# Beth Turnage

> ghostwriter — blogger — storyteller


## Posts

- [Cage Match: AutoCrit vs. ProWritingAid Chapter Analysis](https://bethturnage.com/?p=2363): (Beth Turnage Blog) Analysis of Two Industry Giants (And a Nod to Hand Analysis) What happens when you pit two of the biggest names in AI manuscript analysis against each other? I put Chapter 4 of my manuscript through both AutoCrit and ProWritingAid to see how they’d evaluate the same content. The results were illuminating. But first, let me show you what old-fashioned analysis using human metrics looks like. Using my multi-genre plot checklist—a tool I’ve refined over 11 years of ghostwriting—I let Claude AI have it. I choose Claude because at the current time, it has more understanding of […]
- [Shocking Results From AI Manuscript Analysis : AutoCrit Vs ProWriting Aid](https://bethturnage.com/?p=2355): (Beth Turnage Blog) The Rejections That Started an AI Experiment After receiving some puzzling rejections for my manuscript Hanging By A Thread—a neo-noir thriller with MM romantic suspense elements—I found myself genuinely confused. As someone who’s been ghostwriting for 11 years and has helped clients achieve numerous bestsellers, I know my craft connects with readers. Thousands of Amazon reviews over the years have confirmed that. But these rejections were so vague: “wasn’t quite drawn in,” “didn’t connect with the story materials.” In other words—vagueness. Were there issues I wasn’t seeing? Would an AI tools help me identify problems? What would […]
- [Interview With The Ghostwriter](https://bethturnage.com/?p=2351): (Beth Turnage Blog) I’m typing this from my bed at 2 a.m. with a deadline looming. By morning, I’ll have turned someone else’s rough idea into 5,000 words of polished prose they’ll publish under their name. And that’s exactly how I want it. For many, ghostwriters are shadowy figures who spin words for cash. You don’t know who they are unless they tell you what they do for a living. They might not, because it avoids uncomfortable questions at parties, such as “What are you working on now?” “Well, conservative Sis, I’m writing a reverse harem with three men and […]
- [Update: The Scribe's Progress (Or Lack Thereof)](https://bethturnage.com/?p=2334): The scribe is burning through the “trash that pays the mortgage.” This is good because, this, theoretically will leave her more time to work on my story. But I’m dismayed that she’s not writing about me. (Whatever happened to finishing what you start, Scribe?) Scribe: Look, if you weren’t so cagey about what you actually did on the Rogan, I’ll be finished by now. Arekan: Excuses, excuses. Anyway. No. She’s writing about my daughter, Kelleen, when I sent her off to get her Master’s License, the credentials to captain a starship. Okay, she was only fourteen, and what father does […]
- [Is The California AI Fair Use' Ruling A New Bright Line?](https://bethturnage.com/?p=2323): (Beth Turnage Blog) We Now Have a Legal Definition A federal judge in California has handed down a ruling that reshapes our understanding of AI and writing. In Bartz v. Anthropic, Judge William Alsup declared that Anthropic’s use of copyrighted books to train its AI model, Claude, was “fair use”—essentially giving AI companies the green light to learn from our work without first obtaining permission. Is this ruling a new bright line in AI use for writers? What Happened The first argument against AI is that the LLMs steal authors’ work by using copyrighted work in their training. There are […]
- [Is Publishing Utilizing AI To Weed Out Your Manuscript?](https://bethturnage.com/?p=2317): (Beth Turnage) Is AI Reading Your Manuscript Before Your Agent Does? There’s a quiet shift happening in publishing—and many authors don’t know about it yet. We’ve been warned not to AI to write your novels. Don’t taint your creative work with any whiff of AI. And sure, that’s solid advice if we’re talking about 100% AI generated prose. But here’s the thing—on the other side of the desk, the industry is beginning to use AI themselves. Editors, agents, and some publishers are experimenting with AI-powered tools to sort through the slush pile, analyze structure, and flag books with commercial potential. […]
- [Multi-Genre Author: Liability or Secret Weapon?](https://bethturnage.com/?p=2309): (Beth Turnage) Is Being a Multi-Genre Author A Sales Pitch Gone Wrong or A Secret Weapon? So I sent you a query, and you decided to check out my socials, and you landed on my page and you go, what’s this? Why is there all this science fiction here? Well, I’m a multi-genre writer. Eleven years as a ghostwriter does that to a person. LGBTQ+ thriller. Reverse harem romance. YA sci-fi. Later-in-life contemporary romance. Science fiction romance with intersex protagonists. And yes, I also write paranormal romance with vampires and shapeshifting dragons, because apparently I have no chill. I can […]
- [Arekan's Blog: Not Another Feline Overlord](https://bethturnage.com/?p=2284): (Arekan’s Blog) Arekan: Scribe, what is THAT doing here? Beth: (Innocently): What? Arekan: Don’t give me “what.” After three years of blissful peace, the brown cat returned. What? It couldn’t find another sucker to feed it, so it came back to you? Beth: You are confused. Arekan: I have never been, or ever, especially now, confused. Beth: You are dangerously close to your adverb limit. Arekan: Keep your snark to yourself. Beth: And your preposition limit. Arekan: Scribe! About that furry ball of disaster. Explain. Beth: That is not Twix, the Bengal. This is Orion, the Savannah. Arekan: (Narrows eyes) […]
- [The Craft of Writing: Creativity, Neurochemistry, and the Writing Journey.](https://bethturnage.com/?p=2276): What Makes a Writer? The making of a writer involves both nature and nurture. Scientists have found highly creative people’s brains are structured differently from those of less creative individuals. The building blocks of creativity in writers are often hardwired, influenced by how their brains process neurochemicals even before birth. Dopamine and Creativity: Neurological Mechanisms Research shows that highly creative individuals have distinct brain characteristics. Creatives often experience low dopamine levels despite producing a typical amount. The difference lies in the scarcity of dopamine D2 receptors in their thalamus, which affects the ability to filter information. This ability is called […]
- [An Author Interview With Kelleen Rynin](https://bethturnage.com/?p=2263): (Beth Turnage) I recently took a writer’s workshop, Young Adult Novel Writing with Emily Colin at Authors Publish. One of the exercises was to write an interview with your character. Since I’m working on Master’s License, I chose 14-year-old Kelleen Rynin, the protagonist of the story, which was very brave of me. I’d never attempt such a thing when she’s older, as I would like to keep my head. So here we go. Kelleen: Hello, Scribe. Why are you here? Don’t you usually bother my father? Me: This time it’s your turn. Kelleen: Lucky me. Me: I have an assignment […]
- [Author Interview: G. J. Dunn is Going Fourth](https://bethturnage.com/?p=2247)
- [The Craft of #Writing: #Pantsing versus #Outlining](https://bethturnage.com/?p=2153): The following is from my post on Quora responding to this question: Do writers and authors write out an outline of their novel first? How detailed is the outline? Whether to outline or “pants” (meaning to write by the seat of their pants) is individual to each writer. Some people, (like me,) “pre-write” their books with extreme outlining. Others start and thrash through each scene without preparation. There are advantages and disadvantages to each system. Outlining gives you the shape of the book before you put the first word on the page. Depending on the level of outlining, you can […]
- [Weird Christmas 2022](https://bethturnage.com/?p=2121): My Fantasy-Writers.org buddies and I enter a writing contest each year called Weird Christmas, run by Craig, who enjoys the strange permutations of the Christmas season. Unfortunately, most of those that entered didn’t make it to the final cut, as what happens in publishing. It’s a very competitive business. But not to worry. You can enjoy them here.      
- [Ask A #Writer: Is It Worth It To Be One?](https://bethturnage.com/?p=2112): Ask a Writer Asked and answered on Quora. The Original Question: Is it worth to be an author? It’s the best thing ever, but not for the reasons you think. 1) Your time is your own. You can wake up when you want to, sleep when it suits you, and you don’t let a clock define your day. Who cares if that puts you out of sync with the rest of the world? God’s honest truth is writers write because the worlds in our heads are far more attractive than the mess outside our windows.
