That would be H two, or there are primarily future-focused, that would be H three.
Now of course, people and organizations can be a mixture of these.
While the future is always unknown. That is what makes it the future, we can prepare for it. We can write multiple scenarios.
We can imagine a world that for example, stays a lot the same but is worse for most or all of the people or organisms or, and organisms. We share the planet with, or maybe it stays a lot the same, but better.
From most or all of the people and organisms that we share this planet with. Or we could imagine a world that changes radically from the way it is today.
And this is where the power of the imagination comes in.
The best tool our imagination has, in my opinion, is the question: what if.
For example:
What if kindness was the currency we measured success by?
What would that look like? Feel like? Smell like? Sound like?
What if hugging was the new norm? Even with strangers.
What if learning how to tell jokes and make people laugh was part of our school’s curriculum at every level?
And what if crying, being sad, being angry, and other big emotions was also considered currency on par with kindness?
I just came up with these four what ifs?
And now I step back and I asked myself, What kind of world have I created here?
I’m not sure, but I’m actually really curious to explore this, and by the way, these four what if questions were inspired by an article I read as research for this podcast. The article is called, “If you live from your heart. It’s good for your heart” by David Hamilton.
And the link is in the show notes. So, what about you? What ‘What Ifs’ are you curious about exploring?
EXERCISEHere’s an exercise for you:
Write several what-if statements in a row off the top of your head, whatever is top of mind for you.
Then pause and reread them, and see how they inspire you to think differently about what could be.
What implications for the world you are creating show up?
How do you see yourself in that world?
And how can you bring the five senses?
Actually, there’s more than five senses. How can you bring the senses into the moment of this world that you are brainstorming to bring it alive for you and for the readers.
I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU
Want to get some promotion for you and your books?
And do you have a potential positive future to share with the world?
Because when you share your potential positive future, you help it become real in the minds of your listeners and your readers.
As my show tagline says, “When we share our visions with the world, we help make it so.”
Through story and compelling communication, potential can become actual.
I would love to hear from you.
I would love to hear your what-if, or multiple what ifs in audio for a future broadcast of my podcast.
If you would like to get some promotion for you and your books, and you have some fun quirky interesting wacky potential positive future scenarios to share with us, I would love to hear it.
And I’ve created an opportunity for you to share it in a 60-second message or less with me, and with all the listeners of this podcast.
If you’re up for that and you want to play, all you need to do is go to speakpipe.com/HowToWriteTheFuture to leave a message have up to 60 seconds. And you will get featured on a future episode of How to Write The Future.
I really want to hear from you. Whether you’re a writer. Whether you’re a reader, whether you like thinking about the future, or you just like to wonder what-if, please do share your vision with us.
Loved this episode? Leave us a review and rating here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2012061
or in your podcast home of choice.
ABOUT YOUR HOST, BETH BARANYBeth Barany is an award-winning novelist, certified creativity coach for writers, and a international workshop facilitator. In addition to her how-to books for writers, Beth has published over 12 books in young adult fantasy, paranormal romance, and science fiction mystery.
Show notes by Kerry-Ann McDade.
Production by Beth Barany.
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CONNECT
Contact Beth: https://writersfunzone.com/blog/podcast/#contact
Email: beth@bethbarany.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bethbarany/
CREDITSEDITED WITH DESCRIPT: https://www.descript.com?lmref=_w1WCA
MUSIC: Uppbeat.io
DISTRIBUTED BY BUZZSPROUT: https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1994465
2022 BETH BARANY***
For more “How To Write the Future” episodes, go here.
If you’d like to invite Beth onto your podcast, drop her a note here.
The post 18. What if… and Your Brain appeared first on Writer's Fun Zone.
November 4, 2022
The Costs of Creative Chaos by Catharine Bramkamp
Let’s welcome back monthly columnist Catharine Bramkamp as she shares with us “The Costs of Creative Chaos.” Enjoy!
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There is no denying the romance and excitement of the last minute.
The rushing, the forgetting, the rising blood pressure. The deadlines, the finals, the late nights.
Students gathering for days– or at least a couple hours– in the unfamiliar library stacks cramming for classes they don’t remember attending.
Office staff clustered around the coffee machine sharing their surprise conclusion that if they had started their presentation earlier, they wouldn’t be so stressed this Friday afternoon.
Social media doesn’t help.
There are no popular images depicting a calm person brandishing a scheduling app happy they finished every project ahead of deadline.
There are countless memes featuring crazed creatives working up to the last minute, or rushing to their book signings, or just finishing edits before deadline– except for troublesome page 120, we just skipped it.
Authors are infamous for our contentious relationship with deadlines, it is part of our story as authors.
But what if that’s not your story?
If you are bereft of harrowing tales about barely finishing your novel/cover edits/final edits on time, read on.
This article was born from a comment made by my significant other. I announced I had finished an article for this blog site early.
He responded: Of course you did. He meant it as a compliment, but it was a surprising trigger.
Organized people are boring, dull.
Organized people are not creative.
Organized people and our instinct to finish and file automatically bars us from the fellowship of writers and turns us into mere accountants– boring, untalented, blocked from the wild ride that is the creative life.
I disagree, to my organized tribe, there are benefits to being a responsible person that can very much feed and nurture creative endeavors:
More Vibrant WorkRather than wasting emotions and time on everyday chaos – you have the energy to capture all the crazy that is not your home life and drop it all into your book.
Create more Work
When you finish work, you have time to create more work. With life under control (more or less) you free up bandwidth to find another passion, create another piece of art. You get to do more.
More likely to get publishedYou research, you complete, you spend the time submitting your work to the most likely outlets.
Who knew THAT approach would be successful?
Yes, the wonderful, crazy chaotic artist does get lucky breaks. But the author with a well considered MS and a consistently applied strategy, finds her own luck.
Submit better workWorking ahead allows for more breathing space. Drafts can be put aside for months at a time, allowing for more creative editing and better focus.
Time is your friend.
You are the editor’s new best friend
The slap dash, misspelled, poorly formatted doc (rather than docX, please upgrade your Microsoft Suite) is not as inconsequential as you think. Sure the piece could be brilliant, but if it immediately inspires a sigh, it’s already behind.
Allowing time to create not only the best work possible, but also reviewing the editorial requirements, puts us out of the accounting category and closer to the published author class.
The Procrastination CultSo now you feel pretty good about working ahead of deadline, but that doesn’t help mitigate emotional thrill and fellowship of the Procrastination cult.
When a wild eyed fellow writer accosts you in Starbucks, what can you say?
Don’t be sanctimonious, that just makes it worse.
If you want to sound like you belong to the cult, er, club, here are some responses:
“Wow, that deadline seems really close, I understand how consuming these projects are, I’m working on one myself.” “I turned in my work but of course, haven’t heard.”“I’m looking forward to diving into my next work, how is your MS coming along?”Just because you are organized, even efficient, doesn’t mean you aren’t creative. Efficient writers just work differently. And of course, well ahead of deadline.
(I wrote the first draft of this article in July, I hope you feel me).
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Want to read more articles like this one Writer’s Fun Zone? Subscribe here.
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Catharine Bramkamp is a successful writing coach, Chief Storytelling Officer, former co-producer of Newbie Writers Podcast, and author of a dozen books including the Real Estate Diva Mysteries series, and The Future Girls series. She holds two degrees in English and is an adjunct university professor. After fracturing her wrist, she has figured out there is very little she is able to do with one hand tied behind her back. She delights in inspiring her readers.
Also by Catharine Bramkamp
https://writersfunzone.com/blog/2022/01/07/creativity-how-to-get-more-by-catharine-bramkamp
https://writersfunzone.com/blog/2022/02/01/is-visualization-the-key-to-success-by-catharine-bramkamp
https://writersfunzone.com/blog/2021/10/08/time-to-quit-by-catharine-bramkamp
The post The Costs of Creative Chaos by Catharine Bramkamp appeared first on Writer's Fun Zone.
October 31, 2022
17. Story Success Clinic with Hugh Tipping on Deep Point of View
In this episode creativity coach and podcast host, Beth Barany talks to actor and fantasy writer Hugh Tipping in this Story Success Clinic Session where they discuss the Deep Point of View.
Listen to the podcast on: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Buzzsprout | Amazon Music | Podcast Addict | Podchaser
ABOUT BETHBeth Barany is an Award-winning Novelist, master neurolinguistic programming practitioner, and certified creativity coach for writers, including being a Workshop Leader & Keynote Speaker. Beth has published books in several genres including young adult fantasy, paranormal romance and science fiction.
Learn more about Beth Barany at these sites:
Author site / Coaching site / School of Fiction / Writer’s Fun Zone blog
RESOURCES
Science fiction and fantasy writers, sign up for your Story Success Clinic here:
https://writersfunzone.com/blog/story-success-clinic/
Resources on Deep Point of View: https://writersfunzone.com/blog/2019/10/27/resources-on-point-of-view-pov/
The Fifth Element: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119116/
Course on crafting point of view in your fiction: Mastering Deep Point of View with Alice Gaines, What if you could master a simple technique to make your stories more immediately felt by your readers?
https://school.bethbarany.com/p/mastering-deep-point-of-view-with-alice-gaines
Get support for your fiction writing by a novelist and writing teacher and coach. Schedule an exploratory call here and see if Beth can support you today: https://writersfunzone.com/blog/discovery-call/
SHOW NOTES“It’s not just getting into a deep point of view. It’s also making sure each point of view is distinct and has its own strong perspective.”
