Year: 2019

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My 5 Best SciFi Story Ideas for You. Plus . . .

My 5 Best SciFi Story Ideas from science articles I’ve found around the internet. Let’s start with number one.

A quick summary of the previous story: The WannaCry worm came close to crashing the internet. It was only stopped by the quick thinking and hard work of two cybersecurity specialists.

How would you write a SciFi story off this? What would happen if the whole world used virtual reality and hackers attacked that? Reply with your best ideas and I’ll give each of you a short story.

This video is kind of science-fictiony, but more of a cautionary tale is what can go wrong with high-risk rocketry.

5 Best SciFi Story Ideas – Your Next Idea

What if? That’s the essence of writing science fiction. What if the moon program hadn’t been cancelled by a budget conscious Congress? What if we discovered something that changed human history? Again, comments to this blog post or email replies will get a free short story from me

Along with writing stories comes editing. Editing separates the lemons from the melons.

Your Third Science Fiction Seed

Here, I present to you a scifi take on pterodactyls.

Would you like pterodactyls flying around? Would you hunt them?

Then, speaking of things that fly, you have this unique video.

Your Fourth Science Fiction Inspiration

Where can you go with an AI poker player? Clean out Las Vegas? Or take over Las Vegas? Or flee assassins seeking to kill you?

Then you can get this science fiction short story I wrote, based upon a jar of pickles. And so much more.

5 Best SciFi Best Story Ideas
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The Last of 5 Best SciFi Story Ideas

Gravity lensing. Now used for astronomy. Could it be used for space travel? Teleportation? The sky’s the limit! No, your imagination is all that limits you.

No scientific article or paper is complete without a pie chart. So here it is.

Thanks for reading to the end of the blog! Laugh through my first novel, Zombie Turkeys for free by clicking this following cover.

5 Best SciFi Story Ideas
Click to get your free copy of Zombie Turkeys

Sam Melvin, an underachieving e-reporter from a small town, changes forever when he meets turkeys that won’t stay dead. You can shoot ’em, chop ’em, burn ’em—they come back stronger. The undead plague of poultry spreads uncontrollably, rocking the whole country. As Sam tracks down the zombie turkeys and how to eradicate them, his editor, Lisa Kambacher, nags him to turn his stories and expenses in on time. During their years of working together, Lisa has mellowed into an irascible pinchpenny.

Lisa snipes at Sam for plebeian writing but uses her intelligence to pursue the lucrative carnivorous turkey story. Sam and Lisa ricochet across the landscape, tracking turkeys and fleeing the bloodthirsty hordes. Careening from shell-shocked grocery store owners fighting turkeys crawling out of refrigerators, to machine-gunning turkey farmers, to secret militia, Sam and Lisa doggedly report. Throughout the turkey apocalypse, they dare ravaged cities, plow knee deep in gore and corpses, and upload streams of zombie turkey video news to the world.

Paranoid militias clashing with the federal government forces and unkillable turkeys make Sam and Lisa doubt their ability to survive. Sam and Lisa have no superpowers. If you have a heart condition or lack humor, you should not read Zombie Turkeys, no matter how much you want to find out what happens.

from Zombie Turkeys

Zombie Turkeys Review

Rik Ty

4.0 out of 5 stars

Miss Goosebumps? Have Fun With Zombie Turkeys!

July 17, 2018

What was most surprising to me about Andy Zach’s Zombie Turkeys? – that is qualified as an actual adventure story! I wasn’t expecting that. About a quarter way in, when a young reporter gets the assignment to follow a swarm of 10,000 rampaging turkeys into a stretch of unfamiliar woodlands, it actually grabbed my attention while I was driving, and I was scared for the reporter (even without the zombie element, 10.000 turkeys is a LOT, and being a reporter is no protection against 10,000 wild animals).

More here:

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5 Writing Posts to Make You a Better Author

5 Writing Posts to Make You a Better Author – where am I going with this? I found these great articles teaching writing skills. Then I thought, “Maybe other people can benefit from these. Other authors, poets, non-fiction writers and students can all learn.

So tell me if you like this kind of blog post here.

5 Writing Posts – Your First Lesson

Just kidding! I thought I’d start with a laugh. Here’s the real article next.

Yes, that’s right. This initial post covers everything you should NOT do as a writer. It’s a simple list, but it covers most of the bad things writers can do and do do.

Your Next Lesson

Now you get a video tutorial on how to structure a book.