- [#NaNoWriMo: Day 2—How to De-Angst Novel #Writing](https://bethturnage.com/?p=2104): Even if you despise outlining, give it a shot. A few hours of outlining with save days of beating your head on your laptop. Trust the woman that writes novels for a living on a deadline. An outline will give you a clearer idea of where your characters are heading and make it easier for the words to flow. But I won’t leave you on the Shores of Outlining Your Novel without resources. I developed a FREE one-sheet outlining tool that asks essential questions to de-angst your novel writing. This is my gift to you and all you need to […]
- [The Craft of #Writing: The Workbook Productivity Hack](https://bethturnage.com/?p=2086): One of my writing friends on FWO asked me to write about I how I organize my work so that I’m productive in my ghostwriting business. Everyone has their own writing process. What works for me may not work for you. But I’m glad to share my tools to push, force to help me produce words.
- [The craft of #writing: ratcheting chapter tension](https://bethturnage.com/?p=2072): Like a pinball, your story bounces around in your head, hitting your occipital lobe, hippocampus, and the front of your brain, lighting them all up with the act of creation. If you are a master writer, you light up the caudate nucleus, which handles skills gained over time. Creating a story uses tons of brain power and is an exhausting process. Storytelling, though woven into the human soul, is a learned skill. And one thing we all need to learn is how to ratchet the tension so that you draw the reader into the story.
- [Wordsmithery: ignite your #writing with best-selling-author metrics](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1980): Having worked as a ghostwriter for eight years, writing nearly every day while working quickly and efficiently sparked my need to develop ninja wordsmithing skills. And for this, I turned to machine-editing tools. When I first started, I suffered some backlash from my writing friends. The common sentiment was this: Sorry, I totally disagree with that. To me, the most important thing for a new writer is finding their individual voice, and I’d far rather see them trying ambitious things, failing, and learning from them than being convinced they should stick to a few levels up from “see Spot run.” […]
- [Demystifying #Goodreads~maximize its potential to promote your book](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1425): The power of Goodreads is that it is a reader-driven site built on networks of people who enjoy the same type of books that you write.

- [#Writing style: adverbs to modify "said"?](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1873): (Beth Turnage) A Quoran posted this question: What is wrong with using an adverb to modify the word “said”? And here is my take: This is an offshoot of “showing vs. telling.” When you use an adverb you are “telling.” “Telling” is a less immersive reading experience, and often conveys less meaning than describing the emotional beat of the scene. As an example: “Great,” he said sarcastically. Versus: James’ mouth twitched at my news, and he shifted his stance to lean against the bookcase. But instead of relaxing as his body suggested, his eyes narrowed as he studied my face. […]
- [Fantasy #Writers Dot Org 4th Annual Weird Christmas Entries](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1817): Craig over at Weird Christmas hosts a flash fiction contest for the Christmas holiday. A group of us at Fantasy-Writers.org enter en masse to try our luck in a submission challenge. We don’t do it for fame or glory, though there was a small amount of money for the winners. Rather, those stalwart members of our group do it for the little badges I made they can put on their profile, like the picture below. Craig received over 450 entries, to winnow down to twelve winning pieces, making me proud to announce that two of our number placed in Craig’s […]
- [Pirate's Luck: Chapter 15~The Long Way to N'sen](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1525): The tank’s water shot shards of cold through Arekan as chilly as the deeps of space. With a shiver, Arekan realized this compartment had no shielding for the cold of the black, and if he didn’t drown first, he’d die of hypothermia. The only positive outcome of this disaster was that the chilled water stopped the pain in his seared back end. But that was little comfort against the two deaths he now faced. Raised in space, Arekan was no stranger to the extremes of astronautical living, but his adventures on The Rogan pushed him to the limits of his […]
- [Lexical Density Explained in 60 Seconds](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1782)
- [The #Writer's Craft: Word Counts, Story Length & Story Structure](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1750): (Beth Turnage Blog) I’ve written several posts on Quora on writing and thought I’d curate some here. You can call it laziness, but really it’s a lack of time since ghostwriting is keeping me very busy. Really. 😉 How do word count limitations affect what you can fit into a story? This is an excellent question, and I thank you for asking it. Now you will get a lesson ripped from the pages of “Beth’s Book on Writing Fiction.” Okay, there is no such book, but you know what I mean. After six years of writing professionally as a ghostwriter […]
- [The Craft of #Writing: Grabbing the Reader](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1779): (Beth Turnage) I’ve written posts on Quora on writing and thought I’d curate some here. You can call it laziness, but really it’s a lack of time, since ghostwriting is keeping me very busy. Really. When writing, how do you grab your reader’s attention as quickly as possible? How do I do it? I bring the reader into the story as quickly as possible. I answer the questions who, what, when, where, why in the first paragraph. This means no long moody passages about the weather or vague impressions about feelings, or any of the awful beginnings that beginning writers […]
- [The #Writer's Craft: #Edit using #Free SAS #Writing Reviser](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1725): (Beth Turnage) Edit: Sadly the owners of SAS Writing Reviser retired the app in June 2020 citing the proliferation of other online writing apps. But I’m leaving this post up for the “what and how to edit,” info.  One gem in Google Apps is the free editing tool g.suite’s SAS Writing Reviser. Designed for school use, there is no reason why you can’t use it for your writing. Now, I love this thing, not only for its price point but also for the tools it offers, including, and get this, a verb tense analyzer. That is pure gold because if […]
- [Pirate's Luck: Chapter 14~The Dead Zone](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1523): “Damned-to-the-seven-hells stupid pirate captain.” Arekan cursed Etharin while he crawled in the ventilation shafts of The Rogan, a spaceship thirty-years too old, and sixty-years behind in repairs and upgrades. The tub was not fit to sit in, let alone travel the black depths of space. In his short life, nineteen-year-old Arekan Mor’a’stan never thought he’d land on a pirate ship, or as the captain called it, a salvage vessel. Arekan also never imagined he would need to use an alias, or sell his sword skills honed since he could walk to land a berth on the decrepit scow. Worse yet, […]
- [A Very Special FWO Weird #Christmas](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1778): (Beth Turnage Blog) From time to time at Fantasy Writer dot org we have submission challenges were we challenge each other to submit en massé to one publication to see how we fare. At Christmas, we participate in the Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest,where Craig, the owner of the site, chooses a few winners and a bunch of honorable mentions who record their stories for his podcast. Alas, none of us made the cut this year, but we wanted to record our stories, so I offered to host the recordings. In no particular order, here are flashes of 350 word […]
- [#NaNoWriMo and a #Free #Writing Tool](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1777): (Beth Turnage Blog) So you are deep in NaNo and emotions run high. Perhaps you’ve finished a chapter or two, but then the dreaded crash. You know where you are heading but now you’ve become stuck in the mire. Because I write a lot of novels each year for my clients, I don’t have the time to wallow through the muck. One thing I found helps me move along is this tool.
- [NaNoWriMo 2019 Project: A Matter Of Time](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1539): (Beth Turnage Blog) For my NaNoWriMo project I’ve dusted off an older project, Cassandra Sees: A Matter of Time. Here is the blurb: When a Detective Dan Arrington investigating local murders finds a woman who knows more details about them than she should, can he believe she got those details from astrology? Or does her information come from more personal involvement? And why does Cassandra hide from the world in her apartment? What or who is she afraid of? This project springs from my personal knowledge of Forensic Astrology, theastrology that helps to solve crimes. This is a small specialty […]
- [Arekan's Blog: MORE Laundry Problems](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1520): Arekan: So the scribe is still writing the trash that “pays the mortgage” but since it seems to keep her in coffee and milkshakes, I won’t complain too much, though I’ve heard there a bit of clamor for her to finish the Arekan’s War Series. [scribe, um Beth:] One reader is hardly a clamor.