In this Story Success Clinic interview, creativity coach and science fiction and fantasy novelist Beth Barany talks to actor and fiction writer Hugh Tipping where they discuss how to write different points of view (POV) in your novels.
About Hugh TippingHugh Tipping is the author of the upcoming fantasy novel The Threads of Magic. Through his creative efforts, he inspires others to explore their own bravery and discover the rewards of stepping into a courageous life. Connect with Hugh here: https://linktr.ee/htipping.
ABOUT THE HOW TO WRITE THE FUTURE PODCASTThe 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.
Tips for fiction writers!
This podcast is for you if you have questions like:
How do I create a believable world for my science fiction story?How do figure 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 17. Story Success Clinic with Hugh Tipping, Fantasy Novelist, on Deep Point of ViewHey science fiction and fantasy authors, would you like to get more exposure for your books, and get some support to uncover story ideas, enhance story cohesion, and get some ideas for marketing?
Then sign up for my 30 minute Story Success Clinic.
Every 30-minute story success clinic is recorded and gets aired as an episode of the How To Write The Future podcast.
So sign up today. The link is in the show notes. And now let’s get on with the show.
Welcome to How to Write the Future Podcast
BETH BARANY 00:45
Hi everyone. Welcome to How to Write the Future Podcast. I’m Beth Barany, your host. This podcast offers fiction writing tips for science fiction and fantasy writers who want to create optimistic stories because when we vision what is possible, we help make it so.
Today I’m very excited to have with me Hugh Tipping for our Story Success Clinic.
Hugh, why don’t you introduce yourself and then we’ll, we’ll dive right in.
HUGH TIPPING, FANTASY NOVELIST
HUGH TIPPING 01:19
Yeah, excellent, good to be here, Beth. My name is Hugh, and I’m currently in the process of extensive editing of my very first novel which is an epic fantasy novel. It’s, it’s grown quite large as I’ve been working on it, well over 158,000 words, but I’ve been enjoying the process of refining it.
And, sculpting it into something a little bit, more compact.
BETH BARANY 01:44
Yeah. Great, great. And full, full disclosure, everyone, Hugh is one of my clients and we have the pleasure of working together and diving deep into his manuscript. So I’m, I’m excited today to talk with you about a naughty problem that you wanted to bring to us, which is really getting into deep point of view, staying in deep point of view, all the things about deep point of view.
Is that, is that right?
HUGH TIPPING 02:11
Yeah, that’s it. Yeah, that’s, that’s been one of my bigger challenge in really refining this novel.
BETH BARANY 02:17
Great. Tell me a little bit about what’s challenging about getting into point of view for your main character.
HUGH TIPPING 02:25
Yeah, the deep point of view, was actually, let me start with, with why I decided to go with deep point of view in the first place, because, the way I’ve written in the past when I’ve written some short stories or was, you know, tried with a novel a number of years ago, I did a lot of head jumping and I had sort of an omniscient point of view and I, and I found that when I would go back and I would read what I had written.
I, I found that it was just lacking for me, a lot of depth. I felt like I needed more, I, I needed more feeling. I needed more layers to my characters. And, when you and I started working on, um, you know, figuring out how to do deep point of view from my characters, I found that I, I got a lot more, a lot more emotion, a lot more feeling, a lot more, a lot more realism to it.
And, and, that has brought its own challenges because when you were you going deep into someone’s psyche, deep in inside their mind and, and what it is they’re feeling, how they’re reacting, it, it’s definitely evocative of one’s own emotions. , it can be a little tiring for sure, but it’s also you, you wanna make sure that you are being true to the character as you’re trying to build them.
BETH BARANY 03:44
Mm-hmm.
HUGH TIPPING 03:46
And frequently as those emotions are evoked within me, I find myself putting a little too much of myself into the character. Certainly all of my characters in the novel have bits and pieces of my own personality, but I wanna, I wanna make sure that I’m, I’m staying true to the creative process of creating something new and something different, but that’s also very real to me.
So, it takes definitely a lot of, lot of stamina, endurance to stay there, and, and also because I’m doing things deep pov for several of my characters from scene to scene or chapter to chapter, I find myself having to really adjust, making sure that I don’t have any kind of attention residue left over from the previous character that I was working on.
BETH BARANY 04:31
Ah, So it’s not just getting into deep point of view. It’s alsomaking sure each point of view is distinct and has its own strong, um, perspective. And, and they don’t sound too similar, like some some writers will say, Oh, my characters sound too similar, one to the other, and there’s not enough distinction.
Would you say that’s another challenge or that’s part of this deep point of view challenge?
HUGH TIPPING 04:58
Indeed it is. Indeed it is. Because when you’re, when you’re going through someone’s inner thoughts, each person has their own, their own past, their own history, and, and those, those inner thoughts are gonna be different. The person is gonna construct their thoughts differently. So it’s, it’s making sure that they don’t all have the same thoughts.
BETH BARANY 05:19
That’s right. They don’t all sound the same, they aren’t clones of each other. Right. Great. And so the first challenge it sounds like is also just the emotional work that goes into expressing the point of view, especially for the main character who, you were saying, has a lot of similarities to you.
Yeah, and would you say that the challenge there is also like, how do you draw up a character that, originally starts out as very much like an extension of self, but then you’re like, Oh, I want to make this character different, how do I do that? I’m wondering if it’s like, how do I not be so drained emotionally by the work of creating this character and, and writing him and, you know, cuz I know you’re in the editing phase, you know, bringing out the edits, polishing, editing, cutting, revising, rewriting all the things.
HUGH TIPPING 06:10
All of it.
And then some.
BETH BARANY 06:13
And then some., yeah. Yeah. Cool. So, um, so I’m gonna offer some um, suggestions and you can tell me how they land and also those listening in podcast land, you can try these on for size and see if they work for you. , this is all a big experiment. , being an artist is about experimenting, in my opinion.
So you and I know in the past have talked about creating, anchors like, having a physical thing that represents either the writing space, but in this case, I’m wondering if there’s a physical object or a picture that might represent the character that allows you to definitely distinguish it as other, right?
It it exists here outside of you as a, as an image or as an object or, or, , you know, I’m just spitballing here, but, you know, um, a symbol even. And because you’re writing fantasy and there’s magic, you know, is there even a magic symbol? Ooh, I just thought of that. That could represent your main character as very unique to that person, which then invites the idea like, Ooh. Then each character could have its own visual– symbol, picture or symbol that, or color, something that helps you differentiate them very, very clearly. How does that land for you?
HUGH TIPPING 07:31
Yeah, I, I like that idea, I’m, I’m a person who, who’s very, very visual, cuz when I, when I first started describing the appearance of my characters, I, I sort of had an image in my head, but then I went on the Internet, look for images that kind of look like them, however, to think about. Besides what they look like, stuff that they have, I kind of like that idea.
If I could either have a, a picture of something or draw something or print it out and have it right there in front of me as I’m having the character think or react, that actually, yeah, I’d like that idea that could really add, um, some more depth because it, it connects me to what the character is connected.
BETH BARANY 08:16
Yes. Yes. And, and by extension, is there an element about that character? In a lot of character sketches, we in suggest you pick an adjective for your character, and in our training we also suggest you pick a verb. And what I do when I’m especially in the refining stage is I pick some kind of music or musicality because that helps me make word choice decisions and rhythm decisions.
You know, one of my previous works, Henrietta, the Dragon Slayer, you know, I always had Henrietta speak in a certain style, very Anglo-Saxon languages, very punctuated, very active. And then I would have, Franc speak in like very short sentences, and then I would have Jaxter, another character, speak in, in this kind of melodic sing songy.
He was a storyteller. And then I had the fourth character in the story, Paulette. She was very self-centered, so everything she said was very much centered on me, me, me, I, I, I, you know. And, and that’s how I filtered their language choices also in the rhythms and things like that. If you notice in this example, I just picked very few, just one very short descriptor that helped me make these decisions and helped me connect.
It was like a, a form of shorthand that I used in the in the revising phase. So I’m wondering if, if that would be helpful to you for your main character and, and your other point of view characters.
HUGH TIPPING 09:43
I think that would be, um, even, even what you were saying with how the different characters speak. Um, because my main character is an academic, he’s always been an academic. He’s very, very well read. And, and, you know, he would speak in, in a full grammatically correct sentences. Whereas, another, one of the main characters who’s mercenary and she’s had to fight for survival much of her life. She’s not gonna speak that way.
She’s gonna be a lot more to the point and, and much more efficient. And there we go. There’s, there’s an adjective right there, efficient what she does that could inform, , what’s going on inside of her head. Yeah.
Yeah. I like
Yeah. Even just talking it out here, words are sort of popping up into my head.
BETH BARANY 10:28
That’s great. And you said something for your main character, which is he’s academic and so I thought of wordy. Someone else might think he’s wordy. He though might think he’s, what?
HUGH TIPPING 10:41
Yeah, he, he’s definitely wordy, but he might think that he is, um, explaining, teaching, helping that he’s, he’s being giving of, of his knowledge
BETH BARANY 10:55
Thats’s great
HUGH TIPPING 10:56
or else someone else would prefer him to, summarize more often.
BETH BARANY 11:00
Yeah. I get to the point, so the word you used that jumped out at me was explaining. It’s almost like his character, his modus operandi on a certain level. Like he could tell us the origin of every word and the origin of every spell and the origin of, and the history of the regions and, you know, would that be fair? Like just in a kind of a neutral descriptor of him?
