Paul Martz

Paul is a prizewinning speculative fiction author, technology blogger, and former punk rock drummer. His work is published or forthcoming at Uncharted Magazine, Amazing Stories, Creepy Podcast, and Punk Noir Magazine. At age six, he saw 2001: A Space Odyssey on the big screen, which lead him to a collection of Clarke’s short stories and a lifelong insatiable appetite for mind-bending science fiction. Originally from Flint, MI, Paul resides in Colorado, where he tries to avoid reliving his punk rock days. He is still trying to teach his cat to play drums.
A humanoid robot posing like Rodin's The Thinker, sitting with chin resting on hand.

Creating Convincing AI Characters

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You’ve got a brilliant idea for a story about an AI. Time to get writing. You sit at your desk. You boot your laptop. You dismiss those notifications about pending updates. You launch your word processor. You spend five minutes setting the font, paragraph indent, and line spacing. At last, …

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Two wrestlers, one flying through the air headed for slamming the other.

Submission Slammers

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I write short stories. The investment is light, the turnaround is fast, and with every story, I feel my writing improves. While many members of Speculative Fiction Writers are developing novel-length manuscripts, short stories provide an excellent creative break. It might be just what you need to get unblocked. To …

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Title overlying a peaceful waterfall

Keeping the Words Flowing with Flow State

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I attended the recent RMFW Gold Conference looking for ways to increase my creative output. It takes me months to write a 4k-word short story. Unless I become more productive, completing a novel will be Herculean. Nikki Terpilowski’s session on flow state promised a solution, but flow state sounded kind …

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A Computer Wrote My Story

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming an increasingly powerful tool for authors, providing new opportunities to generate creative fiction. With the ability to analyze vast amounts of data and understand natural language, AI can help authors generate new ideas, develop characters, and even write entire stories. In this article, we’ll explore …

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Paul Martz Named 2022 Roswell Award Finalist

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Paul Martz is administering self-defibrillation after finding out that his story, Dr. Harriet Hartfeld’s Home for Aging AIs, is a finalist for the 2022 Omega Sci-Fi Roswell Award. Prizewinners will be announced during the May 21 awards ceremony, in which finalist stories will be read aloud by celebrity narrators. Attend …

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Expert Advice from a New Writer

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Writing advice surrounds me. Everyone, it seems, is an expert. One day, all that information on self-publishing, pitching a story, and writing query letters will come in handy, but for now I feel like I’m drowning in unhelpful advice. Sink with me to the bottom of the writing-advice ocean, where …

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Writing Query Letters for Writers with Disabilities

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3 Query Letter Tips for Writers with Disabilities

Getting Wild

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Paul Martz’s science fiction short story, The re-creation of Sahmik Ghee, will appear in the 2020 RMFW Anthology, Wild: Uncivilized Tales, available September 11. The story was inspired by the classic poem by Robert W. Service and reflects Paul’s love for both kaiju and dark humor. This will be Paul’s …

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