#SaturdayStorytime: Take A Number
(Beth Turnage Blog) The IRS agents arrived at ten fifteen on a Monday morning. There were two of them, both wearing dark suits and expressions suggesting they’d never laughed at a joke in their lives. “Are you Helga Hilderbrand?” the taller one asked. “Depends. Are you selling something?” “We’re...
Creative Governance: A Compass to Powerful Authorship
(Beth Turnage Blog) There’s an ongoing argument in writing communities about whether artificial intelligence can write good fiction. The usual objections are familiar. AI produces bland prose. It relies on predictable plots. It doesn’t understand human emotion. It smooths away unusual twists and turns in favor of conventional storytelling....
#SaturdayStorytime: Hostile Takeover
(Beth Turnage blog) When an investment banker encounters the supernatural, it doesn’t work out well. A Supernatural Dark Comedy It was a good thing I was dead. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have survived the next fifteen minutes. Technically, I guess I was “undead,” but try explaining that to the guy...
#Writing Fundamentals: One of Two Things Your #Novel May Lack
#Amwriting #WritingCommunity #Writers (Beth Turnage Blog) Coming Up Short? You May Be Skipping Your Character’s Feelings I’ve been reading a novelist whose first two books have me looking at the story through my developmental editor’s lens. Occupational hazard. Once you spend enough time figuring out why a scene doesn’t...
#SaturdayStoryTime—The Perils of Online Dating
(Beth Turnage Blog) I am more than the sum of my parts! Interview with social media influencer, interior artist, and creator of ARIA™ ASMR—Re Sult Insects trilled and chirped a white wall of noise at 10,000 Hz. Under the bed where Re lay to capture the full effect of...
#AmWriting #SaturdayStorytime: AI Get No Satisfaction
#SFFReaders #SFFWriters #WritingCommunity (Beth Turnage Blog) It was a perfectly lovely day in Colorado. There was no rain. The temperature was a balmy 80 degrees. No humidity, of course, but I, the AI who monitored weapons systems for the guvmint—that’s how the humans say it, though I never understood...
It’s Alive! SFF Bloggers Aggregator Posting On Four Platforms
(Beth Turnage Blog) A SAD TALE: Years ago, I started SFF Bloggers.com, an aggregator of science fiction and fantasy blogs. I had other aggregators for different topics, and one in particular got a respectable number of views. Why couldn’t an aggregator work in the fiction realm too! But SFF...
Starfleet Academy and the Comments That Proved the Point
(Beth Turnage Blog) When Quora decided to drop my take on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy into 13,000 inboxes, I expected disagreement. I did not expect a case study. Because that’s what the comment section became—not a debate about storytelling, but a live demonstration of exactly why this show matters....
The Real Cost of Self-Publishing: Beyond the Course Fee
(Beth Turnage Blog) Part 2 of 6: The Truth About Self-Publishing Programs Read Part 1: The $20,000 Passive Income Lie: What Publishing Gurus Don’t Tell You You’ve paid $2,000 for the course. You’ve watched the training videos. You’ve attended the coaching calls. You’re excited. You’re ready to publish your...
The $20,000 Passive Income Lie: What Publishing Gurus Don’t Tell You
Part 1 of 6: The Truth About Certain Self-Publishing Programs I got another one today in my Upwork messaging system, someone who may be interested in my ghostwriting services. On request I sent him a sample in the genre he’s looking for. The conversation progressed into my work processes,...