HUGH TIPPING 11:27
I, I think so. I think so. And, and I think even in, even before he speaks what’s going on in his head before he speaks is, him trying to relate, a current situation or a challenge to what he’s learned to something he learned in history, maybe, or, one of his magic classes. Um, so he, he, he has to, he has to put some sort of grounding maybe under, under a situation he’s dealing with.
BETH BARANY 11:57
I like that. And so now you’ve really explained his inner life and the way he speaks. And then it’s gonna color the way he’s gonna describe his setting because he might do kind of what we might call run on sentences or longer sentences, you know, such and such, comma, which dah, dah dah. And, you know, he might have several dependent clauses on top of the main clause because he’s explaining to himself what he’s seeing.
And then, the mercenary, because she’s, um, what did you say, efficient. So when she scans her environment, how, you know, she’s gonna use an efficient way of thinking about her surroundings. And also because she’s, she’s a hunter, she’s gonna see her surroundings completely differently than your academic.
HUGH TIPPING 12:49
Yeah, she’s, she’s definitely going to look at the world in survival mode. She’s gonna look for dangers. She’s going to look for resources that she can use, food, whereas, whereas the main character, the mage might look at a tree and say, Oh, look at those nice colors. And the leaves are turning to, you know, a week early this fall. The mercenary is not gonna think about that. She’s gonna think, Uh oh, damn. Uh, the leaves are about to fall. I’m gonna lose some cover of this forest.
BETH BARANY 13:19
What a wonderful example. I love that. Yeah. And so even with that one example and, and you actually kind of call forth like, this is a great exercise, right? How would your other point of view characters, cuz you have some other ones, you could do the same exercise. What’s a good adjective for them?
And how does that, um, color the way they see the tree? You know, and you could use the same example for all of them and then write a little, uh, cheat sheet for yourself and with your symbols or images and have that, um, right there. You know, when you work right next to your computer or in your computer, call it up.
Yeah.
HUGH TIPPING 13:57
Yeah, I, I like that idea of finding, finding words each, the characters. Now, I’m just sort of running down the list of characters, thinking of what words I would have for them, how people would notice things they wouldn’t, people would be dismissive.
BETH BARANY 14:08
Mm-hmm.
HUGH TIPPING 14:09
Things, others might be obsessed with them.
BETH BARANY 14:12
Right, right. Oh, excellent. I’m so, so glad. Um, and then as we consider that, Is there anything else about point of view that would help you? We kind of covered like how do you distinguish them one from the other also by having an object or an image that might allow you to kind of really separate yourself better, especially from the main character. Um, is there any other aspects about point of view that are coming up, bubbling up that we can address in our time here remaining?
HUGH TIPPING 14:41
Just going back to what we were saying earlier about putting oneself into one’s character, um, and, and frequently in situations, I, I think what would I do in that situation? And maybe it’s time for me to say, What wouldn’t I do? What’s the opposite of what I might do to help, to help change it up a little bit, which is hard because you’re used to doing things a certain way in your life and you’re not used to doing the opposite of it. So that would help make the character different than me.
BETH BARANY 15:10
Yeah.
HUGH TIPPING 15:11
But, what wouldn’t I do? What’s the opposite of what I would do? And that’s tough.
BETH BARANY 15:16
That is tough.
And so I guess the first thought that comes to mind about that is who is an avatar for that? Who represents that opposite behavior? Who out in the world or in another story, or someone might, maybe that you know, who would categorically choose something else or the opposite?
HUGH TIPPING 15:37
Yeah. Okay. So what you’re saying is, is look for someone else that might represent this, this antithesis of what I, I might do in a situation. Yeah,
BETH BARANY 15:46
Yeah. And are you thinking of bringing that in for your main character and having him be the one who makes some of those choices? Or is this for a different character?
HUGH TIPPING 15:56
Definitely for the main character for sure. And, and it might be for others as well. Uh, um, I’m still focusing mainly on, on the main character right now for a lot of this work, but there are secondary characters who are just as important that, that need this same treatment.
BETH BARANY 16:11
Yeah. And, it’s interesting to notice also what inspires you out in the world in terms of other people’s stories. And, and you wanna bring those kind of traits in. Is there any kind of other character from TV, film or books where you’re like, Oh, I like that trait. I wanna give it to my main character.
HUGH TIPPING 16:33
Well, I, I’m thinking of some characters from, I’ve, I’ve read a lot of Ursula Le Guin novels. I was a big fan of the Earth Sea Series, and there’s, the main character there definitely, doesn’t share a whole lot with my main character, but he’s also a age and he has his own struggles and he’s made his mistakes. So perhaps I should look at some of his flaws and some of the mistakes that he’s made, and apply that to my main charact.
BETH BARANY 17:00
That’s great. This total random example, but when I was working on, my YA Fantasy series, I was thinking a lot about Fifth Element, the movie, The Fifth Element, and
Yeah, I love that movie so much. And I was thinking somehow there’s things about, there’s certain scenes and certain moments and certain choices that were really inspiring me in, in that work, to bring them into my fantasy.
Oh, that’s just one of my favorites.
HUGH TIPPING 17:25
Well, I think that’s a good example because The Fifth Element has such a wide diversity of characters and personality traits and quirks. I think that’s what makes the movie so attractive. You don’t have a lot of same people. You have everybody who looks a little different and they’re bringing their own weirdness to the table.
BETH BARANY 17:46
Mm-hmm.. Yeah. And they’re all have their separate and competing agendas. Yeah.
HUGH TIPPING 17:51
Yeah. It’s the agendas and their motivations that are definitely , part of it,
BETH BARANY 17:56
That’s great. Well, as we, wrap up, what do you see yourself doing with the information that we worked on today?
HUGH TIPPING 18:06
Well, I’m definitely going to be thinking of words for characters. I mean, that’s the very first thing I think I’m going to do. And the next thing I’m going to do is, is look at either people in my life or characters in other stories. , they don’t necessarily even have to be fantasy stories. Maybe I saw this criminal on Law And Order who has some weird personality traits I found interesting that I could bring into this story for one of the antagonists.
BETH BARANY 18:33
That’s great.
HUGH TIPPING 18:33
So I think what I’m gonna do is, is observe right now. See what, see what I can pull in just from, from my day to day life and watching a movie or reading a book.
BETH BARANY 18:44
Perfect. That’s great. You’ve got two really solid steps there.
HUGH TIPPING 18:47
I think so.
BETH BARANY 18:48
And one last question that I, didn’t put in our prep necessarily, but I wanna start integrating, actually I have two questions then. One is, where do you, where do you see yourself six months from now with your book? Where, where would you like to be? What’s your ideal if you could, wave a magic wand?
HUGH TIPPING 19:07
Wow. That’s a good question. I’ve been working on a lot of world building these days, so I, I definitely wanna have my world looking a lot more solid, and rules of my, my fictional, environment a little bit more solid, and I can draw upon them as I’m going through the story. But even just what we were talking about tonight with, with Deep POV, I want to look at these characters, especially in those first few chapters.
I want those characters to have more layers to them. I want to go back and read and see the switch from this character to that character to a third one, and see it as being more distinct that, there’s a different, there’s a different feel or a different moot when I switch to a different character’s pov.
And, if I’m reading something, especially if I’m reading it aloud, which is the best way to, to check your own edits. If it sounds and feels like that switch in mood then I know I’m on the right track. So in six months, I really hope I’m, I’m getting there.
BETH BARANY 20:08
That’s great. And I love that we brought up, Fifth Element for you to even remind yourself of like, Ooh, how, how much you notice that and how much you want that.
HUGH TIPPING 20:18
I’m gonna go watch that movie again.
BETH BARANY 20:20
Oh, good.
HUGH TIPPING 20:20
for sure. Uh, then yeah, figure, figure out, out, you know, what it is that’s really working about that movie.
BETH BARANY 20:27
That’s wonderful. So my final question for you before I have you , share with the audience about how they can find you is, , it’s about the future since this is, called How to Write the Future, in what way do you feel your story and your lends to a new vision or new version of, of our future and the future of the readers?
HUGH TIPPING 20:50
Oh, wow. a, that’s a tough one.
BETH BARANY 20:53
It’s not to put you on the spot or anything,
HUGH TIPPING20:55
Not at all, I, I mean, my, my novel takes, takes place in, in a medieval environment that would be very much like our world’s past, but I, I would like it to teach lessons for the future. I, I think stories, can teach us by example, how to improve, how to get better, what the future can be like, even if the technology is not there, or, the social advancement isn’t there. Even seeing where it’s not there can be informative for the future, saying this is, is this the way we wanna be?
BETH BARANY 21:39
Mm-hmm.
HUGH TIPPING 21:40
How do we prevent ourselves from being like that or returning to that at some point?
BETH BARAN Y21:46
Fun. Really fun. Great. Hugh, this has been really fun, I would love to for people to find out, here how they can connect with you. So is there a social media channel or a website, that you can direct people to?
HUGH TIPPING 22:02
Yeah. I I have a page on, , link tree. It’s uh, link tr.ee/h tipping, and that links to other social media stuff.
BETH BARANY 22:13
Fabulous. And we’ll make sure that’s in the show notes, so great. Thank you so much you for being with us at How to Write the Future, and I wish you all the best with your fabulous fantasy novel.
HUGH TIPPING 22:23
Thanks so much, Beth. It was, it was a lot of fun being on on the podcast with you today.
OUTRO: INVITE TO STORY SUCCESS CLINIC
Beth 22:27
Write long and prosper.
Science fiction and fantasy sign up for your 30 minute Story Success Clinic and get more exposure for your books.
