Life is too short to not express the innate creativity inside of you. Host Melissa Dinwiddie features individuals and organizations who are approaching life and work creatively, playfully, and innovatively — making a difference, or living life "in full color”— in other words, living the principles of her book The Creative Sandbox Way™. Along the way, Melissa shares practical tips on creativity, productivity, innovation, and leadership. Melissa Dinwiddie is author of The Creative Sandbox Way™ ...
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The How to Write The Future Podcast offers fiction writing tips for science fiction and fantasy authors who want to create optimistic stories because when we vision what is possible, we help make it so. By science fiction and fantasy author and fiction writing coach, Beth Barany.
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118. Dealing with Perfectionism, Interview with Melissa Dinwiddie, part 3
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“If you are having fun and you're playing and you're experimenting, it is all gonna feed into what you're doing.” -- Melissa Dinwiddie In this How To Write the Future episode, “Dealing with Perfectionism, Interview with Melissa Dinwiddie, part 3” podcast host Beth Barany wraps up her interview with former professional artist and trained improviser,…
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119. Using Games to Design our Futures with Randy Lubin, part 1
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“I think games are excellent at building intuition for complex systems, and if you're trying to think through the future, trying to get a grasp of the system dynamics and second order effects and points of leverage are all super helpful.” --Randy Lubin In this episode of How To Write the Future podcast, host Beth Barany interviews game designer and…
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117. Let's Play A Game, Interview with Melissa Dinwiddie, Part 2
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“I'm leading people through some kind of an activity. So often when I tell people that I use play-based methods, or particularly if I tell people that I use improv, they will often jump to the conclusion that I'm doing some kind of role playing.” -- Melissa Dinwiddie In this How To Write the Future episode, “Let's Play A Game, Interview with Meliss…
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116. Bring Improv to Your Life, Interview with Melissa Dinwiddie, Part 1
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“So every day after breakfast, I lead these creative catalyzing sessions, which is basically a bunch of improv games to get people laughing and moving. And people will say often that it's their favorite part of the retreat.“ --Melissa Dinwiddie In this latest How To Write the Future episode, “Bring Improv to Your Life, Interview with Melissa Dinwid…
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115. How to bring magical elements into your contemporary story (Q&A)
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“It's very common in the urban fantasy genre for there to be a group of magical beings of various kinds.” In the latest How To Write the Future episode, host Beth Barany answers a question from a listener on “How to bring magical elements into your contemporary story (Q&A)” and shares what elements to consider. Beth also shares about her gift, the …
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“Do you need to think bigger? Do you need to think of a map that would encompass all of your story worlds, and maybe they're all connected.” In this How To Write the Future episode, “How do I rein in all my ideas? (Q&A),” host Beth Barany answers a listener’s question on how to manage so many ideas for your story and hint: it has something to do wi…
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“You want the reader to experience backstory from the perspective of your point of view character, who is living in the present and responding and going after their goal and accounting obstacles.“ In this podcast episode of How To Write The Future, host Beth Barany answers a question from a listener on where and how to add the backstory in your nov…
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112. How do I know if I’ve added too many details to my novel? (Q&A)
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“How do you tell if there are too many details? It all comes down to the reader experience. What is the reader experience that you want your readers to have?” In this episode of How To Write The Future podcast, host Beth Barany answers a question from a historical romance writer about how to strike the right balance of detail in your novel and how …
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111. The Challenge of Imagining Thrutopias with Jennifer Browdy, Pt. 2 of 2
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“I think maintaining our own individual health is a really important part of being able to contribute to broader social health.” -- Jennifer Browdy In this latest How To Write the Future podcast episode, host Beth Barany continues her conversation with Jennifer Browdy, PhD Professor of Comparative Literature & Media Arts, publisher of Green Fire Pr…
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110. The Challenge of Imagining Thrutopias with Jennifer Browdy, Pt. 1 of 2
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“Human creativity, the amazing thing about it is that we can come up with a thought that's never been thought before. We have these dreams that come to us that are totally unique and nobody but each one of us can have that particular perspective tied into our life experience and our culture and our location and who we are uniquely.“ — Jennifer Brow…
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109. Interview with Michael Kilman, Co-Author of Build Better Worlds, part 2 of 2