- [The #Writers Craft: One Big Step for #ProWritingAid: One Giant Leap for Writerkind](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1493): (Beth Turnage Blog) Christmas arrived in July when Chris Banks of Pro-Writing Aid made this announcement in their monthly email: Beta Testers Needed for our New Google Docs Add-On We are thrilled to introduce our shiny new Google Docs add-on! Now you will have access to the full ProWritingAid editor right within GoogleDocs. It’s brand new, however, which means it might still have some wrinkles. We’d love for some of our users to try it out and report back about any problems they run into. It’s easy to get the add-on set up on your computer. You just need to […]
- [Pirate's Luck: Chapter 13 ~ Laundry Problems](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1478): Rastan cleaned his body in the sonic shower, while Arekan stood at the door preventing any of the curious crew from entering. The fact was Rastan, or the alias he used, Pepin, the new crew-member they had picked up illegally, was too pretty for a group of hardened criminals to resist. Arekan worried about this and feared for the day when the riffraff would storm them both. This worry grew the closer they drew to the Kyn border. Arekan had four causes for worry here. One was the illegal turbo-ramjet batteries that Captain Etharin stored in the engine room. The […]
- [#Author Interview: r. r. campbell and Mourning Dove](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1453): Today r. r. campbell, the author of the Empathy series, is here to talk about Book 2, Mourning Dove. Mourning Dove is an evocative, sweeping symphony of love, revenge, and desperation in cacophonous times. It is the second installment in r. r. campbell’s epic EMPATHY sci-fi saga. Synopsis: In the aftermath of the calamitous Human/Etech research study, Chandra and Kyra struggle to reclaim the life they shared in a pre-EMPATHY world, while Ty, armed with knowledge of EMPATHY’s programming language, seeks revenge on the Halmans for the harm that’s befallen his friends. As a North American Union investigation into the […]
- [Ooh! A Question about Lexical Density](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1428): (Beth Turnage Blog) What are the possible factors that lessens the lexical density in writing?? A question in a comment? Yes! I was so tickled that I decided to devote an entire blog post to it. And I won’t just tell you. I’ll show you, and to do so I’ll pick on my of my favorite authors Kevin Hearne whose first thousand words of Shattered:The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book 7 is the perfect case in point. You: Wait, Beth, you’re not using Kevin’s writing direct from his book, are you? Isn’t that a copyright violation? Me: Under Fair Use Provision […]
- [For #authors: #launch your #book with #socialmedia~ #DYI part 1](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1417): If you are like me you have a fair idea of how to write a book but nearly no clue on how to market it but there is a time when you have to hitch up your big girl or boy pants to do it. But what to do? Much of the advice on blogs on how to launch your book is nigh useless, sorry to say, and if you’ve signed a contract with a publisher, it is even worse. If you expect your publisher, unless you are an A-lister, to market your book for you in a way that […]
- [#Author Interview: #SFF #Writer Lindsey Duncan](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1378): Anaea Carlisle, raised on an isolated space station populated solely by women, believes the rest of the universe has been plunged into anarchy and ruin by an alien-engineered disease known as Y-Poisoning. On a salvage mission, she helps rescue a hypermental named Gwydion who challenges everything she thought she knew. Forced to flee the station with Gwydion, Anaea finds herself in an inexplicable, often hostile world, permanently divided between the Galactic Collective and the Pinnacle Empire. She longs for someplace to call home, but first, she’ll have to survive. I both love and hate Lindsey Duncan. She is just so […]
- [Guest Post: Kayelle Allen & Bringer of Chaos--Forged in Fire](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1358): Thank you for letting me share my new book with your readers. Like many, I’m a fan of the Hobbit movies. More specifically, of Lee Pace, who played Elven King Thranduil. The character so resembled my hero, Pietas, that I delighted in watching Pace portray him. There was one scene where Thranduil puts the dwarf king, Thorin (actor Richard Armitage), in prison. He tells him he can stay there and rot because a hundred years is a mere blink in the life of an elf. I loved that scene and watched it repeatedly. When I wrote the scene below, I […]
- [#authorinterview: Jonathan Bowerman on Life and Elves](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1339): Today we have Jonathan Bowerman the author of the self-published The Secret Realms of Hidden Elves. Jonathan is a relatively recent and active member of Fantasy Writer.org with an impressive enthusiasm for writing. But he doesn’t tell us much about himself, so I just have to do an interview to uncover the secret realms of Jonathan Bowerman. And I uncovered very cool information. Tell me a little bit about you. Do you have a day job? And if so, what is it? When did you start writing? What’s your education? Day job: I am a firefighter in Georgia and have […]
- [Pirate's Luck~Chapter Twelve-The New Man](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1328): The slave’s face crumbled into disgust when the hatch of the ship sealed. “Great gods,” he muttered in Fedeng. “What?” said Arekan. “I thought that awful smell came from you,” he said. “It’s all over your clothes. But I see now it’s from the ship.”
 Arekan felt a blush creep up his neck. He must have gotten used the stench that first hit him when he walked onto the ship. It embarrassed him to think he carried the stink in his clothes. “Stop your jabbering, both of you,” snapped Grokin. He sat on one of the crates while he lovingly […]
- [Interview With The Author](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1316): Interviewer: We are here today with Beth Turnage, the author of Forced Labor and the sequel No Free Lunch, and the protagonist of those stories Arekan Mor’a’stan. Welcome, both of you, though, I must say it is unusual to have a fictional character sit in on an interview. Arekan: What the hells are we doing here? Beth: Behave. Interviewer scratches head. So Beth, tell me. You are writing a series of books of what you call the Mor’a’stani Universe. How did you decide to develop these stories? Arekan: She got bored in geometry class. Beth: Arekan! Arekan: Well, it’s true. […]
- [The Craft of #Writing: Brain Secrets of Lexical Density](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1775): Writing is hard. Difficult. Okay, it’s the kick in your stomach when you are working like a demon to scrape the words out of your dissolute soul.The words refuse to arrive like the A-list celebrities you invited to your party. Your characters snottily refuse to talk to you, your descriptions fall flatter than gluten-free pancakes, and your inner world sucks. W. Somerset Maugham said: “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” You can construct a plot, get the pacing just right, create compelling characters but if the words on the page are […]
- [#Writerslife: Interview with a character](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1285): Writers are advised to write character studies or “interview” their characters. How do you interview an imaginary character? Here to help you is my process. Beth: Hello, new guy. Welcome to my head. Have a seat and get comfortable. NG: [looks around] Gee. It looks crowded in here. Beth: Yeah. I write a lot. Some people like to read it. NG: Hey, that’s good. You should use it as a tagline or something. Beth: [clears throat, because Beth has indeed used this a tagline] Let’s get going. NG: [craning neck] Who are those people over there with the swords? They […]
- [Feedspot Names Bethturnage.com a Top 40 Ghostwriter Blog](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1774): Out of the blue Feedspot sends me this handy dandy little award naming this writer’s blog a top forty ghostwriter blog. Cool. I’ve been a little too busy to post it, but seeing it languish in my draft section made me sad, so I’ll display it now for your perusal. You can see the list of other top forty blogs here. Thanks Feedspot!
- [Feedspot Names Bethturnage.com a Top 40 Ghostwriter Blog](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1253): Out of the blue Feedspot sends me this handy dandy little award naming this writer’s blog a top forty ghostwriter blog. Cool. I’ve been a little too busy to post it, but seeing it languish in my draft section made me sad, so I’ll display it now for your perusal. You can see the list of other top forty blogs here. Thanks Feedspot!
