Nathan Bransford - The Forums

D.S., trirae, bgannon, and android--

Thank you all for your feedback!

More clarification, less details, and stronger voice.. will do!

Hi Guardian, I enjoyed looking at the artwork on your website. I'd be happy to swap chapters 1-3 with you, if you're interested. I'm currently working on what I consider my "2nd to last" draft of all my chapters; 1-3 should be fairly polished but I want to give them a final review. For a s...

Hello, First, thanks to everyone who provided comments on my first query draft-- i really appreciated all the input I got. Below is an updated version. Can anything be removed? Any awkward prose? Is it any better? Kellek belongs to a sect of mystics that can see into the future, but he couldn’t fore...

Hi A.R., There are a lots of cool ideas in this. I like how the MC (Alex) is already having a hard time when his wife dies, and his life gets even more complicated when he has to fight off the advances of a teenager with mind powers. I also like how he meets a Wiccan, they fall in love, and she tri...

Hi Polly, Thanks for sharing your query. Below are my thoughts as I read through it. Maggie Cooper is smart and lucky; she’s so lucky that her heart is split and she doesn’t even know it. This has the potential of being a great opener. But, when I read it I wondered what having her heart split mean...

Thanks Priya, khanes, and writeonsistah for your comments!

Hi writeon-- I thought this was an excellent opener. I didn't get much of a conflict yet... I'm guessing it will have something to do with Jasmine learning about her real family. But what I thought you did really well (well enough so I would keep reading) was show the reading Jasmine's character, es...

Does the main character HAVE to kill the "bad guy"? Or can a side-"good guy" do it? I usually hear the term cliche used to describe something in a negative way, but personally I think sometimes cliche writing can actually be a good thing. Predictable or dull as it might be, it's...

Hi khanes, First, thanks for your thoughts on my 1st page. It's great getting feedback for something that I've tinkered with so much that I'm not sure what works and what doesn't. I'm really enjoying looking at other people's queries. In the long run, I hope it will help when I revise my own (selfi...

Hi Zakariya, Here are my thoughts on your query: When a dying Bangladeshi woman stares into a picture of her and her father, she relives her troubled past, beginning with the day her father gave her a pair of brand-new roller skates and ending with her forced marriage. It seemed like a lot of relivi...

Hi GeeGee, I'm just going to focus on the plot summary part of your query, since the rest seems OK. When his eleven-month old son dies on a hot spring day in 1938, Gus Kelman ignores his grief and goes to work chopping wood. I thought this opener could use some tightening. "ignores' didn't qui...

Thanks, Quill, for the excellent line-by-line critique and suggestions!

Emily J and Wordranger, Thanks to you both for reading and offering your thoughts about my first page... just the sort of thing I was looking for. I really appreciate the input! Wordranger, the writing sounding like it was "trying too hard" is one of the things I'm trying to minimize (alon...

Hi Debra, I've only reviewed a dozen or so queries, and have been working on my own (it's on the forums, and you can see for yourself that it's far from good), so take the following for what it's worth! Emma, a Christmas Angel, lands, torn and bleeding, in the arms of a vampire. I thought this first...

Hi Prudence,

Thanks for taking the time to critique my query. For the sake of focus, I agree that I should stick to just one character. A part of me was determined to somehow get both MCs in the query, but I'm beginning to realize that you (and others) are right. Thanks again!