Ross Lampert
ALLi Author Member
Location: United States of America
Genres:
Ross Lampert, a.k.a. The Critique Doctor, has been writing since third grade, when the class performed his one-act play based on the Mercury space missions. He joined his first organized critique group while he was in college at the University of Colorado. While his writing and critiquing experience waxed and waned during his Air Force career, he got serious about both after he retired. He formed the Broncho Writers’ Group while getting his master’s degree in English at the University of Central Oklahoma, and he’s been writing and critiquing ever since. After moving to Arizona in 2006, he joined one critique group, decided the way it worked wasn’t for him, and formed the Cochise Writers’ Group in 2007. That group is still going strong. Many of the group’s current or former members have published short stories, poems, memoirs, or novels. Along the way, Ross has learned a lot about what makes a good critique group and a good (effective, useful) critique—and what doesn’t. He’s happy to share that knowledge with you through this website and his Craft & Critique series, which will be available soon in print and ebook formats from all major online distributors.
Ross Lampert's books
Genres: Advice & How To, Writing & Publishing
Formats: E-Book, Paperback
Age Groups: 16-18, 18+
If you’ve ever reviewed a story or article where the author was struggling with the mechanics of written English, left you confused about the piece’s place and time, or overwhelmed with details, Mechanics, Narrative, and Description (an Amazon #1 Bestseller) is for you. In this book, long-time critique group leader Ross Lampert (a.k.a. The Critique Doctor) provides detailed, practical articles on how to help you and your critique partners improve your: • Spelling, punctuation, grammar, capitalization, and more • Narrative, that is, their authorial voice and style, balancing showing and telling, using too many words or too few, continuity problems, etc. • Description, whether it’s vague or too detailed, full of info-dumps of unnecessary detail, provide inconsistent or contradictory details, and so on. Each article ends with questions you can ask yourself about the piece you’re reviewing to identify the exact problem you’re seeing and offer the author usable critique.
Genres: Advice & How To, Writing & Publishing
Formats: E-Book, Paperback
Age Groups: 16-18, 18+
If you’re in any kind of critique partnership, whether it’s in person, virtual, or online, your goals are—or should be—to help your partners improve their work while also improving your own. To do that, it’s vital to know how to give critique to your fellow writers that will meet their, and their work’s, needs. It’s equally important for each member of the partnership to be able to listen to, evaluate, and learn from the critique they receive. Effective critique is focused and constructive. It addresses both a piece’s strengths and weaknesses, offering advice and suggestions on how to build on those strengths and overcome or work around the areas that need improving. While the rest of the Craft & Critique series goes into detail on specific topics that can be critiqued, Giving and Receiving Effective Critique provides you with the tools for presenting your thoughts and suggestions to your fellow...
Genres: Advice & How To, Writing & Publishing
Formats: E-Book, Paperback
Age Groups: 16-18, 18+
Maybe you’ve decided that you really need to get some feedback on your writing. Or maybe you’re getting feedback but it doesn’t seem to be helping and you’re looking for something better. Or maybe you actually want to help other writers get better but don’t have a forum from which to do it. In any of these cases, Finding the Write Fit (an Amazon #1 Bestseller) is the resource you’re looking for. In this book, you’ll find chapters on: • How to evaluate your own needs, goals, strengths, and weaknesses as a writer • Where to find critique groups that meet in person, virtually via apps like Zoom or Microsoft Teams, or perhaps both, and how to evaluate the ones you find • Where to find critique groups and alpha- and beta-reader matching groups on social media, and how to evaluate them • The websites that let members submit and...
Genres: Dystopian, Science Fiction (Sci-Fi), Thriller
Formats: E-Book, Paperback
Age Groups: 16-18, 18+
Web reporter Lisa Lange chrysalized in late 2036. Four months later, she’s hatched and the world is about to learn how different Gen2s like her are from the New People of the first chrysalization wave. Their telempathic powers are terrifying: far stronger than the New People’s, mysterious, and seemingly uncontrollable. They can do great harm. Or—sometimes—great good. And the Gen2 might never know what they did. The Eternity Plague viruses have disappeared, too, their DNA incorporated into the human genome. Now it’s even harder for Janet Hogan and her team of geneticists to find a cure. Janet’s running out of time. The viral DNA is mutating faster and faster. The human forces arrayed against her are growing stronger. Her one chance to save humanity may mean breaking the rules she’s always believed in. Can she do it? Will she? And will even that be enough?
Genres: Dystopian, Science Fiction (Sci-Fi), Thriller
Formats: E-Book, Paperback
Age Groups: 16-18, 18+
Dr. Janet Hogan believes in late 2035 that she’s found a partial cure for the Eternity Plague viruses, but before she can test her idea, an assassin shoots her in the head. While she’s in emergency surgery, her medical team discovers that her skin is turning into a shell. It closes over her face the next day, leaving her no way to eat. Or breathe. And yet, she survives. Janet isn’t the first to chrysalize. Or the last. Initially, only the seriously injured chrysalize, but then even healthy people all around the world do. By New Year’s Day, 2036, the pandemic seems unstoppable. Yet not everyone chrysalizes. A group of survivors huddle at Reverend Will Baxter’s church in Raleigh, North Carolina. Led by Baxter, reporter Lisa Lange, and former safety lobbyist Sarah Green-Dale, they struggle to survive as society collapses. Will they live long enough to find out what will...
Genres: Dystopian, Science Fiction (Sci-Fi), Thriller
Formats: E-Book, Paperback
Age Groups: 16-18, 18+
In 2035, Dr. Janet Hogan makes a stunning discovery: infected by five species of naturally-mutated viruses, every one of earth’s nine billion inhabitants has become immortal. Or have they? By the time Janet learns that this immortality is an illusion, it’s too late to change people’s beliefs. Some love her for creating this miracle and the coming paradise they long for. Others hate her for what they see ahead: immoral behavior without consequence, overpopulation, famine, and worse. Zealots demand that she save people’s souls, humanity, the earth… or the viruses. Or else. Janet realizes this awful truth: no matter what she does, no matter what anyone else wants, sooner or later, billions will die and she’ll be blamed. Will she live long enough to figure a way out of this trap? Meanwhile, the viruses are still mutating.