Tag: writing tips

Blue fantastical female adorned with flowers and intricate jewelry

Creative Writing: What does ‘creative’ mean?

April 1, 2025 by Kenton Erwin

What we writers do is called ‘creative’ writing. But what is that, really? What do we have to do, to be ‘creative’ in our writing? The definition of ‘creative (adjective)’ is ‘involving original ideas in producing an artistic work.’ So, to be ‘creative’ writers, we must make original ideas. Ideas not heretofore conceived …

A humanoid robot posing like Rodin's The Thinker, sitting with chin resting on hand.

Creating Convincing AI Characters

December 23, 2024 by Paul Martz

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, …

woman yawning while reading about an epic battle

Explode Your Action Scenes: Goals, Pacing, Clarity, and Character

November 11, 2024 by Noah Wilhelm

Permit me to paint a picture for you: in an epic fight, your characters have overcome immense peril and defeated the villain. It’s the climax to your story, the work of months, if not years. But you run into a hiccup. Your readers don’t enjoy the scene. They find it …

Plot Devices: Twisting Your Plot

October 11, 2024September 11, 2024 by Kelly Sanford

Whether you’re a “panster” with a predisposition to write your way straight into a sagging middle or a “plotter” who struggles to get the beats just right so you can sit down and write already, having a firm command of plot devices can be the game changer you need to …

Assortment of propellors with a big one in the middle

Plot Devices: Propelling Your Story

September 8, 2024 by Kelly Sanford

Four Steps to Revising My Opening with a Critiki Bar Hangover

August 9, 2024September 28, 2022 by Paul Martz

Ugh. I just woke up with a wicked headache, and my tongue feels like it’s taped to the roof of my mouth. That’s what I get for drinking at The Critiki Bar, my pick for best workshop of the 2022 RMFW Gold Conference. The bartenders (er, moderators) were Katharine Sands, …

Expert Advice from a New Writer

August 9, 2024January 22, 2021 by Paul Martz

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 …

Writing Query Letters for Writers with Disabilities

June 9, 2023October 7, 2020 by Paul Martz

3 Query Letter Tips for Writers with Disabilities

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.

paulmartz.com