Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Hi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don't have time to tear it to shreds right now - I'm going to my daughters 6th grade graduation. But I'll be back, Ghost! Hope you've written lots and lots while you've been away!!

~JD

People tend to love outlines or hate outlines. The only time I ever got stuck is when I didn't outline. I strongly suggest outlining. Having said that, I have never convinced someone who hates outlines to try them out. It's funny, I did a blog post about pre-plotting today ;-) I don't outline. Firm...

Oh.....well, at first, I thought it was decent. I mean, it was my first. I'm not Shakespeare or anything. I tucked it away, wrote lots and lots more stuff, got a beta, and pulled it back out. WHOA! That's all I can really say. Since the beginning, it's been through 6 rewrites. Or was it seven? Eight...

[quote="] I'm laughing, only cause my wife bought video tapes at a garage sale of those shows for my 4 year old to watch. [/quote] Classics! Those are classics, I say! My daughter also has copies of them. I am not ashamed to say that I still enjoyed watching them. Something about their theme s...

Justine Dell, not too shabby at all! Or moldy. Are you going to call it MOLDY MEATLOAF? And you're right to divide long sentences. Many queries seem to have paragraph-length sentences, turned back-to-front and modified by various clauses. Thanks! I never thought about calling MOLDY MEATLOAF. I'll m...

Nathan, I was on Query Tracker looking at various other agents to query. I noticed Ginger Clark on my list, but she works for your agency. If I have been rejected by you, should I assume that she also would not be interested in taking a look at my work? I just don't know the level of interaction be...

I REALLY like this, Tycoon! You've really created a scene within the first few sentences. Then it keeps getting better and better!

NICE

~JD

I had a flashback in the beginning of my first novel. Well, three flashbacks to be exact. When I sent queries (ones that included the first 10 pages) the first flashback took up the last two pages. I got a full request, with the following message from the agent: "I like everything but the flash...

Oh, yeah - the road runner was really bad! So was Bug's Bunny. I think I agree with Em...most 80's cartoons were really bad.

I was a My Little Pony and Carebear gal myself. Don't laugh. Okay, go ahead. It's funny. ;-)

~JD

I'm ashamed of myself. I've never tried Nathan's template! I really like the way yours turned out. Let me give it shot: Samantha is a washed up novelist living in New York city fighting daily battles with her rampant OCD and anger issues. But when her grandmother's near death sends her packing back ...

Hey Tycoon!!! I have a feeling I'm going to run into the same problem when I finished the book I'm writing for my daughter. I write romance and I don't really have the drive to publish childrens books, but ahem...the daughter has requested a "real" copy. Now, how do I say no to her cute li...

Justine, That's good to know that you came up with three separate titles in three different ways. I keep hoping for divine intervention, but I'm also happy with Bring Me Back now that everyone has talked me off the Lifetime channel ledge. I had to laugh about your second suggestion about a short ph...

Just wanted to throw out a number I once heard: You'll probably spend (at least) half as long editing a project as you did writing the first draft - and for many writers, it's more like two or three times as long:) OMG, you are soooo right! I only spent 3 months months writing the first one, and ha...

I think what everyone else has said has been pretty spot on. My question to you is, do you have a beta reader? A critque group? Beta's and crit groups can help tremendously when considering the arc of your story, your overall plot, grammar advice, and they can do a final read-through for spelling er...

Interesting topic! I feel your pain. When I titled my first MS, I did the same as you (playing with random words), but I never tried the wordle thing. That's hilarious! I ended up with a play on words in a different way, using themes/ideas from the story itself and putting them together. I ended up ...