Loved this episode? Leave us a review and rating here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2012061
or in your podcast home of choice.
ABOUT BETH BARANYBeth Barany is an award-winning novelist, certified creativity coach for writers, and a workshop facilitator. In addition to her how-to books for writers, Beth has published books in several genres including young adult fantasy, paranormal romance, and science fiction mystery. Contact Beth: https://writersfunzone.com/blog/podcast/#contact
CONNECT
Contact Beth: https://writersfunzone.com/blog/podcast/#contact
Email: beth@bethbarany.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bethbarany/
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DISTRIBUTED BY BUZZSPROUT: https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1994465
2022 BETH BARANY
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For more “How To Write the Future” episodes, go here.
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The post 17. Story Success Clinic with Hugh Tipping on Deep Point of View appeared first on Writer's Fun Zone.
October 30, 2022
05. The Signals Are Talking
In todays latest episode of “How To write The Future” titled “The Signals Are Talking” I talk about pattern recognition from the fringes and Amy Webb’s six-step methodology process.
Have a listen to the episode here: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Buzzsprout | Amazon Music | Podcast Addict | Podchaser
ABOUT BETH BARANYBeth Barany is an award-winning novelist, master neurolinguistic programming practitioner, and certified creativity coach for writers, including being a workshop leader & keynote speaker. Beth has published books in several genres including young adult fantasy, paranormal romance, and science fiction mystery.
Learn more about Beth Barany at these sites:
Author site / Coaching site / School of Fiction / Writer’s Fun Zone blog
RESOURCES
Amy Webb, The Signals Are Talking: https://books2read.com/thesignalsaretalkingwebb ;
and her organization: Future Today Institute: https://futuretodayinstitute.com/
SCIENCE DAILY: https://www.sciencedaily.com/news/
TALK TO A WRITING COACH https://writersfunzone.com/blog/talk-to-a-writing-coach/
SHOW NOTES“What about the future are you trying to determine? Is it a specific kind of technology? A cultural behavioral pattern? A system of running companies? A way of feeding people? Language evolution? Where in society today are people asking the hard questions or making some new discoveries?”
In high school, I would spend every week reading Omni magazine in the school library. Today I often read Science Daily. Both of these sources of information play huge inspirations into the questions I ask about the future.
In this episode I talk about Amy Webb’s book (that shares the same name as the title of this episode) and delve into her six-step methodology, offering my viewpoint for each step. I use my own Janey McCallister sci-fi mystery novels as an example and some of the decision making process for that series.
In this episode, you will learn the following:1) Where do you look for inspiration in writing the future?
2) What are you trying to determine about the future?
3) How can Amy Webb’s six-step methodology help your writing?
ABOUT HOW TO WRITE THE FUTUREThe 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.
Tips for fiction writers!
This podcast is for you if you have questions like:
How do I create a believable world for my science fiction story?How do figure 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 05. The Signals Are TalkingWhen I was a teenager, I would spend time every week reading Omni magazine in the school library. I loved that magazine. It was always talking about new technologies and also had very imaginative stories in it.
That definitely was one of my early influences.
Hi everyone. I’m Beth Barany. I run How To Write The Future podcast for science fiction writers who want to write positive futures and bring those stories successfully out into the marketplace.
Today. I want to talk about The Signals Are Talking. This is the title of Amy Webb’s book with the subtitle, Why Today’s Fringe is Tomorrow’s Mainstream.
I highly recommend you read this book, and I will be using this book as inspiration to talk about how you can write the future.
Specifically, today I’m going to talk about pattern recognition from the fringes. If you are trying to determine the future of a particular aspect of your story world, but you don’t know what it needs to be for your story, and it’s pretty wide open. You’ve made some assumptions, maybe about your story.
I’m going to use my story as an example. I decided to have a space elevator and have that go up to a space station.
When I was initially making these decisions in my Janey McCallister Mystery series, it’s a sci-fi mystery, I asked myself what technology would allow that space station and the space elevator to be built.
I was trying to figure out all the different moving parts of building a space elevator. I started researching directly and indirectly space elevators. Because I’ve read Amy Webb’s book, The Signals Are Talking, I knew that I needed to look at the fringes of society, and people building technologies, and I needed to find some patterns here.
Amy’s book really helped me pay attention to what’s happening in scientific laboratories. I decided if I’m building a world that has advanced technology, a hundred years in the future, I needed to understand what technologies were being built today, so I could speculate out what they could be in a hundred years.
Through the course of this research, I learned that what people are working on in laboratories today doesn’t even make it to the marketplace for maybe another 10 years or 20 years or 30 years, and won’t even be commonplace, for who knows, maybe 50 years.
So if something is just being discovered today, I could totally make it be a commonplace reality in my story set a hundred years from now.
This was the premise I was working on as I was doing my research. I wanted to find out what are the signals today so that I could find some patterns that I, as a creative writer, could put into my story world.
Now it’s your turn.
What are you trying to determine the future about? Is it a specific kind of technology? A cultural behavioral pattern? A system of running companies? A way of feeding people? Language evolution? Where in society today are people asking the hard questions, are people making some new discoveries?
What’s interesting is mainstream media does not report on these new discoveries. So think about the scientists or radical thinkers, or artists who are playing in the space.
Go pay attention to them. Search on YouTube; search on Google. Any other search engine. Search inside of networks that you may already know or be indirectly connected to. Ask people: do you know anything about X?
Let me take another example.
I am very interested in fog catchers or dew catchers, and I’ve been doing research on this for quite some time. Every once in a while, I’ll do a deep dive research, and I will watch videos and read articles on the topic and discover who is in the space and what are people doing. I will hear of experiments that engineers are doing in Germany or in Sub-Saharan Africa or in the Middle East. I will hear of vodka company here in California that has been catching the fog and using it to distill and make vodka.
Where can you go to find people working maybe on the fringes of society that is not published in mainstream media?
Can you talk to those people? Read those articles. Watch those interviews.
Notice that inspiration is coming from places that aren’t naturally making headlines.
I highly recommend that you check out Amy Webb’s book. She has lots of methodology and processes that I will be revisiting going forward. She has an entire forecasting methodology.
It’s a six step funnel.
In this second half of today’s episode, I will go into Amy Webb’s six step methodology.
Step one is the fringe. Make observations and harness information from the fringes of society or a particular research area.
I have subscribed to Science Daily. And I get these daily digests of all kinds of scientific discoveries coming out of research laboratories around the world. It’s fascinating. Every single day I practically fall off my chair because I cannot believe that I’ve made that discovery. It’s incredible. What can I do with that as a creative writer as someone writing science fiction? I am super inspired right away. My brain goes: what if…?
What if this was an everyday thing? What if everybody could have fog catchers and dew catchers? Even in the driest locations. And use temperature differentials to get their water. Then California wouldn’t have to suffer in a drought. What if that technology was readily available and easy for anyone to create out of a kit that they can put on a patio or a backyard or even a rooftop? Wouldn’t that be cool? So I have that in my imagination and I’m looking for a place to put it in my stories.
Step two in this forecasting methodology that Amy Webb puts forth she calls Cipher. Uncover hidden patterns by categorizing information from the fringe. Contradictions, inflections, practices, hacks, extremes, rarities.
We’ll notice another big theme in my stories is what they call biohacking. In my story, it’s pretty normalized that people might have brain computer interfaces. And in fact, my main character has an ocular implant in her eye due to an accident when she was a teenager.
Many teens in her location, I’ve decided, had pretty mundane implants that would allow them to have more senses in a certain area. In her case, she has a visual acuity, unlike most people.
I spent a lot of time thinking about this, researching about the current technology on brain computer interfaces, as well as how the eye actually works and what her implant can do and cannot do.
So if you’re working on any area of augmentation, for example, biohacking, pay attention to what people are doing today. It’s quite amazing.
I spent time researching this, hearing what people were doing, finding some companies that sell interesting body implants that allow people, for example, to know north, south, east and west. That’s a real thing that exists today.
Watching what people are doing on the fringes allows our imagination to expand upon that.
Step three, ask the right questions.
Ask the right questions to determine whether a pattern is really a trend. In her book. The Signals Are Talking, she goes into discussing what those questions are.
Step four. Calculate the ETA — estimated time of arrival. This is for people who are trying to do some near term forecasting in terms of implementing things in their organization.
So she says, ensure that the timing is right for the trend and for your organization. Because companies want to be right on time. They don’t want to be too early or too late. They have their own mandates to worry about.
Now us as science fiction writers, I use this because I’m setting a story a hundred years out. I am trying to find out what could be. Not necessarily what is today. If you’re writing a story that is much further out, you have a lot more leeway.
Her step five in her six-step funnel is to write scenarios. And this is where we come in as science fiction writers. Scenarios inform the strategy you will create to take the necessary action on a trend.
If you’re working with an organization and you want to write scenarios for them, this is going to be really important to their current decision-making. But as science fiction writers, we could take this step and use it to play with positive futures, what-if scenarios.
If we want to create a world in which fog catchers and dew catchers are normal, well, let’s write a story like that and help people envision what it would be like to be able to capture their own water and create water regeneration cycles and how every household could have one. What might that look like? And then that has real world implications today. People today might start asking, well, yeah, how come we don’t have that? I could put into the story the systemic changes that would have to happen for everyone to be able to have a fog catcher.
Step six of her six-step funnel: Pressure test the future. Are your scenarios comprehensive enough? Is your level of confidence justified? Is the strategy you’re taking the right one for the future? And again, this is for companies and organizations who are thinking about implementation.