Various plot structures

The following quickly summarizes :

1. Hero’s Journey
2. Save the Cat – 15 beat story structure
3. The Plot Embryo
4. 27 chapters (3 act structure) Each act into 3 blocks and each block has three chapters.

Do I follow these structures? Not consciously. I seek to start quickly with a tense situation, and build through each chapter. I’ll have ‘relief’ chapters where I surprise the reader with new, interesting characters and conflicts, before returning to the big conflict. The problems build through the book until they’re finally resolved in a big climax. Then I throw in a twist at the end.

I did this for each of my books:

5 Writing Posts
Andy Zach’s novels

5 Writing Posts – Your Third Lesson

Now, let’s tackle that dreaded activity–editing after you’ve written your book.

My quick summary, in time order:

  1. Developmental editing – story structure and organization
  2. Line editing – making each sentence the best it can be.
  3. Copy editing – getting rid of stupid speling misteaks and grammar errorz and punctuation!!!
  4. Proofreading – how does the final copy look on the page? Font size, spacing, paragraphs, page breaks.

I just use items 2-4. I’ve never really had anyone criticize my structure so far. My editor for edit types 1-3 is Dori Harrell at Breakout Editing. She’s worked on Zombie Turkeys, My Undead Mother-in-law, and Paranormal Privateers.

For my latest novel, Secret Supers, just published last March, I tapped Leslie McKie’s expertise.

Aside from professional editing, she’s taught middle school and disabled children. She was perfect to edit my book about seventh-grade disabled superheroes.

5 Writing Posts
Secret Supers Cover

For my layout or proofreading edit, I use Rik Hall at Wild Seas Editing. He’s formatted all my books for print and ebook versions.’

Your Fourth Writing Post

More on plotting! I dislike any structure forcing me to write a particular plot, but I follow everything it says.

Your Last Writing Tip

Naturally, I couldn’t resist publishing another joke first. Your real, last tip comes next.

What can you learn from this lady?

  1. You’re never too old to start writing.
  2. Once you start writing, keep writing
  3. Publish what you write. You may finally catch on.
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4 New Science Stories Ideal for Science Fiction

4 New Science and Technology Stories Ideal for Science Fiction. First of all, let’s start with this one:

What are the five coolest things and what kind of stories can I write?

Firstly, there’s a strong 3D membrane that can be used as a matrix for tissue growth and healing. I’d write a story about using it to restoring some injured person to better than they were.

Then, we have an on/off adhesive that works like a snail. When it’s dry it’s adhesive. When wet, it works as a lubricant. I’d write a story about a human fly who uses it to climb buildings.

Then we have a robotic fish. Out of millions of possible stories, my first inclination is to write about a hopeless military situation where an army is surrounded by a superior force and then use these fish to spy upon and attack the enemy.

Fourthly, read about mental control of prosthetic limbs through an EKG controlled helmet. I kind of have this in my books My Undead Mother-in-law and Paranormal Privateers. I could also use this in a sequel to my last book Secret Supers.

4 New Science Stories
Andy Zach’s books Click to get them.

Finally you’ll read about a solar desalinator. In this case, I’d make a story about a destitute desert county that turns into a paradise using this.

What stories do you have? What stories do you want? The best response by comment or email will get a free short story from me.

4 New Science Stories – Your Second Story

Yup, this lady wears an external corset that pokes anyone who comes too close to her. What would I do with this story idea?

I’d take it to the next level of extreme. I’d make it a military weapon by increasing the speed and force and add bowie knives to the end.

Then this weekend I’ll sign my books at Geekfest in Peoria.

4 New Science Stories – Your Third Story

Through the annals of science fiction many stories describe adventures with asteroids. In real life, we have a satellite around one for the first time, mapping it to plan a landing. How can I make that into my next story?

I would describe the landing from the satellite’s point of view. Then I would describe some giant creature swallowing it from inside the asteroid. Finally, I’d finish the story by portraying the creature’s point of view. Maybe it’d think, “Yummy!”

Oh, wait–George Lucas already did that. Watch this next video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1Om-662nUg&ab_channel=MrFreezy

Your Last Story

Finishing up my science stories for you, read this next classic trope:

Hundreds, perhaps thousands of stories have been written about asteroids hitting the earth. How can I make it fresh and new?

I would write the story from the point of view of dwellers on the asteroid and their efforts to survive. But, would you enjoy that story?