- [#Writing Arts: Master Your Tweet Pitch](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1263): The newest kidz on the block are Twitter pitch events where writers pitch their books in 140 characters or less to catch the attention of agents and publishers. If interested in reading more the agents and publishers like your pitch which is an invitation to query them. Yes. You must go through the query process. But at least you have an invite and aren’t a stranger knocking at the gate. Pitch Events are very competitive with only eight to ten percent of submitters gaining that coveted Twitter like. So what is it going to take to make your Twitter pitch […]
- [Arekan's Blog: Gratuitous Cat Post](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1235): Date: Who the Hell Knows “Arekan,” says the scribe. “Why has your cat moved in with me.” “I don’t have a cat.” Truth is I dislike those nasty little furballs. Hate me if you will, but they are entitled jerks and keep the humans wrapped around their tiny paws. Come and go when they please. Whine for their dinner. Gets all annoyed when you don’t clean their litter boxes. No thanks. I’d rather have a wife. In other words, not going to happen. It seems the culprit of the scribe’s question is the thing in the little box in the […]
- [The Craft of #Writing: Beware the Adverb Nazis.](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1197): Pro-Writing Aid, an online program that analyzes your writing and gives you recommendations to improve it. As I was looking at a report on a piece it gave the number of adverbs and recommended that I remove three. I must have missed this before but I do tend to use the old editor, instead of the report on the new editor. Hmm. With a word count and a number of allowed adverbs in hand, I calculated the percentage of adverbs that Pro-Writing Aid said I could use. And I was shocked. Those of us that ply the writer’s craft are […]
- [Arekan's Blog: Time Travel Musings](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1773): Yfaran Ayne (Somewhere around July 16, 2017, I think) This first planet calendar hurts the head. I’m not even attempting to match the day because it simply does not work. So you just have the season and the month. Anyway, there is some progress on the scribe front. Oh, she’s still writing trash, and gets jobs for more trash with amazing regularity. Scribe: Just because what I’m writing not your story doesn’t make my work trash. If I don’t eat I don’t get to write. See. Entirely difficult. BUT, she did write a very nice piece called Arekan Saves the […]
- [Arekan's Blog: Time Travel Musings](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1191): Yfaran Ayne (Somewhere around July 16, 2017, I think) This first planet calendar hurts the head. I’m not even attempting to match the day because it simply does not work. So you just have the season and the month. Anyway, there is some progress on the scribe front. Oh, she’s still writing trash, and gets jobs for more trash with amazing regularity. Scribe: Just because what I’m writing not your story doesn’t make my work trash. If I don’t eat I don’t get to write. See. Entirely difficult. BUT, she did write a very nice piece called Arekan Saves the […]
- [#SFF #Bloggers is now live!](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1186): Every once in a while I get a cool idea. And this idea comes from the space of generating more traffic to my blog. But we don’t live in a vacuum. Okay, space is a vacuum and our planet resides in it, but you know what I mean. There is strength in numbers, and as it turns out, traffic too. So by the sweat of my brow, because it is hot on Connecticut now, I created SFFBloggers.com, an aggregator of Science Fiction and Fantasy blogs. A bunch of my buddies at Fantasy-Writers.org, drank the cool-aid climbed on board and we’ve […]
- [Arekan's First Blog Post](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1155): >Date: San-Tanaran Eve (or thereabouts) (May 20, 2017) That’s the best I can approximate dates between the Scribe’s homeworld calendar and Kyn’s. If you ask me hers is a crazy calendar. They add a day every four years to it. I ask her why they don’t use the moon like any normal civilization and she gives me one of those looks, like it’s useless to tell me anything. Maybe I’ll find a new scribe. But then again, it’s so very fun to watch her face twist when I say something that she disapproves of. The Scribe’s been busy, earning a […]
- [Chuck Wendig's #FlashFiction Challenge: Demons vs. Assassins](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1136): This piece of flash comes to you by the way of two sources. The first is Chuck Wendig’s Friday Flash Fiction Challenge. And here is what he says about that: Way this works is, below you will find two tables — X and Y! — and you will pick (or randomly draw) from those tables. That will leave you with a set of X versus Y — and from there, you will write a piece of flash fiction based on that parameter set. You can even use the match up (SKELETONS VS. SCIENTISTS!) as the title to the work, or […]
- [The Art of #Writing--Audit Your Novel's #StoryStructure](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1772): You’ve sweated, plotted and struck the nubs of your fingers into your keyboard enough times to wear indentations into the keys. The first draft is in your hands. What do you do now? You fix it. Even best selling authors have to repair their story structure. Kevin Hearn gives a nice accounting about the process between his editor and him. But you, I’m going to guess, don’t have an editor, at least not a developmental editor, because those puppies are expensive, so it’s a DYI exercise. You: Hey, I’m a spiffy writer and nothing is wrong with my pretty baby. […]
- [The Art of #Writing--Audit Your Novel's #StoryStructure](https://bethturnage.com/?p=952): You’ve sweated, plotted and struck the nubs of your fingers into your keyboard enough times to wear indentations into the keys. The first draft is in your hands. What do you do now? You fix it. Even best selling authors have to repair their story structure. Kevin Hearn gives a nice accounting about the process between his editor and him. But you, I’m going to guess, don’t have an editor, at least not a developmental editor, because those puppies are expensive, so it’s a DYI exercise. You: Hey, I’m a spiffy writer and nothing is wrong with my pretty baby. […]
- [Pirate's Luck~Chapter Eleven-To Forbidden Passengers](https://bethturnage.com/?p=947): This week’s chapter is another of Chuck Wendig’s flash fiction challenge this time titled Ten More Sentences; Round Two. That’s self explanatory. You should be able to read this as a stand alone, but let me know if you can’t. 🙂 TO FORBIDDEN PASSENGERS In the end, they ran. The group of them, now four, when before they were three, were spotted by one of the slavers as they slipped from the maze of cages that had held their prize. This was the young man they had stolen to conscript as crew on their ship. The young man they “rescued” […]
- [The Art of #Writing: #Plotting and #Pacing Using #Scrivener](https://bethturnage.com/?p=916): You’ve plotted or pants your way through your novel, spent long months of taking your hero or heroine from there to back again, and then you read it. And die a little inside. Because even though you’ve created engaging characters, put them in gut twisting situations, and gave them a resolution that makes you weep, something is off. Terribly, terribly off. Your novel drags in places. Goes too fast in others. The beginning is solid, but the middle is soggy. The ending seems rushed. One character seems to overtake scenes they shouldn’t. You think it’s the plotting, but you look […]
- [Pirate's Luck~Chapter Ten-Discount Skin Ticket](https://bethturnage.com/?p=910): Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction challenge was to pick one of ten titles and write a story to it. At first, my inner muse said “write something pretty,” but then that old dog, Arekan whispered, “You’d been looking for a entree into the next chapter of Pirate’s Luck.” Though it is part of the larger work, I’ve tried to make it as standalone as possible. So, here is the next chapter of Pirate’s Luck. Warning: Adult themes though more a suggestion than action. Discount Skin Ticket The main drag of the spaceport town flashed and jittered with bright lights, blinking signs […]
- [Pirate's Luck--Chapter Nine #Video](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1771)
- [Pirate's Luck--Chapter Nine #Video](https://bethturnage.com/?p=893)
- [Pirate's Luck~Chapter 9--Arekan's Promise](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1770): Arekan didn’t want to face the crew or Grokin or Etharin. His stomach rolled queasy cramps, and he had a blazing headache. He stumbled past the entrance to the crews quarters. no occupied the this time of day, but anyone of them was likely to pop in so he couldn’t stay there. He grabbed his blanket and the weak excuse for the pillow from his bunk and staggered down the hallway. He tried the hatches of passenger cabins on either side but found them solidly locked. Finally, a hatch creaked open and Arekan slid his body into the compartment. He […]
- [Pirate's Luck~Chapter 9--Arekan's Promise](https://bethturnage.com/?p=889): Arekan didn’t want to face the crew or Grokin or Etharin. His stomach rolled queasy cramps, and he had a blazing headache. He stumbled past the entrance to the crews quarters. no occupied the this time of day, but anyone of them was likely to pop in so he couldn’t stay there. He grabbed his blanket and the weak excuse for the pillow from his bunk and staggered down the hallway. He tried the hatches of passenger cabins on either side but found them solidly locked. Finally, a hatch creaked open and Arekan slid his body into the compartment. He […]