For us, we can maybe write the scenario that we want, the positive future. Everyone can catch their own water. And then I would also probably write a story in which how it came about that everyone was able to catch their own water in California.
That’s what this step makes me think about. If I wanted to write a convincing story, I would also need to know the backstory of how this positive future came about.
Her final step is to predict in a global sense, what is the future of that technology and to be able to describe it in a convincing manner.
I really appreciate Amy Webb’s forecasting methodology. It helps me as a science fiction writer and it can help you. I encourage you to check out her book. A link to it is in the show notes.
As a writer and a writing teacher, I really take inspiration from that and I think about: how can you apply it? How can I apply it?
So I hope you can take this material and make it your own and apply it to your story creation.
What signals do you want to be paying attention to so that you can get information input? So that you can sit down and make some decisions about the story that you’re working on.
if you want to stay in touch, follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter @BethBarany or you can write me beth@bethbarany.com.
Well, that’s all for this week. Everyone, write long and prosper.
Loved this episode? Leave us a review and rating here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2012061
or in your podcast home of choice.
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EDITED WITH DESCRIPThttps://www.descript.com?lmref=_w1WCA
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PRODUCTION BY Beth Barany
SHOW NOTES SUPPORT from Kerry-Ann McDade
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For more “How To Write the Future” episodes, go here.
If you’d like to invite Beth onto your podcast, drop her a note here.
The post 05. The Signals Are Talking appeared first on Writer's Fun Zone.
October 29, 2022
04. How To Build A Future World
In today’s latest episode of “How To Write The Future” titled “How to Build a Future World” I share how I build my science fiction world in my Janey McCallister mystery series.
Have a listen to the latest episode on Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Buzzsprout | Amazon Music | Podcast Addict | Podchaser
ABOUT BETH BARANY
Beth Barany is an award-winning novelist, master neurolinguistic programming practitioner, and certified creativity coach for writers, including being a Workshop leader & keynote speaker. Beth has published books in several genres including young adult fantasy, paranormal romance and science fiction.
Learn more about Beth Barany at these sites:
Author site / Coaching site / School of Fiction / Writer’s Fun Zone blog
Resources
Elizabeth Moon: http://www.elizabethmoon.com
Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy (original radio play): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_(radio_series)
Ruby, the Galactic Gumshoe original radio play: https://www.zbs.org/index_new.php/store/ruby
Janey McCallister mystery series: https://author.bethbarany.com/e-books/
Talk to a Writing coach: https://writersfunzone.com/blog/talk-to-a-writing-coach/
SHOW NOTESDo you want to learn how to build an immersive and believable world for your science fiction novel series?
In this episode you will learn: How Beth Barany builds her science fiction world in her Janey McCallister mystery series What inspirations Beth draws from when creating her stories The process she uses to filter her decisions about the worlds she creates and how you can use that process tooDo you want to learn how to build an immersive and believable world for your science fiction novel series?
“The point of sharing my story with you is to help you make decisions and clarify what is your world that you’re building for your story.”
I love listening to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on the radio. I also loved listening to Ruby the Galactic Gumshoe. These are some of my early influences. In this episode, I’m going to share a little bit about how I build my science fiction world in my Janey McCallister mystery series. The series is set 100 years plus in the future. I share a little bit about my process and method because you may find yourself at the beginning of a project or maybe in the editing phase.
In this episode, you will learn the following: How Beth Barany builds her science fiction world in her Janey McAllister mystery series What inspirations Barany draws from when creating her stories The process Barany uses to filter her decisions about the world she is creating.TRANSCRIPT FOR 04. How To Build A Future WorldWhen I was a kid in the seventies I loved listening to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on the radio.
Hi everyone. I’m Beth Barany. I am running a podcast here, How To Write The Future for science fiction writers who want to write positive futures and inject their visions into the marketplace.
I also loved listening to Ruby, the Galactic Gumshoe. That second one is much less well-known obviously. But some of my early influences came through listening to these amazing stories set in these fantastical future kind of worlds.
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was more absurd and funny, but still took us on this amazing galactic journey. Ruby, the Galactic Gumshoe was about a woman, an Android, I pretty sure, solving mysteries and encountering all kinds of creatures.
These are some of my early influences.
In this episode, I’m going to share a little bit about how I build my science fiction world in my Janey McCallister mystery series.
The series is set a hundred years plus in the future. It starts in 2130.
I want to share a little bit about my process and method, because you may find yourself as a science fiction writer in the beginning of a project or maybe in the editing phase of a project where you’re having to make decisions.
Creativity, writing novels, it’s all about making decisions.
So how do I go about making some of my decisions and what are some of my process?
And the point of sharing my story with you is to help you make decisions and clarify what is your world that you’re building for your story?
The first thing I want to talk about is when do I do this world building?
And what tools do I use, and what are some of my inspirations?
I start with world-building in the early stages. I spend time in a planning phase. And then there’s going to be the first drafting phase where I’m usually not world-building through planning things. It’s whatever is ready to come out into the story. And then in the editing phase, I refine a lot of the choices that I’ve already made and make new choices.
The first thing I noticed, and I shared with you in my introduction, is I’m pulling from inspiration.
If any point in the process I’m stuck, I go back to my inspirations, and my inspirations are everywhere. Anywhere from watching Star Trek TV series or movies to reading other people’s science fiction — I especially love Elizabeth Moon — to reading the latest science, technologies coming out of laboratories.
I really allow my curiosity to drive me. I’m also deeply curious about ancient human past and the ancient past of the planet. I’m very curious about the formation of stars and solar systems, and the latest launches by SpaceX and NASA and European Space Agency, and all the other space agencies on the planet.
I’m also feeding my curiosity by looking at a lot of images of the Earth from space as well as distant galaxies. I’m super fascinated by the images, the Webb, the James Webb space telescope has been revealing to us as well as the other space telescopes that have been in operation all these years.
From inspiration, I start asking What If.
What if the next space station that my main character Janey McCallister visits has a different society and economic model? I’ve been playing with a few different ideas and pretty soon I’ll be drafting some notes on those ideas.
The main point about building a future world is I try to filter as many of the decisions as I can about what this world will look like through my character’s point of view. Meaning people are going to read this story entirely from her point of view, from Janey’s point of view. They will know what she knows.
My first job is to write like a Q and A, interviewing my character about what is it that she knows about this new location.
My intent is that every book going forward in the series will be set on a new space station. The first four books were set on just one location, one space station that I got to explore deeply — this really high end hotel casino. Everything we learned about that location was through Janey’s knowledge and experience at that place.
So I want to do the same for the next location for the next book.
I may bring in another character’s point of view, in which case I will interview that character about what it is that they know. Now in my future world, people can have access to all kinds of information very easily, just like today. Of course my character will have done her homework and she will know what’s publicly available to know about that new location.
Some of the things I think about though, before I get deeply in to my character’s perspective is I think about the limitations of the world. What can people and technology not do in this world?
It might be a technology limitation, but it could also be a cultural limitation, which brings me to the norms.
What are the norms of technology and culture and politics?
What things are available? What kind of food is available? What kind of food isn’t available?
One of the things I have made is that coffee is very expensive in my world. Because my future world, I made the decision to have it be after sea levels have risen quite a lot. A lot of the coffee growing regions have been impacted. So there’s fewer coffee growing regions, and it’s very expensive to grow the coffee beans that makes coffee. People drink a lot of coffee derivatives and very good coffee is very expensive.
I allow my curiosity to drive me forward, but I’m also looking at today’s environment, today’s trends, and I’m asking the question: what if.
What if the sea levels rise? What impact is that going to have?
In my story, there are many, many people who’ve had to move. Locations have adapted and have created many floating cities. There are also many space stations in my story. I haven’t ever enumerated exactly how many. I will at some point. It’s not that important right now.
That brings me to another point, which is what is absolutely important to know for this next book.
Since this is book five that I’m building right now, I already know a lot about my world, but I don’t know everything. But I have made some decisions. I know where my main character is traveling to, what is critical for her to be able to go there and do her job.
The first thing I do is ask that question. Questions are so important. They allow our mind to start reaching for the answer.
Your turn.
What are the things you absolutely need to know to be able to write your story?
And what are the things that you’re curious about?
And the other thing that I have developed on my list here of how I world build as I start to daydream about sensory details about this world.
What does it smell like?
Is there a dominant sound in the location?
Is there a certain taste that go along with that location, like only certain kinds of foods are available and not others?
Is there a feeling of the air on her skin — my main character’s skin — that is different here than it is in other locations?
And what does it feel to walk around in the space station? Is the gravity different?
In my future world, I made the decision that artificial gravity was a normal thing. I didn’t explain it. This is very common in a lot of stories. It’s just there. I did spend some time thinking about how it could be generated, but I didn’t actually put it into the story. There is a scientific basis and I have thoughts that live in my backstory material. But is it necessary to the plot? Not necessarily. Maybe. I will think about this and I will brainstorm on this.
These are just some of the things that I do as I look into this next story, some of the questions I ask.
What are the questions for you to ask about the story world that you are building?
And tell me. Let me know how this sparked you.
What questions do you have? What are you still curious about?
Contact me through Twitter or LinkedIn @BethBarany. Email me directly if you’d like: beth@bethbarany.com.
When I work with my clients around world-building I usually start asking them questions.
What are you curious about? What do you want to know more of? And there’s another element, which is how did things come to be this way? Every time and place has a history, usually a pretty long history.
Since I’m creating a world in which there are space stations — who built them? Why did they build them? Why did they build it here?
