Subject: Collaboration in Storytelling ❤️ 📚

❤️ Hi! 👋🏼 Beth here to empower you with core principles, mindset tools, and doable roadmaps to build your sustainable, thriving creative career on your own terms.

🐲 🚀 Yup, I'm passionate about supporting science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction writers; and creative entrepreneurs serving writers.

Collaboration in Storytelling ❤️ 📚

Let's jump right in!

Weekly Podcast

Excited to bring you this week's How To Write The Future podcast episode:

🎧 Ep. 179. Building Character-Driven Action Adventure Stories with Lawrence Connolly
https://writersfunzone.com/blog/2025/11/17/building-character-driven-action-adventure-stories-with-lawrence-connolly/

Also in this newsletter:

Upcoming writer events and sales by my buddies!
Survey: ask your questions for upcoming episodes
Latest Writer's Fun Zone posts
Writer's Block resources

❤️

** This email may show up long in your inbox, so you may need to click to expand and to read the full email. Or read online.

Friday, Nov. 21, 2025

Hi Friend,

Recently while I was networking with my filmmaking colleagues, a new person to our group told me she listens to my podcast and her nephew read my Henrietta The Dragon Slayer trilogy.

I was gratefully stunned! So wonderful to see my marketing efforts pay off.

Yup, first time that kind of thing has happened!

❤️

Collaboration in Storytelling

“Whatever the problem, community is the answer.”

- Quote used by permission from Margaret J. Wheatley,

www.margaretwheatley.com

Who can you turn to for feedback and support? Collaboration and high fives?

We writers succeed when we come together to connect, share successes and war stories, and offer new perspectives.

Have you found your writing community?

If not, I believe you can find your writing communities...

Let me know what you need.

Need resources? Ideas?

Hit reply and ask.

My email inbox is open.

❤️

Excited to share with you the news of the week, including an upcoming editing intensive for romance writers by my friend and excellent editing teacher, Sue-Brown Moore:

Learn to revise your romance novels like an editor - a 3-week revision course.

This looks amazing! And from my experience, a great deal.

Registration opens today Sat Nov. 21 and closes Wed., Nov. 26. Sign up for Sue's newsletter here to get all the news.

❤️

Serious about learning how to market via email?

That's my preferred method!

Then, check out Liz Wilcox's Email Marketing Membership!

Her annual sale for her annual pass lands next week.

She's fun and funny and offers extremely practical advice that's fun to apply to connecting with readers. (Three funs!)

Check her out for yourself and see if you like her vibe. (Affiliate link)

❤️

Stacy Juba, the founder of Shortcuts for Writers, will have daily deals next week.

How it works: Each day from Nov. 24-28, she’ll be offering a new Black Friday deal.

Each offer will be available for 24 HOURS ONLY.

Daily sales kick off at 9 a.m. EST. Once the deal is gone, it’s gone.

I'll share her cool deals on writer tools and self-paced courses starting Monday, Nov. 24.

And you can get calendar reminders for them here. (Affiliate link)

❤️

Short Story Publication Challenge!

Check out Joe's challenge at The Write Practice here.

❤️

And, I will be running a few Black Friday sales on my ebooks and courses with some awesome bonuses, including a 30-minute coaching session with me!

Coming soon! Black Friday Sale on all our nonfiction books and course! 50% off E-Book Bundle for Fiction Writers! And 50% off the All-Access Pass to over 20 courses for fiction writers.
Plus discounts on all my fiction!
The BF sales will drop Nov. 24th, 6am PT/9am ET.

❤️

On to the podcast!

On to the weekly podcast...

Building Character-Driven Action Adventure Stories with Lawrence Connolly

"Written from the point of view of one character and then another scene from the another character. Now, we would never shift point of view within a scene, but each scene, each segment of the book is from a different point of view."

- Lawrence Connolly

In this How To Write the Future episode, I interviewed author, Lawrence Connolly.

Lawrence shared about his latest book, Minute Men: Execute & Run (my review here), his upcoming feature film.

Together we dove into using deep POV to create characters that are emotionally compelling to draw a reader into the author's world.

Enjoy!

All the places to listen to this week's podcast:

Listen on Buzzsprout

Apple Podcast

Spotify

YouTube (Watch us too!) (Like and Subscribe!)

Writers Fun Zone

The How To Write The Future podcast is for science fiction and fantasy writers who want to write positive futures and successfully bring those stories out into the marketplace.

Share with your friends!

Thanks!

🤩 Sneak peek

In the next episode, Ep. 180, I share my interview with author‑filmmaker Abigail Hing Wen about The Vale — a middle‑grade fantasy where a family builds a clean, AI‑generated virtual world.