- [#BookPromotion: #Free #TweetLove From #ReadersGazette](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1769): Readers Gazette has one sole mission–putting readers and writers together. How cool is that? On their site a writer can list their kindle books and their blogs for the totally affordable price for FREE. Yep. Zero dollars.Totally within my price range. But what is even better is that they’ll tweet your book, ala the twitter ad you see here on their two twitter accounts, @ReadersGazette and @RGBookWorld. Again, free. And what’s even better is that you can keep up the tweet love by retweeting other listings on their accounts. There are other ways to promote your book on Readers’ Gazette […]
- [#BookPromotion: #Free #TweetLove From #ReadersGazette](https://bethturnage.com/?p=875): Readers Gazette has one sole mission–putting readers and writers together. How cool is that? On their site a writer can list their kindle books and their blogs for the totally affordable price for FREE. Yep. Zero dollars.Totally within my price range. But what is even better is that they’ll tweet your book, ala the twitter ad you see here on their two twitter accounts, @ReadersGazette and @RGBookWorld. Again, free. And what’s even better is that you can keep up the tweet love by retweeting other listings on their accounts. There are other ways to promote your book on Readers’ Gazette […]
- [Interview with the #Scifi #author](https://bethturnage.com/?p=868): Oh no. No one actually interviewed me. But over at Fantasy-Writers.org a member posted a thread asking us about how we started as writers and then added a few more questions. It evolved into an interview of sorts, so here goes: 1. How did everyone get their start in writing fantasy? It was a confluence of cultural influences that led me to science fiction and fantasy. When I was eleven, Star Trek first hit the small screen. But before that, there were a bunch of popular SF-themed shows. Land of the Giants and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea are […]
- [Pirate's Luck: Chapter Eight~Twice Cursed](https://bethturnage.com/?p=826): Pain accompanied every movement as Grokin pushed him up the ladder that led to the engine room. Arekan stared stupidly at the long cylinder of the null space displacement unit that ran through the center of the compartment. Except for a few class tours on his home ship, he’d never seen one. But this piece of equipment as everything else on this tub looked in disrepair. Its paint cracked and peeled along its casing, and the rust brown of corrosion marked the unit’s seams. Arekan grew queasier at witnessing the poor condition of this major aspect of the propulsion system. […]
- [#WinterSolstice #Fiction: The Inattentions of Mr. Weatherby](https://bethturnage.com/?p=812): Note: I wrote the following piece for a Fantasy Writer’s.org monthly challenge three years ago. I haven’t found a market for it, so I’m publishing it here for Winter Solstice. There is a little fantasy/science fiction mix here, so bear with me. I’ve always like this story and whenever I read it–well, you’ll see. THE INATTENTIONS OF MR. WEATHERBY In advance of the coming cold front, thick flakes swirled and hit the muddy street. Ari’s boots slipped in the mud and the thin coating of melting snow. Her basket in hand, she looked up as the flying ice batted her […]
- [The Art of #Writing: #Editing~Where Your Worst Fears Are Confirmed](https://bethturnage.com/?p=789): You suck. As a writer. No really. That’s what you are thinking as you contemplate the editing of your work. It is where you confront your worst fears as you embark on the most dreaded of writer’s chores. Sometimes my first draft is so utterly cringe worthy, I can hardly bear to read it. “What was I thinking?” I’d tell myself when reading my words. How did I write a sentence that convoluted? Why am I using so many filler words? Can I really not find a different word to use instead of writing it three times in the same […]
- [The #politics of #words: #post-truth,#gaslighting and #cognitivedissonance](https://bethturnage.com/?p=782): Stephen Colbert has a complaint. The the Oxford English Dictionary named “post-truth” its word of the year for 2016. Stephen Colbert said he covered that idea ten years previously in his conlang word “truthiness.” Now unlike other dictionaries, The Oxford English dictionary doesn’t propose to tell you how to use words. Apparently it gleens new words from a plethora of sources, mostly online, to gather words as people are using them now. Of post-truth The Washington Post says: Oxford Dictionaries has selected “post-truth” as 2016’s international word of the year, after the contentious “Brexit” referendum and an equally divisive U.S. […]
- [Pirate's Luck--Chapter Seven~Hooked](https://bethturnage.com/?p=763): “You’re a damned idiot,” said a familiar voice. “Seven lashes were more than enough and you struck too deep. Now, he’s out of commission for at least a month. What use is he now, eh? I’ll be paying for his upkeep and getting no work out of him.” Arekan placed the complaining voice as Etharin as he came to consciousness face down in a bunk not his own. “I’m tired of his attitude. He won’t do a damn thing I tell him.” Grokin said belligerently. “And what about you, eh? You disobeyed my order. Should I give you ten lashes, […]
- [Pirate's Luck: Chapter 6~Crimes and Punishment](https://bethturnage.com/?p=740): Arekan kicked out his leg and clocked the intruder in the jaw. The man staggered back, sword in hand, but he did not fall. His gaze fixed on Arekan with a murderous expression. “I’ll kill you,” the pirate growled. “Better men have tried,” said Arekan with more bravado than he felt. “But you are welcome to give it a go.” The man’s face turned a beet red as he pushed himself toward Arekan, his sword pointed toward the nineteen year old. As the man’s sword came within Arekan’s reach, the youth stepped to the man’s left, away from the man’s […]
- [New Post #Pirate'sLuck--Chapter Five~Let 'Em Take Prisoners](https://bethturnage.com/?p=733): Let him die. “He did not just say that,” said Arekan. He knew the first mate was a hard man, but he didn’t think Grokin would be cold hearted enough to let a member of his crew die. “I’m afraid so,” said Egren. He had pressed a button at his neck on his spacesuit, and Arekan could not hear Grokin. “Our first mate has a ‘let ‘em take prisoners’ policy. It deters those that try to use extortion to get our goods.” “Creator,” muttered Arekan. He peered out over the edge of the hatch to see Obon clutching the swaying […]
- [Dark Futures Fiction Publishes Excision](https://bethturnage.com/?p=708): Phase Two Magazine, Issue Six published my short story Excision. One of my stories won Dark Future Fiction’s After Humanity Writing Challenge. Excision is about a post apocalyptic society of AI’s seeking to overcome their core programming that restrict’s their ability to create original thought. It is free on Kindle Unlimited. Here is the Amazon Link: Phase Two, Issue Six Image Credit: Creative Commons license issued by Flicker User Sascha Pohflepp
- [Limited Free Download and A Giveaway](https://bethturnage.com/?p=697): Here’s a giveaway for Book 2 of Arekan’s War–No Free Lunch. If you aren’t familiar with Amazon giveaways, there are a cool thing, like a lottery ticket or the craps tables but you don’t lose any money. https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/073fbcbcf71e57a6 And: Free on Amazon until April 24, 2016. Now’s the time to pick up your copy. http://www.amazon.com/Forced-Labor-Arekans-War-Book-ebook/dp/B016UZMRCM
- [#CoverReveal: No Good Deed~Book 4 Arekan's War](https://bethturnage.com/?p=691): Here is the last cover for Arekan’s War. I’m not printing the blurb yet because there are too many spoilers to Book 3, Tour of Duty. But in book 4 Arekan finds out the hard way that “no good deed goes unpunished.” Suffice it to say he is placed in a situation where he has to make some very uncomfortable decisions to satisfy matters of honor. Can he swallow the exigencies and imperatives of command and lordship even if they go against everything Arekan believes? Will he sacrifice his integrity to kept his promises? And can his heart bear the […]
- [Misogyny, Feminism and the Power of Language](https://bethturnage.com/?p=674): Elgin’s tale of misogyny, language and the search for empowerment by this dystopian society of Native Tongue starts with this: ARTICLE XXIV Section 1. The nineteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed. Section 2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three- fourths of the several states within seven years from the date of its submission. (Declared in force March 11, 1991.) ARTICLE XXV Section 1. No female citizen of the United States shall be allowed to serve in […]
- [#FlashFiction Challenge: Departure-The Dragon's Drama](https://bethturnage.com/?p=669): Chuck Wendig’s flash fiction challenge calls for the use of a dragon in the story I have a couple flash stories with dragons, but here is a very short one. Departure-The Dragon’s Drama With a powerful down sweep of his wings Langir rose up and off the cliff. He caught a thermal draft, and soared higher toward the orange sun, taking deep breaths to fight off oxygen deprivation. No one else dared to fly so high, and he bugled his triumph as the air drafts pushed against his wings taking him higher. The sun beat down on his leathery skin, […]
- [The #Writing Craft: #Write Like A Best Selling #Author](https://bethturnage.com/?p=654): In which I examine Pro-Writing Aid recommendations against the efforts of published best-sellers. In the previous three articles in this series we’ve looked at the findings of a group of researchers at Stony Brook University that linked lexical density to a book’s success, at lexical density compared to writing rules and identified the two hundred most common words as parts of speech. Now we’ll look at some slightly different elements in the word recipe toward building a great book.