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“Every culture is telling different stories to some degree. And when we share our each other's stories and we read and learn and engage and practice empathy, then we stand a better chance of understanding the ways in which our diversity is a tool for the future.” --Michael Kilman Follows on from the mini-series where host of the How To Write The Fu…
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108. Interview with Michael Kilman, Co-Author of Build Better Worlds, part 1 of 2
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“I think if you're writing truthfully, because that's what we're trying to do a lot of times as author, telling a good story, but being honest in our writing and in terms of the human experience, I think it really helps to have some sort of guidepost for how do we build these human experiences?” -- Michael Kilman Following on from the mini series w…
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“I want to encourage you to have it rooted in heart. In fact, I bet you, it already is. What you care about is what you're writing about. So, Where is the heart in your work?” In “The Name of the Game is Change” episode, novelist and podcaster, Beth Barany, reflects on her two-year anniversary of How To Write the Future podcast and shares what she …
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“Humans have been shaping culture from the very beginning. And we are obviously continuing to do so even today. And. I really believe that through the stories we tell ourselves, through the stories we tell each other through our art and all the mediums of art, we're actually impacting what is possible for the human race, for human culture, and in a…
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“All this to say, exercise your creativity. Find ways to put disparate things that don't normally go together, put them together and see what happens. Ask yourself: "What if...?" Such a powerful question. Every day find ways to learn something new, do something new, go someplace new.” In “Your Creativity vs. ChatGPT” How To Write the Future podcast…
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“I will invite you to bring all the parts of you into creating an author marketing goal or goals. And a plan, a plan that is doable, sustainable, and oh my gosh, fun.” In this episode, “Upcoming Writerly Events, June 2024” How To Write The Future podcast host, Beth Barany, shares with listeners the online events she’s taking part in this month, Jun…
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103. Economics: More Than Money and Markets (Build Better Worlds, 4 of 4)
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“My point here is I want to encourage you that even if you don't see anybody else crafting the kind of story, or living the kind of life that you are, that number one, you're actually not alone because all artists are trying to do that. Uh, or those of us who are on the edge. Uh, a cutting edge. And, it's important, the work you're doing, so please…
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102. The Sacred: Religion and Mysticism (Build Better Worlds, 3 of 4)
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“So how does religion or mysticism fit into your story and how can you make it complex and nuanced and not homogeneous, which is the authors here say is one of the biggest problems they see in people's fictional worlds.” In this episode, “The Sacred: Religion and Mysticism (Build Better Worlds, 3 of 4),” podcast host of How To Write The Future, Bet…
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101. Myth, Imagined Past, and Cultural Purity in Fiction (Build Better Worlds, 2 of 4)
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“So I lived in France. After the meal, we would have cheese for dessert. That was a common dessert. And when I was in the country, outside of Paris in the Dijon area, dessert was pears and cheese. That was like, oh, the best dessert to be paired with the venison that we had. So of course the French are very keen on pairing their desserts and their …
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100. What is Cultural Context? (Build Better Worlds, 1 of 4)
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“Assumptions are great. What are our conscious and subconscious assumptions of the culture?” In this episode of How To Write the Future, podcast host Beth Barany celebrates her 100th episode with a special thanks to listeners and then dives into a discussion of the book Build Better Worlds by Michael Kilman and Kyra Wellstrom, with a focus on the i…
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“When it comes to telling a story or crafting or condensing it into a book or a film, what kind of story do you want to tell? And I think that first question is, do I wanna tell an allegorical tale? Or what I'll call a world building tale, just for simplicity between the two.” -- Andrew Zimba In “World Building with Andrew Zimba,” How To Write the …
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98. Feminine Sovereignty, Envisioning Positive Futures, and Revolution with Maggie Ostara (part 2)
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“We are the culture makers. And your book, I feel, really invites people into that in such a beautiful way. “ -- Beth Barany In this episode of How To Write the Future, podcast host Beth Barany talks with Amazon bestselling author, Maggie Ostara about the concept of feminine sovereignty, the evolution of sovereignty, and about Thrutopia as a way to…
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97. Storytelling to Share Complex Ideas with Maggie Ostara (part 1)
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“Human brains work. We live in story.” -- Maggie Ostara In this episode of How To Write the Future, podcast host Beth Barany talks with Amazon Bestselling author, Maggie Ostara. Together they discuss the concept of Feminine Sovereignty explored in Maggie's book “Feminine Sovereignty: 8 Pillars for Regenerating Ourselves and Our World.” They delve i…
