Nathan Bransford - The Forums

geogstacey wrote: I need more stakes!

Hah! I was waiting for that pun!

Garnell - I think you are in pretty good shape here. Sit on it for a week and then give it one more look?

Red is suggested delete , blue is linked to [ a comment ] "Beer funnels and field parties are a distant memory when sixteen-year-old high school quarterback, Derek Weber, awakens handcuffed to a hospital bed and [ with ] a reaper at his side. The reaper gives him two options: death or an immor...

You know the [ drill ] "Seventeen-year-old Ivy Watson has just met Dane no last name, the boy of her dreams. Unfortunately, or fortunately, however you look at it [I like what you are trying to do here, but it reads awkwardly - no clue how to fix it] , he was naked when she found him and now h...

Yeah, I've been running pretty consistently for the last couple years, though at the moment I'm on restriction due to an IT-band injury. Which is taking ****ing forever to heal up. Been there with the foot injury (plus a couple broken toe incidents from karate), so I suppose in this case I can say I...

I like this version, it flows nicely. One suggestion: your comment earlier implied that something specific happens that prevents Roman from killing Raine, and thus allowing time for his (conflicted) feelings towards her to develop. Is there a way to work that into the query? I feel like it would rai...

I'll obviously welcome answers from everyone, but I'm specifically looking at the men of the house for some help here. I tend to write male protagonists, usually third person limited POV, who are too whiny or too introspective or, well, girly to be believable. My critique partner confirmed my fears...

Are there rights issues for mentioning the names of bands but not quoting lyrics? Assuming it's not in a defamatory context of course. Having a character listening to a particular record in a scene, or having a concert T-shirt on, things like that?

Thanks again everyone for the input. Here's a revised version of the same query. If it's still a bit confusing, I'll head back to the drawing board and try to come up with a different version that only covers the beginning per Allie's suggestion. Along those lines, if I've got 3 main protags that ge...

@LurkingVirologist - haha! Pants are not magical - I am just unsure how to have my main character meet a naked guy and not be totally thrown off by him...yet. When the story is complete, that will definitely be an area that will have to get re-worked...Suggestions?? :D I say go pants-less :lol: . Y...

I've got three emails. My old school account that I still use (and will have access to for awhile), a hotmail account I use to register for things and therefore acts as a spam-catcher, and a 'professional' account on gmail that's based on my name, contains relevant contact information/credentials in...

-15K, which puts me at almost exactly 140K. Conversations have been clipped, descriptions foreshortened, redundancies removed, darlings murdered with reckless abandon...I'm starting to feel like Dexter, with my poor WiP plastic-wrapped to the cutting table. Still, it's mostly a good feeling :twisted...

I read more fantasy than SF, but here are a few suggestions... 1. Neuromancer - William Gibson (cyberpunk but stylistically brilliant) 2. Forever War - Joe Halderman 3. Hyperion/Endymion - both sets of novels were good, though I don't know if you'd be best served reading all four as opposed to the f...

Wow, great post! This will be very helpful for a scene in my novel. Thank you! This thread got resurrected by a spammer (whose post was deleted). It's got some very good information. Beethovenfan, if you (or anyone else) are interested in some additional perspective on fighting/fight scenes, I coul...

Since it's a fairly long excerpt, I'm just going to give general advice instead of critiquing line-by-line. It sounds like you've got an interesting set-up here, and I like the imagery you've chosen with the tree and the ground shattering and whatnot, as well as the witches souls being drawn into it...

Red is a suggested cut , while blue is linked to [a comment] " Mid morning on Saturday in Manhattan [not sure if you need this information here] This will be the sixth time it happens. The first time, it was his twelfth birthday and not only did it burn down his house; it took his parents in t...