If you’re writing a story set in the future, it’s been designed the way it is, right? It’s been built generally the way it is. Think about that.
When I’m working with my clients around their world building, I often ask questions that are around the logic of the world they’re building and sometimes something sounds illogical to me that leads them to explore their world deeper.
So if you need accountability, if you need support, if you need a guide, I am a creativity coach for writers and I work with writers to deepen their creative process, gain trust and confidence, so that they can work on their stories with ease.
If you’re curious about that, reach out to me. Talk to me. Discover if we’re a good fit. I’ve left a link in the show notes on how you can do that.
Let me know how your world-building is going. I would love to hear. Until next time.
Write long and prosper.
Connect with meEmail: beth@bethbarany.com
Loved this episode? Leave us a review and rating here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2012061
or in your podcast home of choice.
***
CREDITS EDITED WITH DESCRIPThttps://www.descript.com?lmref=_w1WCA (referral code)
MUSIC CREDITSMusic from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/fuzz-buzz
License code: UMMKDRL02DFGKJ0L. “Fuzz buzz” by Soundroll.
Commercial license: https://musicvine.com/track/soundroll/fuzz-buzz
Distributed by Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1994465 (referral code)
SHOW PRODUCTION BY Beth Barany
SHOW NOTES SUPPORT from Kerry-Ann McDade
***
For more “How To Write the Future” episodes, go here.
If you’d like to invite Beth onto your podcast, drop her a note here.
The post 04. How To Build A Future World appeared first on Writer's Fun Zone.
October 28, 2022
Three Steps to Three Dimensional Characters by Laurel Osterkamp
Let’s welcome back Laurel Osterkamp as she shares with us “Three Steps to Three Dimensional Characters.” Enjoy!
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How do you make sure that your characters–both main and supporting–are three-dimensional?
It can be easier said than done, but if you follow these three steps, you’ll develop characters who are believable, relatable, and compelling.
Need and MotivationYour characters need to want something. And you, the author, need to know what their motivations are.
The first question you should ask yourself before you write each and every scene in your novel is— what do my characters want?
The second question should be– why?
This is how you’ll determine the choices that your characters make, which in turn drives their actions. And their actions will determine the plot of your story.
In other words, your characters’ goals and motivations are what creates the plot of your story.
For example:
In Stephen King’s 11/22/63, Jake, the protagonist, wants to prevent JFK’s assassination by using time travel. Jake is a good person and he truly believes that many of the world’s problems stem from Kennedy being killed.
Jake has other, smaller goals throughout the novel, like wanting to be with the woman he loves, who happens to live in 1963.
It’s these goals that create the plot of the novel, and which lead to inevitable conflict. That brings us to tip #2.
Conflict– Internal and External
In EVERY scene, EVERY character should have both an internal and an external conflict.
If your characters don’t face conflict, then they won’t experience growth.
That means no character arc.
Before you decide that it’s impossible to create two conflicts for every character in every scene, remember that you can reuse and recycle.
For example:
Katniss and Peeta in The Hunger Games. Katniss and Peeta both face an internal conflict throughout the book, in that they’re attracted to each other. But they can’t be together and survive, so they both have the same internal conflict of fighting their attraction.
Their external conflicts are different, and at least for the second half of the novel, those conflicts are pretty consistent. Katniss wants to survive so she can go home and take care of her sister. Peeta wants to protect Katniss.
These conflicts, both internal and external, test their endurance and determination, forcing them to examine what they really want, and to decide what they’re willing to sacrifice to get it. And this leads to an incredible climax, when they’re both about to sacrifice themselves rather than kill each other.
The emotion of that scene is heightened for sure, but it’s also genuine and organic, which brings me to tip #3.
Emotions Through Action and DialogueGround your characters’ emotions in their responses to conflict, and display their emotions through action and dialogue.
We’ve already established that in every scene, your characters will face conflict.
So, how do those conflicts work out, and how does it make your characters feel?
Have they lost or gained anything?
Are they surprised, victorious, nervous, or sad?
Figuring out your characters’ emotional response is the easy part. The hard part is showing it (rather than telling it) to the reader.
The answer? Communicate through description of physical action and/or dialogue.
For example:
In 11/22/63, Stephen King shows the reader Jake’s enduring love for Sadie through this physical description:
Before she can ask about that I slip my arm around her waist. She slips hers around mine, still looking up at me. The lights skate across her cheeks and shine in her eyes. We clasp hands, fingers folding together naturally, and for me the years fall away like a coat that’s too heavy and too tight.
–Stephen King, 11/22/63
In The Hunger Games, we understand the depth of Peeta’s love for Katniss through this exchange of dialogue:
“You have a… remarkable memory.”
“I remember everything about you. You’re the one who wasn’t paying attention.”
-Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
To recap, make your characters want something and know what their motivations are.
Then, throw obstacles at your characters with both internal and external conflicts.
Finally, give your characters interesting things to say and do, by showing their emotional responses through action and dialogue.
If you stick to those three rules, your characters will be so three-dimensional, they’ll practically jump off the page!
***
About the Author
Laurel Osterkamp is from Minneapolis, where she teaches and writes like it’s going out of style. Her short fiction has been featured in Tangled Locks Literary Journal, Bright Flash Literary Journal, and Metawoker Lit, among other places. Her latest novel Favorite Daughters was recently released by Black Rose Writing. (Click here to see the novel on Amazon.)
Website – https://laurellit.com
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/authorlaurelosterkamp
BookBub – https://www.bookbub.com/profile/laurel-osterkamp
The post Three Steps to Three Dimensional Characters by Laurel Osterkamp appeared first on Writer's Fun Zone.
October 26, 2022
03. Defining Positive Futures
In today’s latest episode of “How To Write The Future” podcast titled “Defining Positive Futures,” I discuss values and different models that we live in and answer a few questions that have come in around this notion of positive futures.
Have a listen to the latest episode on: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Buzzsprout | Amazon Music | Podcast Addict | Podchaser
ABOUT BETH BARANYBeth Barany is an award-winning novelist, master neurolinguistic programming practitioner, and certified creativity coach for writers, including being a workshop leader & keynote speaker. Beth has published books in several genres including young adult fantasy, paranormal romance, and science fiction mystery.
Learn more about Beth Barany at these sites:
Author site / Coaching site / School of Fiction / Writer’s Fun Zone blog
SHOW NOTES
“What if we value the art of conversation and truly listening to other people and valuing what they had to say as one of our primary values? Well, now to me, that would be a positive future. No one would be a loser, and everyone would have their needs met.”
I’m an eternal optimist who sees the world through rose-colored glasses. I’ve always been this way, and I’ve learned that there are many benefits to seeing the positive in life. This is what drew me into work on how to write the future. I’m here today to talk about what I mean by positive futures.
A positive future for everyone is what I’m envisioning – where all voices have a place, and everybody has equal access to education, housing, food, and water. I believe that this is possible, and I want to harness our ability to tell stories into visioning what is possible in a positive light.
In this episode, you will learn the following: What are the benefits of seeing the positive in life? What does it mean to have a “win-win” model? How can we bring positive futures into being?Connect with meEmail: Beth@bethbarany.com
Loved this episode? Leave us a review and rating here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2012061
ABOUT HOW TO WRITE THE FUTUREThe 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.
Tips for fiction writers!
This podcast is for you if you have questions like:
How do I create a believable world for my science fiction story?How do figure 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.
TRANSCRIPTI’m an eternal optimist. Definitely seeing the world through rose colored glasses. I’ve always been this way. But not everyone is this way. And I totally understand that. But what I’ve learned is that there are many benefits to seeing the positive in life and searching for the positive in life. And that is one of the things that drew me into this work on How To Write The Future.
This is a podcast for science fiction writers and other creative writers who want to write positive futures and bring those visions into the marketplace.
Hi everyone. I’m Beth Barany. I’m here today to talk to you about what I mean by positive futures.
To that end I will talk a little bit about values and different models that we live, maybe unconsciously, in, and answer a few questions that have come in around this notion of positive futures.
So first off let me attempt to define what I mean by positive futures.
Now, a positive future for everyone is what I’m envisioning, where everybody on the planet and all life can be respected and honored, where all voices have a place, and where everybody has equal access to education, housing, food, and water and medicine, and has a voice in their politics of their location.
Some might say, this is utopia. But actually, if we look at the course of human history, many more people today have access to these things than ever before. So I’m hopeful that even more people can have access to stability, education, housing, food, water, and have agency within the political process of where they live.
That’s what I’m talking about.
in many parts of the world, for the last 500 years or so we’ve been living under a capitalist model that is really designed to have winners and to have losers. And we could also make a case that this model has been existing for longer than that. I mean, just look at the Romans. They were the winners and they conquered territory. They weren’t the only ones. But they were definitely in the win-lose model.
So one of the values that I want to explore is: how do we have win-win?
What that means is learning the art of negotiation and compromise. What if we valued the art of conversation and truly listening to other people and valuing what they had to say as one of our primary values?
Well, now to me, that would be a positive future. No one would be a loser, and everyone would have their needs met.
I’m not here to debate whether this is impossible because I actually believe it is possible. I’ve seen it. Other people have created it. And later on in this podcast, I hope to interview people who are working inside of these models in their organizations and groups.
Building a positive future, number one, also means having hope, and really tuning into some of our amazing abilities as humans, including, and especially our ability to be creative.
Our ability to tell stories is vast. It is incredible how many stories we have been telling over the course of human history. And so I want to harness our ability to tell stories into visioning what is possible in a positive light.