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96. Confidence and Purpose with Writing Coach, Kirsten McNeill
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“I really wanna be able to help writers focus on themselves, be themselves, figure out what they wanna write, and create, a community and a, a library of fiction novels or any kind of novels that they've written and live life and have fun because we need more of that positivity and that sunshine in the world.” In “Confidence and Purpose with Writin…
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“Editing is challenging. So whenever you get lost, feel overwhelmed, confused, just in a state about the editing process, come back to your goal, motivation, conflict about why you write. " “Know Yourself” In episode 95 of the How To Write the Future podcast, Beth Barany explains the importance of knowing why you write, focusing on your strengths, …
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94. Tropes for Fiction Writing with Jennifer Hilt
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“I'm trying to be creative and original and all that and so I was like, thinking, yes, but how come we need to have these words in common in order to build a story?” -- Jennifer Hilt In this episode of How To Write the Future, podcast host Beth Barany talks with USA Today Bestselling author of The Trope Thesaurus, Horror Trope Thesaurus, and Trope …
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93. Know Your Genre and Characters, part 3 of 4
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“Take the expectations of the genre and spin it. That's our job, is to take what's expected and play around and work through multiple iterations.” Know Your Genre and Characters. In episode 93 of the How To Write the Future podcast, host Beth Barany explains the importance of knowing your genre, shares about reader expectations and tropes, and abou…
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92. Creative Writing and AI with Adam Fleming
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"You can tell them what a brain freezes, but they'll never feel it. That's right." -- Adam Fleming In “Creative Writing and AI,” How To Write the Future podcast host Beth Barany talks to author, leadership coach, and hybrid publisher, Adam Fleming about the positives and negatives of using AI for creative writing, the origins for Adam’s fantasy ser…
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91. Transform Your Novel with These 7 Editing Tips for Bestselling Success, part 2 of 4
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“Creativity is our superpower. With the power of our imagination and bringing in curiosity, courage, compassion, and connection.” Transform Your Novel with These 7 Editing Tips for Bestselling Success, part 2 of 4, in episode 90, of the How To Write the Future podcast. Host Beth Barany talks about what it takes to be a bestseller, why not every wri…
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90. How do I not overload background into my stories? Story Success Clinic
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“Stories are dynamic. Stories need to have action, movement. Stories need to have goals that the character is trying to pursue.” In this Story Success Clinic session, How To Write Future podcast host, Beth Barany, answers one the biggest questions she’s often asked as a writing coach “How do I not overload background into my stories?” and uses the …
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89. Transform Your Novel with These 7 Editing Tips for Bestselling Success, part 1 of 4
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“We need courage to do anything creative in life. And I invite you to step into your courage. And decide if now is the time to come and edit your novel with us because creativity is our superpower.” Transform Your Novel with These 7 Editing Tips for Bestselling Success, part 1 of 4, in episode 88, of the How To Write the Future podcast. Host Beth B…
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88. Exciting news! Fun Changes to the podcast!
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“My mission for this podcast is to really empower you with tools and resources so that you can sit down and write your story because I believe that our stories really do shape the world. They shape our readers and they influence our readers.” How To Write the Future host, Beth Barany, creativity coach, teacher, and science fiction and fantasy novel…
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87. Special Sneak Peek! The Henrietta The Dragon Slayer film!
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“I create magical tales of romance, mystery, and adventure to empower you to be the hero of your own life.” In this How To Write the Write Future podcast episode, host Beth Barany shares about her upcoming film project, why she is making the project, plus news of an upcoming Kickstarter fundraiser and how you can get involved. ABOUT THE HOW TO WRIT…
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“We all have different life paths and goals and strengths and interests. And I think we need to exercise our imagination and talk to each other about what we would really like for the future.” In the latest How To Write the Write Future podcast episode, host Beth Barany shares an overview of the upcoming event “Teach The Futures for World Futures D…
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85. Collaborative Writing, Story Success Clinic
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“So conflict is when it's between two very difficult choices that look bad, that feel bad, that are bad, that imply emotional or psychological pain, or of course, physical pain or death. Or conflict can also be between two very good things, but you just can't have one or the other.” — BETH BARANY In the latest How To Write the Future episode, host …
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84. Why do we procrastinate on our writing?
