Allex_Spires's profile

You might want to go ahead and block me, I have a weird habit of encouraging people to do better and to prove me wrong.  Many find it rude to act this way in a writers’ workshop.

I never went to high school or college.


Just punch the air.
-Doctor Who

If all things are possible, then it must be possible for all things to be impossible.  If all things are impossible then it must be impossible for anything to be possible.

All things cannot be possible.
-Schuyler Twombly

If you’re ever satisfied with anything, you’ve got problems.
-Bill Johnson

I’m a fiction writer:
The Summer of ‘76

I coauthored a short story with Lincoln Crisler which is…

You might want to go ahead and block me, I have a weird habit of encouraging people to do better and to prove me wrong.  Many find it rude to act this way in a writers’ workshop.

I never went to high school or college.


Just punch the air.
-Doctor Who

If all things are possible, then it must be possible for all things to be impossible.  If all things are impossible then it must be impossible for anything to be possible.

All things cannot be possible.
-Schuyler Twombly

If you’re ever satisfied with anything, you’ve got problems.
-Bill Johnson

I’m a fiction writer:
The Summer of ‘76

I coauthored a short story with Lincoln Crisler which is featured in the horror collection
Our Shadows Speak

And I authored a piece of flash that is readable on FlashQuake.com
The Tip

I’m a fiction editor.  I’ve worked on two books.  Gay Black Crippled Fat, by Adarro Minton, and Horror Library Volume 1, by various authors for horrorlibrary.net.

I will never professionally allow an author to hire my services and then ignore my suggestions because by the author ignoring me, anything that goes wrong in the book is my fault because I’m the editor.  I let things slide on my first editing job, a review that came out blamed me for what the author told me was his style.  But it was just bad writing.

In the future I am going to be much more adamant about proper use of English grammar, and correct demonstration of English writing patterns.
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How to write:

We’re all in a workshop to work on our works.  None of us are perfect and very few of us are very published, even fewer are professionally published.

I think that sometimes it might be a good idea to go back to the basics for a little brushing-up because we can all just get lost in what we’re doing now, and forget how and why we even started.

Here are several links to some helpful sites that I’ve found, if you think they’re helpful, use them; if you don’t think they’re helpful, then I don’t know what to say… you’re welcome anyway.

How to Write, by children’s author Bruce Hale Pretty basic.

How to Write a Story Less basic.  Sorry, but it’s swimming with ads.

Writing the Perfect Scene

Complete text of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style (aka The Writers’ Bible)online

BBC’s How to write in various forms, Radio play, memoir, novel, screenplay.

Show, Don’t Just Tell, and what that means.

Active versus passive verbs

Writing Dialog
Writing dialog2

In Which

Perdue University Online Writing Lab Handouts

If you’re unsure about your grammar:
Grammar Blue Book
On-Line Dictionary/Thesaurus/Encyclopedia

Spell Check Your Work

If you think you have a neat idea, but aren’t sure how something works, you might decide to make it up.  There’s no need because you can visit HowStuffWorks.com.

And, of course, there’s always the The WikiPedia.

Ready to publish?
Duotrope Publisher Search Engine

Ralan’s Webstravaganza Horror/Fantasy/Sci-Fi Market Listings