Which brings me to one of the first questions I got: which is, what if people have different ideas on what good values are?
We can see in today’s world that really what’s going on is a clash of values. Not everybody holds the same values. But what if we could have a conversation about that?
What if we could sit around the table virtually or in person — different people with different perspectives — and talk about our values and have a conversation?
So much of the discourse that’s going on today just presupposes that one’s values are the values and everybody else’s or the opposing sides’ values are horrible.
But what if we all got curious about each other’s values?
So let’s bring it back to your story and what you’re working on.
What are the core values of your main character?
What values are the highest in the culture and the world that you have created?
Is there a clash? Does your main character clash with the values of the system that they are inside of, the culture that they are inside of?
Really good stories include character change, what is often called character arc. Sometimes that means that the main character has a shift in values. What they believe to be true and important at the beginning of the story is by the end of the story shifted into something else.
For example, in my very first fantasy novel Henrietta The Dragon Slayer, at the beginning of the story, she values retreat. She thinks she needs to go away to remake herself somewhere else, far away.
That changes completely by the end of the story. I don’t want to offer any spoilers. But what she values by the end of the story is completely different.
That’s a fun kind of story to write.
Are you including awareness of values inside of your story?
I’d be curious to know. Let me know.
You can find me on LinkedIn or Twitter @BethBarany. You can also email me directly: Beth@BethBarany.com.
I got another question which is: how can there be a future where everyone benefits without one group winning or benefiting at the expense of another group?
Humans have built capitalist system that has been exploiting people for hundreds of years and people have assumed that that’s just the way it is. But actually it doesn’t have to be.
This comes back to just two different models. That’s the win-lose model, but what if there was the win-win model?
By asking how can there be a future where everyone benefits, let’s look at some examples.
Collectives are a great example or co-ops.
How do we do that on a society level?
This comes back to an understanding of systems that I touched upon in episode two.
Essentially, every system has a goal.
So is the goal of the system to award others? Some people win and other people lose? That is the goal of the capitalist system. So if we change the goal of capitalism by changing the charters that you know corporations have to file to be a corporation, what if we change the legality about what it meant to be a corporation. And what if we put into the law itself that company’s goal is to benefit the stockholders and the local community, and the workers and the people where they’re extracting resources?
What if we just changed the rules, so that corporation actually had to be sustainable and regenerative and had to actually put back into the environment more than it took out?
We could do that.
What would that look like?
That could look a lot of different ways.
For example, I actually, I know that BMW tracks all the pieces that they use to make their cars. They put serial numbers on it and they have a mandate soon so that when a BMW car has been run to the ground, it can be returned to a factory. And every single piece that made that car, every single part can be put back into production, it can be recycled and can be reused, or if it’s going to be trashed, it would be done in a way that would not harm the environment. I know that’s a goal of theirs. I don’t think they’re there yet.
So, thank you so much for listening.
I’m at early stages of my How To Write The Future content.
This is both a place of inquiry, a place of learning, and a place for you to bring questions to me.
So please bring your questions to me @ Beth Barany on LinkedIn or Twitter or Beth@BethBarany.com. I’m curious to hear what your questions are, what your comments are.
And stay tuned.
Soon I’ll be doing interviews with people in the field, actually working on these problems and bringing the future into being.
My whole goal with this podcast is to talk to people who are actually implementing tools of foresight and strategic planning and futurism.
And how do we bring that back into our storytelling?
Let me know if you have any questions and I will see you in the next episode.
Write long and prosper.
ResourcesPlenty of writing resources available on Writers Fun Zone.
https://writersfunzone.com/blog/?s=writing
***
CREDITSEDITED WITH DESCRIPThttps://www.descript.com?lmref=_w1WCA (referral code)
MUSIC CREDITSMusic from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/fuzz-buzz
License code: UMMKDRL02DFGKJ0L. “Fuzz buzz” by Soundroll.
Commercial license: https://musicvine.com/track/soundroll/fuzz-buzz
Distributed by Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1994465 (referral code)
SHOW PRODUCTION BY Beth Barany
SHOW NOTES SUPPORT from Kerry-Ann McDade
***
For more “How To Write the Future” episodes, go here.
If you’d like to invite Beth onto your podcast, drop her a note here.
The post 03. Defining Positive Futures appeared first on Writer's Fun Zone.
October 25, 2022
Use Your Heartbeat to Write Naturally by Naomi Rose, Book Developer & Creative Midwife
Today we welcome a new guest writer to Writer’s Fun Zone, Naomi Rose who is stopping by to chat with us about “Use Your Heartbeat to Write Naturally.” Enjoy!
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As a Book Developer working with people wanting to write the book of their heart— many of them first-time authors, I began to see a pattern in my clients: they were trying to make themselves sit down and write.
And on a certain level, that self-pushing makes sense– “butt in chair daily,” and all those other maxims and ideas about how to “make yourself” get your writing done.
If that’s what you think is the only way to go about it, then of course you will tend to push—or to procrastinate to avoid doing it.
But what if there’s another way, entirely?
A process so close to home that it’s under the radar of all those “make it happen!” exhortations?
Listening to YourselfWhat if it’s really a matter of being able to listen to yourself, so that your connection to the endless fountain of Inspiration gives you the treasures it seeks to give?
Really, truly, deeply listening to yourself— listening inside with engagement, interest, and trust– encourages an easing into the quieter, knowing place within yourself, your deeper self.
This place is always here, but often we have to remember and to make a shift in consciousness– e.g., away from the busy, doing mind– so that we can say, in delighted amazement, “Oh, here I am!”
Finding Your FocusWhether we focus on the breath, open a portal into some healing imagery, listen to music that attunes us to our heartbeat, or some other way, simply having the intention to be with ourselves and see what wants to be written will open us to an enjoyment of the discovery-in-writing process.
It’s so very easy to get pushed away from yourself in our culture— there are so many pulls on our attention– that trying to write from within such a distracted, perhaps anxious state can’t reach the place inside where our natural wisdom and beauty reside.
That, I believe, is when people seeking to write their book fall into doubt, fear, the “slough of despond”– and tell themselves, “You just don’t have it in you.”
They do have it in them– you do– we all do.
Listening it ForthThe desire to listen to yourself– even just the intention– can in itself bring about a level of connection to what is real in you.
Then, listening to yourself becomes a relationship— an intimate, often inspiring relationship that you want to cultivate.
How do you listen to yourself? There are so many ways. But listening to your heartbeat is very close at hand.
Listening to Your HeartbeatThe heartbeat itself is a way in—and of course, this is always with you. It has rhythm, and paying attention to this rhythm becomes a kind of internal tuning fork: the busy, distracted mind quiets down, and the heart opens up.
This expansiveness can be felt.
And then there is nothing that is out of reach. Whatever is for you in that moment—whether part of a book that you already have begun writing, or a whole new inspiration that you find you want to follow—gives itself to you unfailingly.
Focus Your AttentionYour task is to pay attention to it– not to dismiss it– to follow its rhythms and music, and in the process find that you have brought something forth with your pen that you needed, and you value. And perhaps will want to share with a world that needs it, too.
Books written from this deeper place are alive in the writer, and so they also are alive for the reader.
There is a resonance, a presence, that is transmitted.
This is not to say that the fearful ego won’t ever crop up in the process of writing– but if you know how to return to the deeper place within, much like returning to your heartbeat during a meditation when the mind drags you somewhere else, then you’ll be able to tell the gold from the fool’s gold.
And you’ll be far richer for it.
I hope you will consider availing yourself of your heartbeat– that steady, omnipresent friend– the next time you find yourself pushing yourself to write or avoiding making time to write.
You have a built-in metronome that aligns you with the wisdom of the universe, the music of the spheres.
Once you listen to what it brings you, your fingers holding the pen or poised above your keyboard will be dancing on the page.
“It is a beautiful thing to listen to yourself. When you listen to yourself, you write your own book.” – Sherif Baba
____________
Copyright © 2022 by Naomi Rose. All rights reserved.
***
About the AuthorNaomi Rose is a Book Developer and Creative Midwife, and the creator of the “Writing from the Deeper Self” approach. A visual artist and musician as well as a writer, she brings an intimate, encouraging exploration and artistry to her books so that they reach readers in their deepest heart.
With over 30 years in the publishing industry as an editor, writer, consultant, and illustrator, she brings this sensibility and expertise to her work with book-writing clients as well as her own books. Her own books are often explorations into things she doesn’t know to start with; she learns through experience as the writing proceeds, and shares this approach with her clients and readers to bring them closer to their true selves. But just as important is her passion for bringing out the innate gifts in her clients and in her readers.
Naomi offers a weekly Co-Writing Sanctuary month by month, so that people who want to write the book of their heart can do so in an intimate (online) space of shared solitude. “That was probably the best writing group experience I have ever had, and the most surprising feeling of sanctuary and grace. Your beautiful voice, wise words, kindness, and encouragement … what an incredible feat you pulled off transcending technology, distance, and time to bring us together in such blessed energy.”—Jane Majkiewicz, writer, editor, former literary agency associate. The October Co-Writing Sanctuary is open for continuing and new participants. For details and registration: https://www.naomirose.net/co-writing-sanctuary
Her books include: Starting Your Book: A Guide to Navigating the Blank Page by Listening to What’s Inside You.
Naomi can be reached at: naomirosedeepwrite@yahoo.com, or through her website, https://www.naomirose.net
The post Use Your Heartbeat to Write Naturally by Naomi Rose, Book Developer & Creative Midwife appeared first on Writer's Fun Zone.