Stay tuned!

Where you listen to podcasts, be sure to like, follow, subscribe to How To Write The Future -- all the things!

🚀

When we vision what is possible, we help make it so.

Since 2022. 179 episodes to date. Over 22,000 downloads.

Distributed by Buzzsprout. (Referral link)

Edited with Descript. (Referral Link)

It takes a village. Thanks team!

SHOW CO-PRODUCTION + NOTES by Kerry-Ann McDade
EDITORIAL SUPPORT by Iman Llompart

❤️🥇▶️ Follow the podcast on YouTube!

⭐️ 🎧🎙️ All previous episodes of How To Write The Future podcast listed here.

❤️

🎙️ Help shape the next podcast episodes

Over the next 9 days, I’m recording 3-6 "teaching hat" episodes for the How To Write The Future podcast and want your real writing-related questions.

Thanks for your great questions -- keep 'em coming!

Small, big, weird—bring it on!

Please fill out this short form.

Use the short form to submit and you can choose to be named or stay anonymous.

Your questions will guide the next few months of the show, so we can make episodes that genuinely move your writing forward.

Thank you! You rock because you're you!

❤️

Happy Writing!

Best,

Beth

PS. We're already scheduling our 2026 event calendar! Wow!

Here are some of the upcoming events!

😍 Bailey Lang will teach on Habits of Mind, January 21, 11am PT. I'm producing and she'll be doing an in-depth writing workshop for you. Registration opens in a few weeks.

🚀 In March, Gala Russ and I will be running our first "Find Your Creative Entrepreneur Niche -- Challenge for Writers Serving Writers" -- March 20-24. Stay tuned!

📚 I'll be teaching in Lorin Oberweger's Free Expressions: (Topics TBD) (Any special requests let me know! Get on her list to get all the details. Save the dates!

April 9, 4:30pm PT
May 14, 4:30pm PT

🎙️ And I'm excited to announce that I'll be speaking at Alexa Bigwarfe's Marketing Bootcamp for Authors and Publishing Professionals, June 12-13, 2026.

🌟 If you find my resources helpful, please forward them to a friend who may need them too. Thanks!

Beth Barany
Creativity Coach for Writers

Teacher, Speaker, Workshop Facilitator
bethbarany.com

I not only teach and coach novelists, I am one too!

*Magical Tales of Romance, Mystery, and Adventure* author.bethbarany.com

Including the award-winning, Henrietta The Dragon Slayer (Book 1), and Into The Black, about Janey McCallister space station investigator (Book 1)

__________________________

Writer's Fun zone blog by and for creative writers, published by Beth Barany

Subscribe to be notified when each blog post goes live. Or wait for the weekly round-up in this newsletter. *Write for us.

Latest WFZ posts

From the Archive -- on Writer's Block

We've been talking about writer's block in my group mentorship and with my 1-1 clients, and even emails from you!

☕️

Support This Creative Entrepreneur

My mission is to support your adventure as a creative and step into your next best self.

If you want to support my mission, I invite you to:

📚 buy my books: Fiction | Nonfiction

☕️ buy me a coffee

Or share my work with your friends. Thanks!

Beth Barany is an award-winning science fiction and fantasy novelist, and certified creativity coach for writers.

She specializes in helping writers experience clarity, so they can write, revise, and proudly publish their novels to the delight of their readers.

Here be the legalese: In connection with the operation of this newsletter and business, Creativity Sparks includes affiliate links to trusted partners. Barany Consulting earns a commission from the Affiliate Links which commission is based on the number of sales that are made as a result of users of the Newsletter clicking over to the Affiliate Link and purchasing from the Affiliate Link a product and/or service. Thus endth the legalese.

I live in the territory of Huichin, part of the stolen land of the Chochenyo Muwekma Ohlone, the successors of the historic and sovereign Verona Band of Alameda County, in Oakland, California, the San Francisco Bay Area. Northern Hemisphere. Earth.

The Solar System. → Carina–Sagittarius Arm in the Milky Way galaxy. Milky Way subgroup → Local Group → Local Sheet → Virgo Supercluster → Laniakea Supercluster → Local Hole → Observable universe → Universe.

I stand with people of Ukraine and all peoples 🎗️ in their fight for freedom from oppression and the right to self-determine. Yes, all peoples. Not just some.

No longer want to receive these writing and publishing tips? I totally understand. Blessings on your path. You can unsubscribe below. However, please do not report us as spam. This negatively impacts our ability to send emails to your fellow subscribers -- the 3,800+ people who enjoy these tips each week -- and I'm sure that's not your intention.