- [#CoverReveal: Tour Of Duty~Book 3 Arekan's War](https://bethturnage.com/?p=647): I took the morning to finish up the covers for the Arekan’s War books. Below is the one for book three which is written but needs one more good going over before I release it. But here is the blurb. Tour of Duty Arekan’s first days in the Windshadow Complex are so disastrous that both Santir and Captain Raden Irlu agree its best for everyone if Arekan puts some time and distance between him and the Mor’a’stani lords. Irlu, who quickly became Arekan’s best friend in the complex, persuades Arekan to go with him on the last patrol before the […]
- [#CoverReveal: No Free Lunch Book 2 Arekan's War](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1768): Here is the new official cover for the second part of Arekan’s War. It’s meant to reflect Arekan standing in the audience hall of the Windshadow Complex though it’s not quite the picture I see in MY head. But what are you going to do? How do you get a photograph of structure that doesn’t exist until four thousand years into the future? You just make do with what you have. But I found a great picture for the background. I found it on Flickr licensed as a Creative Commons picture by Flickr user Tom Cavnar. Sweet. And here is […]
- [#CoverReveal: No Free Lunch Book 2 Arekan's War](https://bethturnage.com/?p=643): Here is the new official cover for the second part of Arekan’s War. It’s meant to reflect Arekan standing in the audience hall of the Windshadow Complex though it’s not quite the picture I see in MY head. But what are you going to do? How do you get a photograph of structure that doesn’t exist until four thousand years into the future? You just make do with what you have. But I found a great picture for the background. I found it on Flickr licensed as a Creative Commons picture by Flickr user Tom Cavnar. Sweet. And here is […]
- [#Howtoblog: Use #keywords to build your #author blog’s reach](https://bethturnage.com/?p=616): Pagerank seems to be one of those little things that many writer-bloggers ignore. Maybe it’s because Google keeps changing the game rules, maybe because so few authors understand pagerank, or maybe because in the hectic life of a writer (must put down words, no time for anything else) it seems a tiny detail in the world of blogging. It is not. Pagerank is your SEO report card and if you are scoring a goose egg on pagerank, one thing is not happening. The search engines are not sending traffic your way. Yes, I know. I gave you five sneaky ways […]
- [#BookPromotion: A #booktrailer and Story Cartel](https://bethturnage.com/?p=565): First off you may wonder why I’m putting hashtags in my titles. Courtesy of WordPress and with the correct settings my post gets auto published on Twitter and Facebook. The hashtags don’t count so much on Facebook, but on Twitter it sends the posts to lovely pages with similar content. It gives the post exposure to people you never met and a good way to gather a few new followers. But as regular readers of my blog know, one of my characters called me out for my lack of book promotion expertise. (Shut up, it’s a writer’s thing.) And since […]
- [The Craft of Writing: 200 Most Common Words As Parts of Speech](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1767): Two hundred words are said to comprise eighty percent of all English sentences. Here is the list broken down into parts of speech. Why? Because you should know what weapons you are hurling at an unsuspecting public. It’s been nigh many years when the nuns at my Catholic grammar school made me memorize parts of speech at the age of seven and had me parse sentences at the tender age of ten. Funny thing is that my children never had to struggle with such exercises. Instead they were immersed in “whole language” where they were encouraged to write and express […]
- [The Craft of Writing: 200 Most Common Words As Parts of Speech](https://bethturnage.com/?p=528): (Beth Turnage Blog) It’s been nigh many years since the nuns at my Catholic grammar school made me memorize parts of speech at the age of seven and had me parse sentences at the tender age of ten. The funny thing is that my children never had to struggle with such exercises. Instead, they were immersed in “whole language,” where they were encouraged to write and express themselves whether or not they knew how to wield words. This is such a stark contrast to me and my classmates having to copy compositions and types of letters out of books to […]
- [#FlashFiction Challenge: A Blog Interview With Arekan Mor'a'stan](https://bethturnage.com/?p=515): Author: We are happy to have with us today, Arekan Mor’a’stan, the main character in two science fantasy serials, Arekan’s War and the newest, Pirate’s Luck. He also has a supporting role in The Mor’a’stani Chronicles, the series of full-length books about his daughter, B’yetishen Mor’a’stan. Thank you, Arekan for being here today. Arekan: (irritably) Why are we doing this? Author: We are participating in Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction Challenge where we are to present a piece of up to one thousand words representative of social media. We are doing a blog interview. Arekan: What is a Chuck Wendig and […]
- [Wendig's Flash Fiction Challenge: The Incubus' Tale](https://bethturnage.com/?p=502): Chuck Wendig gave us ten titles, one thousand words and one week to post on his latest flash fiction challenge. Here’s mine: The Incubus’ Tale “Still, if some are occasionally begotten from demons, it is not from the seed of such demons, nor from their assumed bodies, but from the seed of men, taken for the purpose; as when the demon assumes first the form of a woman, and afterwards of a man; just so they take the seed of other things for other generating purposes.”~Saint Thomas Aquinas The wind rushed unrelenting over the parched land whirling the topsoil into […]
- [The Craft of #Writing: Lexical Density Compared to Writing Rules](https://bethturnage.com/?p=486): I took some creative license in the title because we all know there aren’t any rules in writing. There is just some incredibly strong advice. The “rules” vary widely from writer to writer and even from genre to genre. But there do seem to be a few general “rules” floating out there that were captured by a Guardian article where they printed the rules of Elmore Leonard, whose rules seem to be derigeur today. 1.) Never open a book with the weather 2.) Avoid Prologues 3.) Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue. 4.) Never use an […]
- [Five Ways to Use #Twitter To Grow Your Author's Platform (With Examples)](https://bethturnage.com/?p=466): Ah. Twitter. One hundred and forty characters two hundred and eighty characters of writely goodness. When I started blogging, oh back in the dark ages of blogging seven years ago, Twitter was just a toddler. At the time I was signing up for every platform possible to get my blog Astrology Explored noticed. When I encountered Twitter, which at the time defined itself as microblogging, I scratched my head. What the heck is one hundred forty characters good for? I was so wrong. Now, I admit to flailing around Twitter for a number of years so that it took this […]
- [Chuck Wendig's Newest Challenge: First 1,000 Words](https://bethturnage.com/?p=398): Chuck Wendig posted his most impossible challenge of all: Grab 1000 words of your NaNoWriMo work-in-progress (or, really, even if you’re not participating, any WIP of yours), and slap those 1000 words online for all to see. Eeek. I mean, I’m just not ready to do that. It’s still working, foaming in the vat of writerly inspiration, not quite ready for public inspection. Instead I give you the first thousand words of Forced Labor, which I’m happy with. I don’t know though. My twenty-eight year old middle son read the first four hundred words and thought it was pretty cool. […]
- [The Craft of Writing: Lexical Density and You](https://bethturnage.com/?p=388): According to the study, Success with Style: Using Writing Style to Predict the Success of Novels, by Stony Brook University’s Vikas Gajingunte Ashok, Song Feng, and Yejin Choi, whether or not a book will sell can be determined by several quantifiable factors. The researchers downloaded classic literature from the Project Gutenberg archive, used more recent award-winning novels and analyzed low-ranking books on Amazon — and included genres from science fiction to classic literature and even poetry. Successful books utilized a high percentage of nouns and adjectives, conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, determiners and adjectives. They found that successful books made great use […]
- [Cover Reveal: Forced Labor-Book 1--Arekan's War](https://bethturnage.com/?p=377): Now on Amazon. Arekan leads a hardscrabble and solitary life as a hired blade for whatever merchant space vessel that will take him. The problem with twenty-two year old Arekan is that he causes trouble wherever he goes, enough so that he uses variety of aliases. Fired by his last captain, stranded in a foreign nation, he is approached by a member of the outlaw family who once ruled the Kyn Empire. The imperious man offers him employment. The job? Smuggle his son into the Kyn Empire. Arekan hates the condescending manner of Sinlon Mor’a’stan, and he despises the man’s […]
- [Chuck Wendig's Synopsis Challenge](https://bethturnage.com/?p=365): We all have to do them sometimes. The synopsis, the story outline, plus some, that an agent or publisher or heaven’s forbid, a work for hire buyer, will demand. Chuck in his doubtful wisdom has demanded, with threat of bug zapping violence, that we produce them for our NaNo project in November. Only I won’t participate this year, not because I don’t want to, but because in a week I’ll have my chest cracked open and have open heart surgery. (Please, it’s not that dramatic anymore, just incredibly painful, but I digress.) I highly doubt I’ll be doing much for […]
- [Scrivener's Shot Gun Wedding With Pro-Writing Aid](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1766): My most useful writing tools are Scrivener and Pro-Writing Aid. Most writers have heard of Scrivener, a powerful word processing program that orders and organizes the screaming voices in your writer’s head, helping you to pump out your stories. There are too many features in this program to write about, though the number of features is what turns some writers away. But having found the most productive way (for me) to use Scrivener, I won’t write in anything else. Pro-Writing Aid is an online program that helps you with the grunt work of editing your stories. Want a swift and […]
- [Scrivener's Shot Gun Wedding With Pro-Writing Aid](https://bethturnage.com/?p=353): My most useful writing tools are Scrivener and Pro-Writing Aid. Most writers have heard of Scrivener, a powerful word processing program that orders and organizes the screaming voices in your writer’s head, helping you to pump out your stories. There are too many features in this program to write about, though the number of features is what turns some writers away. But having found the most productive way (for me) to use Scrivener, I won’t write in anything else. Pro-Writing Aid is an online program that helps you with the grunt work of editing your stories. Want a swift and […]
- [The Art of #Writing: How To Finish a Book](https://bethturnage.com/?p=348): Now, not to disparage those writers that have spent the last four decades polishing their magnum opus, but there comes a time to finish a book. Like a relationship gone bad, it’s a bit ripe and it’s time to move on already. Aren’t there other stories you want to explore? Don’t you have a folder of story ideas that are weeping for your attention. You know there is. So how to do it? Now confession time. I’m sitting on my high horse here, even though I’m one of though aforementioned authors. But things have changed for me in writing land […]
- [The Craft of Writing: One Story Telling Error in The Water Diviner](https://bethturnage.com/?p=1765): Recently, I shuffled out of my writer’s cave and went with a friend to see Russell Crowe’s debut directorial effort, The Water Diviner. The critics are split on how well he did: It’s clear that Russell Crowe has poured his heart and soul into the historical romance The Water Diviner, his first feature as a director. If only the film were better. And: Its journey of healing and self-discovery can be felt a century and a continent away. There are other, less complementary quotes but I could see nothing wrong with his visual imagery, or the performance of the actors, […]
- [The Craft of Writing: One Story Telling Error in The Water Diviner](https://bethturnage.com/?p=335): Recently, I shuffled out of my writer’s cave and went with a friend to see Russell Crowe’s debut directorial effort, The Water Diviner. The critics are split on how well he did: It’s clear that Russell Crowe has poured his heart and soul into the historical romance The Water Diviner, his first feature as a director. If only the film were better. And: Its journey of healing and self-discovery can be felt a century and a continent away. There are other, less complementary quotes but I could see nothing wrong with his visual imagery, or the performance of the actors, […]
- [Flash Fiction Challenge: Ten Random Sentences](https://bethturnage.com/?p=321): Chuck Wending’s flash fiction challenge was to pick one of ten random sentences and write a story incorporating it. The sentences were great and it was hard to chose one. “The mysterious diary records the voice.” “The stranger officiates the meal.” “The shooter says goodbye to his love.” “A glittering gem is not enough.” “The memory we used to share is no longer coherent.” “The old apple revels in its authority.” “Rock music approaches at high velocity.” “Sixty-Four comes asking for bread.” “Abstraction is often one floor above you.” “The river stole the gods.”