October 24, 2022
02. Stepping into Another’s Shoes: Introduction to Writing Optimistic Stories About the Future
In the second episode of “How To Write The Future” titled “Stepping into Another’s Shoes,” I share my ability to slip into other people’s perspectives and about writing optimistic stories.
A skill I have used in tutoring and then eventually teaching and coaching.
Have a listen to the latest episode on Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Buzzsprout | Amazon Music | Podcast Addict | Podchaser
ABOUT BETH BARANY
Beth Barany is an award-winning novelist, master neurolinguistic programming practitioner, and certified creativity coach for writers, including being a workshop leader & keynote speaker. Beth has published books in several genres including young adult fantasy, paranormal romance and science fiction.
Learn more about Beth Barany at these sites:
Author site / Coaching site / School of Fiction / Writer’s Fun Zone blog
SHOW NOTES
I have always been able to see things from other people’s perspectives, which helps me be a very good writer and teacher, but when I start taking on their beliefs and habits, it can become a problem. So, I had to learn some tools to help me and that can help you too.
In this episode, you will learn: How does Beth Barany’s ability to slip into other people’s perspectives help her be a good writer and teacher? What is systems thinking and how can it be applied to storytelling? What are some of the different mental models of looking at the world?“I am constantly growing in this space and that is so exciting.”
As a kid, I would automatically slip into a character’s perspective from a story or a movie. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was stepping into their shoes. I was taking on their perspective. I was even taking on some of their beliefs and habits of speech and mannerisms. This ability of mine to slip into other people’s shoes has actually helped me be a very good writer and teacher… and can help you too.
Summary1) When Beth was a kid, she didn’t realize that she could see things from other people’s perspectives so easily. Now that she’s an adult, she has used that skill to become a good teacher and coach. As a fiction writer, she is interested in creating positive futures, unlike the world we live in today.
2) Beth Barany is the creator of the how to Write the Future podcast. She explains how to understand systems thinking and how it can help us create new stories. She also shares the show notes and a lecture on thinking and systems by Donnella Meadows. In upcoming episodes of the How To Write the Future podcast, she’ll talk about systems thinking and how we can apply that to the worlds that we bring into being through our novels and fiction.
3) Beth Barany is in the early stages of exploring the material from her podcast. She invites you to join the conversation about how to write the future on Twitter or LinkedIn @BethBarany or email her at beth@bethbarany.com.
TRANSCRIPTWhen I was a kid, I didn’t realize, I was seeing things from other people’s perspectives so easily.
But now that I’m an adult, I see that I have used that skill quite brilliantly in tutoring and then eventually teaching and coaching. What that meant was I would feel people’s intense emotions that weren’t always mine. That still happens today. I’m totally not in conscious control of it. This does mean, on the one hand, it makes me a good teacher and a coach.
But on the other hand, it means I need to constantly clear my energy and reset at least three to five times a day, usually by walking, or puttering in my garden, or doing the dishes.
So, what does this mean as a fiction writer? Especially one focused on writing the future and especially because I am interested in creating positive futures unlike the world that we live in today.
Hi everyone. I’m Beth Barany, and I run How To Write The Future podcast.
I’m here today to talk to you about other people’s views of the world and how understanding those can help us create new stories.
So, as I said, when I was young, I didn’t quite realize that I was able to step into other people’s shoes so easily. But this has really helped me as a fiction writer and it’s helped me understand new possibilities and new visions of the world. I feel like I am constantly growing in this space and that is so exciting. And that is one of the motivations that has brought me to create this podcast on how to write the future.
There are some requirements and learning how to step into other people’s shoes. And one of them is trusting what comes up. And also knowing, like I said, how to clear out other people’s energies so that I could listen to myself and discover what it was that I was designing for my story worlds.
But I also found that it was confusing at first. It was confusing because I didn’t realize I was so often stepping into other people’s experiences and their emotions and their thoughts and their feelings. But in the course of my research and working on my own science fiction series, I stumbled upon systems thinking.
And I became a huge fan because all of a sudden, it coalesced some things that I had been studying for years, but never quite putting my finger on it.
Systems thinking is an awareness that we’re all inside of systems, multiple systems. Our family is a great example of a system. So is our schools, our places of worship, our extended families. And of course our town or city, the state or region, but also other things like the water system that is set up in our town or city, and even the water cycle of the planet.
And then focusing on our bodies. Our bodies are a collection of interlocking and highly dependent systems and very complex systems. We even name the systems in our body.
Like the circulatory system or the endocrine system.
Another factor about systems is they’re complicated. They’re complex. They’re are sometimes very hard to predict.
But they all have one thing in common.
A goal.
For example, the goal of the body system is to keep us alive. The goal of the family system is to support growth, ideally, and help bring about the next generation so they can procreate and bring in the next generation. And so on.
The goal of democracy is ruled by and for the people. That’s a designed system. The goal of capitalism as we have designed it to date is to make money for the shareholders.
Systems are either designed by humans. Or created by nature.
We’re shaping the natural environment as well. We’re affecting the systems in the natural environment. The natural environment has affected us, has created us.
So when it comes back to storytelling and how to create the future, it really, really helps to understand what are the systems operating inside of your story.
You can look at it as the political systems, the cultural systems, the social systems, the interpersonal systems.
And then look at your own life. Notice what kind of systems are you living inside of now?
When I’m working on designing future worlds in my science fiction series and even worlds in my fantasy series, I use the environment as I observe it in our own world as my baseline, as, as a jumping off ground.
So I encourage you to look at your own life in your own environment, and notice the kinds of systems that you are living inside of.
Where is the room for change in your own life? Where do you wish was room for change in your own life?
What are the systems that impact you?
What are the systems that you get to influence?
Now think of your story, what kind of systems do you want to create in the story?
When I’m working on stories, especially at the earliest stages of the planning, I look to what I truly desire, and then I look to the story and how could I put those ideas into the environment that my investigator goes to.
There are a lot of amazing resources on understanding systems thinking. In fact. I was inspired to start to understand systems in a broader perspective especially starting with Donella Meadows book, Thinking In Systems. That information is in the show notes.
Additionally, she has a wonderful lecture on YouTube that I’ll also share the show notes that’s pretty contemporary to, to us today. And then if you want to get a look into how Donella was as a younger professor you can watch also on YouTube some of her earlier lectures.
If we are going to create new ways of being in the world, we need to create new systems, new political systems, new environmental systems, the ways we interact with our environment, new systems of, of money currency, new educational systems.
But if we don’t actually understand how systems operate, we could feel at the mercy of them.
So in upcoming episodes, I will be diving deeper into systems thinking and how we can apply that to the worlds that we bring into being through our novels, through our fiction.
I do want presence another place where I was educated on systems. And that’s in family constellations work.
This is looking at the family as a system, and then there’s other more systemic constellations, which is about recognizing how a company or a school or an organization is a system and these methodologies are, how can I say, they aren’t operating in the mundane world. They’re definitely operating in other levels. And so I will come back to these kinds of systems and discuss this framework as well.
The point of my podcast, How To Write The Future, is also to help you start to recognize that there are many, many mental models of looking at the world.
When I was a child, I would automatically and effortlessly slip into a character’s perspective from a story or a movie, slip into other people’s perspectives who, who weren’t from the town I was living in. Maybe a family member from halfway across the country, or somebody from another country was visiting us. And then all of a sudden I felt like I was them and I was seeing the world through their eyes. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was stepping into their shoes. I was taking on their perspective.
I was even taking on some of their beliefs and I’d even take on some of their habits of speech and mannerisms.
This was a little jarring to the adults around me who looked at me like I was a bit odd.
Well, That’s the life of a creative.
I’ve since learned that this ability of mine to slip into other people’s shoes has actually helped me be a very good writer, and teacher and coach.
So your turn.
Take some of the ideas that we learned today about systems and start to put on that lens, like a new pair of glasses. And notice all the systems in your life.
As I am in the early stages of exploring all this material in my podcast, I really thank you so much for coming along with me.
If you have any questions about how to write the future, let me know. Reply to me on Twitter or LinkedIn @ BethBarany. I invite you to join me in this conversation.
I am really curious to hear what you’re curious about. This is a co-created journey.
And I really thank you so much for listening. Write long and prosper.
WHY I STARTED THE PODCASTI have always loved science fiction and fantasy, the worlds, as much as the adventures. But I know how it can be a struggle to build those immersive worlds. So I was excited to create the “How to Write the Future” podcast for science fiction writers who want to write positive futures.
ResourcesDonella Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer
https://books2read.com/thinkinginsystems
Start here for Dana (Donella) Meadows Lecture: Sustainable Systems (Part 1 of 4)
A Philosophical Look at System Dynamics by Donella Meadows (YouTube)
What is Family Constellations?
https://www.hellingerinstitute.com/what-is-family-constellations/
Connect with Beth BaranyLoved this episode? Leave us a review and rating on your podcast service.
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CREDITSEDITED WITH DESCRIPThttps://www.descript.com?lmref=_w1WCA (referral code)
MUSIC CREDITSMusic from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/fuzz-buzzLicense code: UMMKDRL02DFGKJ0L. “Fuzz buzz” by Soundroll.
Commercial license: https://musicvine.com/track/soundroll/fuzz-buzz
Distributed by Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1994465 (referral code)
SHOW PRODUCTION BY Beth Barany
SHOW NOTES SUPPORT from Kerry-Ann McDade
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The post 02. Stepping into Another’s Shoes: Introduction to Writing Optimistic Stories About the Future appeared first on Writer's Fun Zone.