Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Such great lists of movies! Here are some of my favorites (in no particular order): Gone With the Wind (love me some southern drama and who wouldn't want Scarlet's dress made from curtains! [hahaha]) Fried Green Tomatoes ("Face it lady, I'm older and have more insurance!") Bolt (yes, the D...

The YA novel I'm writing at the moment is set in the near future, however the characters in the book have been led to believe they live in a large colony that was built after wars broke out over the world. They believe there is nothing outside the colony where they live - but in reality, the world i...

@HillaryJ - I misread the publisher bit - somehow, I got self-publishing from ebook...DOH!

First off, congrats!! Secondly, do your research regarding the publisher (I'm sure you've done that). You mentioned that its a self publishing company, so that makes me a little nervous...I've heard that once you contact publishers and send them your work, its often harder to get agent acceptance......

In regards to your qualifications, I think it's just fine to include in your query that "this is your first novel." No need to go into how many jobs you've ever held, what degree you have or don't, that will all come out later when you've established a relationship with an agent. As far as...

the story itself is interesting, but I find it hard to do much critiquing on an excerpt of this size...I think you'd get a better response if you shorten the excerpt considerable - like less than 1,000 words. I had to do that on mine that I posted. Why is Friday the worst day? I like that Rosa stood...

I'm working on my first revisions for my MS, and have the prologue up through chapter 4 edited for grammar, punctuation, phrasing and the like. I'm now going through and picking out unnecessary words and realizing how much I use passive words. Ug. So, I thought it would be fun to make a list of all ...

Good for you Sommer for taking the initiative and getting yourself checked. Many times, that is the hardest part. Now that you have this additional test on Friday, you'll know how to proceed from here, and you'll only be stronger for it. I'm sure we'll all be thinking about you tomorrow.

The hardest part for me, is writing the middle and always feeling like it's not good enough. Like the pacing may be off, or maybe my characters are unlikable. I LOVE writing the beginnings of stories and often find that I'll come up with the first few lines completely by accident. I'll write them do...

BLUE suggested changes RED consider deleting PURPLE my comments Sixteen-year-old Lucas Fuller can't remember a day his face hasn't been covered with barely recognizes his face without cuts and bruises. Bullies can smell fear, and he's never had the balls to fight back. When the girl he's madly in l...

My hubby just finished "geeking" out at Atlanta's DragonCon this weekend and got a chance to talk with a few authors: Brandon Sanderson and Janny Wurts to name a couple. Anyway, I asked him to get some writing advice from them and sadly, he only asked Ms. Wurts. But here is her advice: &qu...

I've read through your query post several times and think that you are getting closer. Congrats on finishing your edits!! I bet that feels great :) In reading each of your updates, the one thing that stands out to me is the overall length of your query. In this post, you have 5 individual paragraphs...

I'm thinking I've just about polished my query letter for The Phoenix and was wondering when you (personally) begin to send out queries. My first draft is complete, and I'm just about to begin my edits and rewrites. I plan on doing the first round of edits and then handing off the MS to a few reader...

Mine: Move over red-eyes
Theirs: Smooth Operator
Or course, this was when I was 7...

My mom's: I think you like gravy
Theirs: I miss you like crazy

@LurkingVirologist - it's so funny what you as the writer don't see! Thanks for bringing that to my attention -- apparently I like repetition. Let's try again ;) Dear Agent, Seventeen-year-old Ivy Watson has just met the gorgeous Dane Phillips who's annoying, mysterious, and...naked. Unfortunately, ...