Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I feel your pain, dios4vida. Same thing happened to my first manuscript. But there are a lot of people here rooting for you, so keep your chin up. One (more) small piece of advice: If you haven't already, you might try querying a few agents who don't take e-mail queries. They get a lot less queries,...

Thanks for the input, adamg73. And what a delightfully rhythmical screen name:)

Good comments from Emily J. Here are a few more. The day it happened began just like the one before, Theron awoke to the squawking of a crow that seemed to have a liking for his windowsill and the sound of its own voice. I agree with Emily - you need stronger punctuation than a comma to join these ...

Thanks, D.S. Deshaw. I'm glad it was clearer this time. And interestingly, your suggestion was the other version of the first sentence that I thought about going with:)

Holly, excellent points. I'll have to see if I can blend the description a little better.

Personally, I prefer the latest incarnation of the second/original query. The revised original query gives us a better sense of the world and feels a little more fleshed out. Conversely, the newer query feels too lighthearted and almost minimizes the stakes with phrases like "he incinerates an ...

Many thanks to all the people who've already taken the time to give me feedback. Here's the latest incarnation of my first page (roughly). The first sentence is still giving me fits, but it's the best I've been able to come up with so far. What do you think (about the first sentence and/or the rest ...

Hello Mr. agent Man/Ms agent Lady Twelve year-old Sarah discovers that magic isn’t a load of guff when her little sister, Jane, disappears before her eyes. Hot on her heels (I agree that this phrase smacks of cliche) , Sarah soon finds herself sneaking into an invisible mansion, scuffling with a th...

Sounds like you've got the right idea, bigheadx. Let the second agent know that the manuscript is out on exclusive to another agent and that you'll contact him/her as soon as you know on the other. And I hope you set a deadline on that exclusive submission. In fact, if you didn't, you might want to ...

Thanks again, D.S. Deshaw and Holly. Your feedback has given me a few specific ideas for tweaking this. I'll probably post take number three in a bit. By the way, Holly, the interview I posted yesterday on my blog made me think of you. The agent reps fantasy and sci-fi, and he prefers hardcopy submi...

I thought It was the perfect day to be a dog. I was speeding down the highway in Tom’s car, my paws hanging over the side of the door, my head poking out of the passenger’s window. A roaring wind pounded over my ears, and the scent of spruce and wild lupine that bloomed along the side of the road d...

Thank you, Holly. I'm glad someone understood it:) Is take number two any better? The principal’s office was pretty high on the list of places Seth avoided. Football practice was up there, too, along with shopping malls, health food joints, and anywhere with free Stream access (which was everywhere ...

Thank you for your comments, D.S. Deshaw, AnimaDictio, and wilderness. Yeah, this is a tough one. On the one hand, you don't want to info-dump (especially since the technology's not new to Seth), but on the other, you don't want to confuse people so badly that they don't want to read on. I'll have t...

Dear Agent, Seventeen year-old (You missed the hyphen between "seventeen" and "year") Sara Charles lives in a small town with her parents and her younger sister. Her life is less than ordinary. She's clumsy, shy to the point of passing out (My favorite line of the query:) ) and ...

Dear [agent name], Winter, 1745. Scotland is losing a war for independence. The advancing British army has orders to leave no survivors. In desperation, Robert Maxwell and his fellow soldiers beg for supernatural aid from the daione sìdhe —faeries exiled by humans to a parallel plane of existence. ...

Well, once again, I find myself agreeing with sbs_mjc1:) I'm not going to go line-by-line with this one, because this reads pretty well (although sbs_mjc1 found some excellent clauses to cut). (Okay, one line-by-line note: I think you can come up with a better start than "Tizzy Banks has a prob...