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"When you make an appointment with yourself for your writing, put it in your calendar and treat it as sacred.” In this week’s How To Write the Future podcast episode, host creativity coach for writers, Beth Barany, answers a listener's question: “Why do we procrastinate on our writing?” and shares how to show up for yourself and make writing a prio…
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83. The Power of Community, Interview with Kimberly Nightingale
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“Youth need to be invited to all of the places where adults are, and that's how they learn and that's how they grow and that's how they become adults themselves.” - Kimberly Nightingale In this interview episode on How To Write the Future, host Beth Barany talks with Kimberley Nightingale, whose PhD focus in urban studies about belonging in cities …
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82. Upcoming 2024 Events in the Futurists and Foresight World
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“We need to exercise our imaginations so that we can create better futures for all of us.” In this How To Write the Future podcast episode, host Beth Barany shares “Upcoming 2024 Events in the Futurists and Foresight World” and shares how to download her free world-building booklet for fiction writers. ABOUT THE HOW TO WRITE THE FUTURE PODCAST The …
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81. Good-Bad Girls, Barbie, and Other Wild Women Archetypes, Interview with Vanessa Sage, part 2
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“… I did have that moment like Barbie did, where this existential crisis, this journey to the underworld and I let go of everything and let go of it all. And in the process, I came back to the core and the root of my essence and who I've always been, and it's just one of delight.” -- Vanessa Sage In this second part of a two-part interview on How T…
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80. Barbie and the Wild Woman Archetype, Interview with Vanessa Sage
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“It's easy to be dismissed as a woman, but then it's also easy to be dismissed for being a challenging and a strong woman.” - Vanessa Sage In this exciting first episode of a two-part interview on How To Write the Future, host Beth Barany talks with trained mindfulness-based coach, teacher, writer, and conscious leadership and business mentor, Vane…
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“I'm going to highlight a few episodes from the past that I really enjoyed doing. So let's get started. And stay tuned to the end to hear about a special gift for you.” In this latest How To Write the Future podcast episode, host Beth Barany shares her Top 6 Favorite Episodes from the podcast in 2023 (and one from 2022). Beth also shares how you ca…
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“So for 2024, what is your big heart goal? If you can have anything that you wanted, and there you are on December 31st, 2024. And you're looking back over the year and you're like, wow. I did it. What is that one thing above all, above everything? And come from the heart. Really come from a place of - what you truly desire. Because the world needs…
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77. Favorite Interviews from How To Write The Future , part 2
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“Welcome back for another top five favorite interviews episode. I'm going to introduce each one. Hope you enjoy them. And stay tuned for a little goody at the end.” In this special episode of How To Write the Future podcast, host Beth Barany shares clips from five of her favorite interviews featuring Russell Nohelty, Joe Tankersley, Denise Baden, N…
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76. Favorite Interviews from How To Write The Future , part 1
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“Highlighting today five of my favorite interviews from the past of How To Write The Future.” In this special episode of How To Write the Future podcast, host Beth Barany shares clips from five of her favorite interviews from past episodes featuring Keri Kruspe, Cat Tully, Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer, and Melissa Clarke-Reynolds. Beth also invites liste…
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75. Inspire Green Behaviors with Denise Baden, Part 2
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“It seems like really the first step for writers is focus on the solution. Focus on what experts are saying, are doing, are thinking, are discussing, and then write toward that-- the resolution.” -Denise Baden In this episode of the "How To Write The Future" podcast, “Inspire Green Behaviors with Denise Baden, Part 2,” host Beth Barany discusses wi…
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74. What is Thrutopia with Denise Baden, part 1
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“First, it's about imagination. What can we imagine better? And then it's about, well, how can we change our incentive systems? How can we change our systems with policies, different incentives?” - Beth Barany In this episode of the "How To Write The Future" podcast, “What is Thrutopia with Denise Baden, part 1,” host Beth Barany discusses with Den…
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"It took me a while to get to this point, but I printed out my entire manuscript. And held it in my hands. And that was incredible. Just to feel the weight of all those pages." - Beth Barany In this episode of "How To Write The Future" podcast, “73. NaNoWriMo is nearly over. So now what?” host Beth Barany discusses with her husband, fellow author, …
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72. Making the World Better with Storytelling featuring Joe Tankersley
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“We're in a time where if we continue to believe only in the negative possibilities, then we won't make the effort to create positive tomorrows.” - Joe Tankersley In “Episode 72. Making the World Better with Storytelling featuring Joe Tankersley,” host Beth Barany, creativity coach, teacher, and science fiction and fantasy novelist, talks to storyt…
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71. How to Handle Backstory, A Story Success Clinic with Amy Johnson
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“So here instead of telling and this is kind of an advanced tool to be a deep point of view is that we don't want to say she felt or she thought, but we could just show by saying: there was, and that's one way to do it. There was is not the most elegant term but this keeps us in her point of view because we don't go around thinking, I'm thinking, I…
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70. Editing Tips to Help You Avoid Information Overload
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“Stories come alive when they're told from the perspective of a character.” In “70. Editing Tips to Help You Avoid Information Overload” host Beth Barany, creativity coach, teacher, and science fiction and fantasy novelist, answers a listener's question about when to stop adding ideas to your story and if it’s possible to kill your story by overwor…
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