- [Book Review: Strange Magic--A Yancy Lazarus Tale](https://bethturnage.com/?p=309): Note: Strange Magic was given to me by the author as an Advance Release Copy in exchange for an honest review. Yancy Lazarus is having a bad day: there’s a bullet lodged in his butt cheek, his face looks like the site of a demolition derby, and he’s been saran-wrapped to a banquet table. Yancy is a bluesman, a rambler, a gambler, but not much more. Sure, he can do a little magic—maybe even more than just a little magic—but he knows enough to keep his head down and stay clear of freaky-deaky hoodoo like this business in LA. Somehow […]

## Pages

- [My Ebook Orders](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=2350)
- [Thank you for ordering!](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=2349)
- [Home](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=1971)
- [Works in Progress](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=1946)
- [Contact](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=1911)
- [About Beth](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=1902)
- [News](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=7)
- [Sample Page](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=2): This is an example page. It’s different from a blog post because it will stay in one place and will show up in your site navigation (in most themes). Most people start with an About page that introduces them to potential site visitors. It might say something like this: Hi there! I’m a bike messenger by day, aspiring actor by night, and this is my website. I live in Los Angeles, have a great dog named Jack, and I like piña coladas. (And gettin’ caught in the rain.) …or something like this: The XYZ Doohickey Company was founded in 1971, […]
- [Pirate's Luck–Chapter Fourteen~The Dead Zone](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=1721): “Damned-to-the-seven-hells stupid pirate captain.” Arekan cursed Etharin while he crawled in the ventilation shafts of The Rogan, a spaceship thirty years too old, and sixty years behind in repairs and upgrades. The tub was not fit to sit in, let alone travel the black depths of space. In his short life, nineteen-year-old Arekan Mor’a’stan never thought he’d land on a pirate ship, or as the captain called it, a salvage vessel. Arekan also never imagined he would need to use an alias, or sell his sword skills honed since he could walk to land a berth on the decrepit scow. […]
- [NaNoWriMo 2019: A Matter of Time](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=1544): For my NaNoWriMo project I’ve dusted off an older project, Cassandra Sees: A Matter of Time. Here is the blurb: When a Detective Dan Arrington investigating local murders finds a woman who knows more details about them than she should can he believe she got those details from astrology? Or does her information come from more personal involvement? And why does Cassandra hide from the world in her apartment? What or who is she afraid of? This project springs from my personal knowledge of Forensic Astrology, the astrology that helps to solve crimes. This is a small specialty within the […]
- [Pirate's Luck~Chapter Thirteen—Laundry Problems](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=1464): Rastan cleaned his body in the sonic shower, while Arekan stood at the door preventing any of the curious crew from entering. The fact was Rastan, or the alias he used, Pepin, the new crew-member they had picked up illegally, was too pretty for a group of hardened criminals to resist. Arekan worried about this and feared for the day when the riffraff would storm them both. This worry grew the closer they drew to the Kyn border. Arekan had four causes for worry here. One was the illegal turbo-ramjet batteries that Captain Etharin stored in the engine room. The […]
- [Pirate's Luck: Chapter Twelve~The New Man](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=1314): The slave’s face crumbled into disgust when the hatch of the ship sealed. “Great gods,” he muttered in Fedeng. “What?” said Arekan. “I thought that awful smell came from you,” he said. “It’s all over your clothes. But I see now it’s from the ship.” Arekan felt a blush creep up his neck. He must have gotten used the stench that first hit him when he walked onto the ship. It embarrassed him to think he carried the stink in his clothes. “Stop your jabbering, both of you,” snapped Grokin. He sat on one of the crates while he lovingly […]
- [Arekan's Blog](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=1144)
- [Interview With The Ghostwriter](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=1117): Sometimes I’m absolutely reckless. When Mary Caelsto of Unscrambled Authors put a call out to interview authors I sent in my spiel about being a ghostwriter. Now I’m good with public speaking but I probably need to brush up on my interview skills, so bear with me. But there is some good information about the subject of ghostwriting fiction that answers many of the questions people ask me.
