Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I agree with others -- I love the premise. Great opportunity for some fun storytelling. However, this does read more like a synopsis to me. You have to state who your main character is and what the driving conflict of the novel is in the first paragraph, if not the first two sentences. Don't mess ar...

I don't have cable television so I only understand about a third of all television references. I really only watch the news, The Office, and Thirty Rock. But I'm a Netflix addict. LOVE movies. And I've discovered a spate of great foreign films lately -- ones that would never get made in the US but s...

A mentor once told me - go with all surprises, the things you weren't expecting, they come from your subconscious. Forget everything you want to say or that you know about the world or about experience and let the story happen, let the story direct you. It's kind of scary to do that though. I alway...

Yes, there are small aspects of my writing wherein I'm artsy and all mystical, too. Curses! Phzzzzzzzzz!) Ha! I knew it! *wipes spit from Margo's raspberry out of eye* Now to expand on the previous question - if you plot are you tending to write thriller/action/plot driven novels, and if you pants ...

Because I don't like to plan out the first two-thirds of a story I have to write linearly. I never know what I'm going to come up with so I can't project ahead and write a later scene -- even if I do see it in my head. I might take a few notes, but I have to wait until I get there in the story to wr...

I know where things start (although that usually ends up getting cut when you realize you're dinking around too much) and I know where things end. That's pretty much how I start. I give free-range to the story and characters for the first two thirds of the story. After that it's time to rein it in....

I came across this brilliantly hysterical English pamphlet from the 1740s, which insisted (among other things) that the Scots had enlisted demons and werewolves and Celtic fairy creatures to their cause. For real? I could probably jump off into a story based on that too. It just tickles the imagina...

I think the trick (and it's not an easy one) is distinguishing why you stop and start over. Is it because of honest story problems which you're correcting, and thus in the end building a stronger narrative? Or is it for other reasons? Psychological, emotional, etc. If it's fear of completion, doubt...

Erica75 wrote:On the off-chance (yeah, right) I'll sound like a cliche, I heard a voice.

My characters say the weirdest things when I'm writing. Sometimes I have to ask, "Really, that's what you want to do? Seriously?"

I usually relent and do what they say just to see what happens.

Oh, I've stopped and started over before. Often numerous times in my current WIP. And I've always gotten somewhere better in the end. The work really does go somewhere. And if it makes you feel better, that's how Tolkien worked. The Lord of the Rings was started, stopped, back to the begining, rest...

Ah, but 'contrived' plotted stories don't preclude this level of insight. It's not necessarily an 'either or'. You're absolutely right about that. I guess I just woke up in one of those moods today. It's cloudy and drizzly here - makes me contemplative. But I do like hearing where people get their ...

I'm not usually one for artificial prompts. I don't like doing writing exercises just for the sake of writing. Did enough of that in college. I find as I get older that I prefer my stories to develop organically - if that's the right word. A common criticism I heard about my first novel was that it ...

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As dumb as it sounds, I woke up one morning with a vision of my two main characters just staring at each other. There was tension there, something holding them back from each other, but also something pulling them together. During the course of the day I discovered the circumstance causing the confl...

steve wrote:From "Full Metal Jacket"

You're not a writer. You're a killer!

Like they're mutually exclusive.