Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I'm starting a blogfest for teen writers called the 2011 Teen Writers Summer Blogfest. (I'm a teen writer, btw.) I noticed that there were some other teen writers on the NB forums. I would've posted this in the teen writers thread, but it's a bit old and I didn't want to bump it, so I decided to pos...

I'd rep MG and YA fantasy, paranormal, contemporary, mysteries, urban fantasy, and horror novels. I'd ask for the query and first five pages, and I'd use a form rejection for queries, but if I requested a full and rejected it, I would personalize the rejection with a reason why. I'd try to respond a...

I like the revised query, but I'm wondering if your novel is really YA. YA main characters are typically 15-18 years old, but Emil sounds older in this. How old is he?

Ooh, I love this query! I would definitely request pages if I were an agent. :) When he was a child, a madman kidnapped fourteen-year-old Marquis Emil Aleric and his sister. It sounds like the madman was a child when he kidnapped Emil. Maybe you could rephrase it to something like, "When Marqui...

This is much, much better than the original query. I understand it, until the end of the 3rd paragraph: Treacherous leaks within the Westland family bring grisly threats from a rival family and soon a trail of bodies send an overwhelmed Dak tumbling down a slippery slope of terror into the middle of...

I've only ever posted writing on forums, so I have no idea what it would be like to post my writing on my blog or a friend's, where anyone can read it. My advice is to have your family/friends read it, maybe post some on your blog if you have one, and get a beta reader/critiquing partner or two. Onc...

Does it seem okay now with that in mind? A little bit more. Maybe other critiquers have opinions on this? It might just be a matter of opinion. Do you still think that part needs clarification? Nope, I think it's good. Write2Me- While I don't think rewriting the query the way you would have written...

Many suggest that the query should be styled after the attention-grabbing quips on the back cover of the average novel. I think they mean that the query should be styled after the pitch part of back cover copies. I don't think published writers actually write their back cover copies, and whoever wr...

Hi Bartle001- I liked how you revised the query, and I really like your premise, so I'm just chiming in with my thoughts here. I don't really think you should have included what the ending will be in the query. You told us it's going to be a swordfight, and I'm guessing there's about a 75% chance th...

Hi Michael- I haven't critiqued a lot of queries, but I've read the archives of Query Shark, so I'm using what I've learned from there, and my own opinions. Shocked when his stoner lab tech I'm not sure what stoner lab tech means, but maybe that's just me creates the impossible formula, Doral “Dak” ...

I'm also a teenage writer. (Well, I turn 13 in November, so almost-teenage.) I'm also inspired by Steph Bowe and Kody Keplinger. :) And I blog. This NaNo will be my second, and I'm very excited. Right now I'm working on my third novel.

I write middle-grade fantasy, which is hard to find agents for. I've gone through Agent Query twice, Query Tracker, Google, etc., and I only have 30-some agents on my list.