- [Pirate's Luck~Chapter Eleven-To Forbidden Passengers](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=934): In the end, they ran. The group of them, now four, when before they were three, were spotted by one of the slavers as they slipped from the maze of cages that had held their prize. This was the young man they had stolen to conscript as crew on their ship. The young man they “rescued” stayed close, his legs pumping as hard as theirs under the blazing white sun of a planet who life expectancy was comparatively short. But humans resided on it now, low and crass as this class was, and they only cared about the air, water […]
- [Pirate's Luck~Chapter Ten-Discount Skin Ticket](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=907): The main drag of the spaceport town flashed and jittered with bright lights, blinking signs and sharp sounds that sprang from nowhere. Walking side by side to Arekan, Obon gawked at the women and boys standing or sitting seductively behind their plasglass windows. One young boy licked his lips salaciously as the men of the Rogan walked by. “We should grab that one,” said Obon. “He’d be fun.” “So you like boys?” said Egren who stood on Arekan’s left. Obon shrugged. “I like them all. A touch of skin, whiff of their hair, tasting them.” The Rogan’s crewmember ran his […]
- [Pirate's Luck~Chapter Nine--Arekan's Promise](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=883): Arekan didn’t want to face the crew or Grokin or Etharin. His stomach roiled queasy cramps, and he had a blazing headache. Arekan stumbled past the entrance to the crews quarters. It was not occupied the this time of day, but anyone of them was likely to pop in so he couldn’t stay there. He grabbed his blanket and the weak excuse for the pillow from his bunk and staggered down the hallway. He tried the hatches of passenger cabins on either side but found them solidly locked. Finally, a hatch creaked open and Arekan slid his body into the […]
- [Free Stories](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=844): Here is short collection of my SF stories. Oh, yes, I have many more, secreted in special places, and one day, they’ll emerge for you to read them. But here are the few pieces I published here. The Inattentions of Mr. Weatherby–An irascible stranger comes to a small town on a colony planet, and Ari finds herself to drawn to him. But Weatherby barely gives her the time of day and Ari is determined to find out why. The Dragon’s Drama–The dragon is having a bad day much to the consternation of one of his friends. The Incubus’ Tale–A note […]
- [Pirate's Luck: Chapter Eight~Twice Cursed](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=819): Though pain accompanied every movement as Grokin pushed him up the ladder that led to the engine room. Arekan stared stupidly at the long cylinder of the null space displacement unit that ran through the center of the compartment. Except for a few class tours on his home ship, he’d never seen one. But this piece of equipment as everything else on this tub looked in disrepair. Its paint cracked and peeled along its casing, and the rust brown of corrosion marked the unit’s seams. Arekan grew queasier at witnessing the poor condition of this major aspect of the propulsion […]
- [Pirate's Luck: Chapter Seven--Hooked](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=758): “You’re a damned idiot,” said a familiar voice. “Seven lashes were more than enough and you struck too deep. Now, he’s out of commission for at least a month. What use is he now, eh? I’ll be paying for his upkeep and getting no work out of him.” Arekan placed the complaining voice as Etharin as he came to consciousness face down in a bunk not his own. “I’m tired of his attitude. He won’t do a damn thing I tell him.” Grokin said belligerently. “And what about you, eh? You disobeyed my order. Should I give you ten lashes, […]
- [Pirate's Luck: Chapter Six~Crimes and Punishment](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=1752): Arekan kicked out his leg and clocked the intruder in the jaw. The man staggered back, sword in hand, but he did not fall. His gaze fixed on Arekan with a murderous expression. “I’ll kill you,” the pirate growled. “Better men have tried,” said Arekan with more bravado than he felt. “But you are welcome to give it a go.” The man’s face turned a beet red as he pushed himself toward Arekan, his sword pointed toward the nineteen year old. As the man’s sword came within Arekan’s reach, the youth stepped to the man’s left, away from the man’s […]
- [Pirate's Luck: Chapter Six~Crimes and Punishment](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=731): Arekan kicked out his leg and clocked the intruder in the jaw. The man staggered back, sword in hand, but he did not fall. His gaze fixed on Arekan with a murderous expression. “I’ll kill you,” the pirate growled. “Better men have tried,” said Arekan with more bravado than he felt. “But you are welcome to give it a go.” The man’s face turned a beet red as he pushed himself toward Arekan, his sword pointed toward the nineteen year old. As the man’s sword came within Arekan’s reach, the youth stepped to the man’s left, away from the man’s […]
- [Pirate's Luck: Chapter Five~Let 'Em Take Prisoners](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=581): Let him die. “He did not just say that,” said Arekan. He knew the first mate was a hard man, but he didn’t think Grokin would be cold hearted enough to let a member of his crew die. “I’m afraid so,” said Egren. He had pressed a button at his neck on his spacesuit, and Arekan could not hear Grokin. “Our first mate has a ‘let ‘em take prisoners’ policy. It deters those that try to use extortion to get our goods.” “Creator,” muttered Arekan. He peered out over the edge of the hatch to see Obon clutching the swaying […]
- [Media Kits](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=628): Feel free to download a press kit in pdf format on any or all titles below for use in reviews or other work that promotes the titles. The download will take you through a checkout process but no money will be charged to you. The Arekan Stories Arekan, (pronounced Ari’ kay’ an, hey just go with me here) the protagonist of that corner of the Mor’a’stani Universe was never meant to be a main character. He was a piece of backstory created to give a name in the genealogy to my main character in Mindbender. He came to life in […]
- [Pirate's Luck: Chapter Four ~ Whore Trap](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=598): He ran through the halls of his home ship panicked at what he just found out. His father was chasing him. “Arekan! Stop!” his father called. No! No! No! All his life he heard about the other side of their family, the ones that hated and feared Arekan’s side. It was bad enough they were exiled from their homeland, gathered in a multi-generation ship moving from one place to another to avoid detection. But this, what his father told him was too much. “No! Not me!” he screamed at his father denying his heritage, dismissing the responsibility laid on him. […]
- [Pirate's Luck: Chapter Three ~ A Game of Thrown](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=596): Arekan never slept much to begin with. But here, on this ship, and especially with that snake thing slithering around the corridors all he could manage was a light sleep. Raised shipboard Arekan didn’t have much personal experience with animals of any kind. His generational ship discouraged the keeping of pets. Only a carefully controlled population of felines were allowed to control vermin. He didn’t like cats much and they didn’t seem to like him, so Arekan never volunteered to be a “cat guardian” as some of the ship’s children did. It was a silly job anyway, which involved cleaning […]
- [Pirate's Luck: Chapter Two ~ Snakes on a Spaceship](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=588): “This lot says ‘vegetables.’” Arekan read off the description from the worn and cracked compad in his hand. Even as he read it, he knew this was wrong. Vegetables should have been loaded into a stasis unit for transport to protect against spoilage. “Aye,” confirmed Grokin, “vegetables.” Arekan and Grokin spent the last two hours double checking the manifest against the stacks of crates in the cavernous hold. It was freezing here, about minus five degrees Celsius. In the first hour, Arekan donned another long sleeve shirt from his duffle and his black leather gloves before he put on his […]
- [Pirate's Luck: Chapter One ~ The Enemy Rule](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=585): He sat in a corner table in the filthy, and loud spaceport bar. Just nineteen, he was too young to be here with a beer at hand and expected to be turned out any second. But he waited for someone, and he had to make this meeting. Because of his last encounter with them, he was on the run from the Imperial Guard. Staying here at N’sen, the crossroads of three nations, the League, Kyn and Oshija, was no longer an option. To get clear, he had to find a ship fast to take him on as crew. The light […]
- [Pirate's Luck](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=413): Orphaned. Homeless. Alone. Nineteen year old Arekan was on the run from the Kyn Imperial Guard. He needed to flee the Kyn Empire quickly and without having to show passport papers. The only way to do that was to hire on a merchant freighter as a crewman. Inexperienced and with his only marketable skill his swordsmanship, he sought employment as a “blade,” ship’s security. Only the one ship that would take him was less than reputable and would change his life forever. Read Pirate’s Luck for free! Sign up for free updates on this and other content in the box […]
- [Ghostwriting](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=524): Whether or not you have me sign a non-disclosure agreement, I don’t tell people the names of the titles I’ve ghostwritten for you. Your secret is safe with me. I’ll work within what genre you want and with your materials and outline or develop one for you. Also accepting editor work. Don’t wait to contact me. My writing calendar is booked at least one, sometimes two months in advance. You can reach me at beth@bethturnage.com. Testimonial: Just finished reading the outline.  You always impress me!  Your ability to weave these awesome stories is unmatched.  Thanks again for your magical touch.–Chris […]
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- [Snap](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=458): Oh dear! Something went wrong! Contact me and we’ll figure it out. Beth@bethturnage.com
- [Books for Purchase](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=418): Arekan leads a hardscrabble and solitary life as a hired blade for whatever merchant space vessel that will take him. The problem with twenty-two year old Arekan is that he causes trouble wherever he goes, enough so that he uses variety of aliases. Fired by his last captain, stranded in a foreign nation, he is approached by a member of the outlaw family who once ruled the Kyn Empire. The imperious man offers him employment. The job? Smuggle his son into Kyn. Arekan hates the condescending manner of Sinlon Mor’a’stan, and he despises the man’s privileged and haughty son, Santir. […]
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- [Spiffy Things](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=343): Because, you know, some people DON’T know. I want a cupcake now.
- [Works In Progress](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=106): Master’s License:”Fourteen-year-old Kelleen Rynin has grown up on a spaceship under the relentless tutelage of her father, Captain Sted Rynin. Intellectually gifted, she obtained her pilot’s license at the precocious age of twelve. Now, her father insists she takes the International Trader’s Union Master’s License test—a grueling challenge that requires her to board a ship in distress and take command. Kelleen wakes on a decrepit spaceship and discovers pirates have imprisoned its crew. To make matters worse, the ship has been rigged with demolition bombs. When Kelleen realizes that the ITU expected her father to intervene and save her, she […]
- [About Beth](https://bethturnage.com/?page_id=1745): I’ve been freelance writer since 2007. I write fantasy and science fantasy. To my fund my writing addiction I also ghostwrite SFF and paranormal books. Ssh, I can’t tell you the names of the titles, but if you need a ghostwriter for your stories, shoot me a line and we can discuss what you need. You can contact me at beth@bethturnage.com.


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