Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I like your description of the first person as a guided meditation, Margo. Indeed it is. Interesting that guided meditations are usually written in the second person. And the old multiple choice CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURES beloved of Nathan and others were second person too. And you can hardly get mo...

I read with the author has written. I don't mind what he/she calls it. Prologues, flashbacks, epilogues, acts, chapters, they're all just part of the story to me. Dreams likewise. All of every novel is a dream sequence really, even if based on fact. I don't mind novels starting with dreams, or the w...

Interesting that you find the second person pronoun distracting and distancing in first person stories, Margo. I find it quite the opposite. I use it at the start of my trilogy in a manner something like Nigel's. Mind you, my narrator is a cub reporter addressing the readers of a populist newspaper....

The absentee YA and MG parent archetype could be as much an opportunity as a problem. Long before I ever heard of it I used it in my YA Steampunk Trilogy as a plot device. Jimmy, my teenage protagonist, strives to join a great sea-borne expedition in search of a lost city. He eventually gets on boar...

Just use Irish characters instead. I hereby grant you all full permission to use elements of our culture, religion and heritage (which we no longer guard with high explosives, so don't worry) and the names of our deceased persons (but do print a warning at the beginning of the book about my grandunc...

Good stuff, Wordranger! Your opening pages are both matter-of-fact and portentuous in the best sense of the word. Childhood vs adulthood. Peripheral vs central. Freedom vs authoritarianism. Plenty of dualities established early. You start with a bored kid and end (this section) with the King of the ...

Interesting, Falls Apart. I love the first sentence. Talk about high concept right out of the gate! And it rhymes! I first assumed a murderous reality show, but the word 'fictitious' does undercut that expectation. As for Akila's point, perhaps you could call Rajan an Indian-American? My grandmother...

My edits are to to remove the superfluous 't' I have an unfortunate habit of adding to Margo's name. Sorry, Margo!

Now hold on just a cotton-picking moment there, David! 29.5% of the market? Certain important categories no doubt, but the overall book market? No way! Not unless maths have changed. I was helping my nine year old nephew with his maths yesterday and two plus two still equaled four. And if the Irish ...

Science Fiction Dieselpunk indeed, Mike R. But Steampunk is a more generally recognized umbrella descriptor.

Thanks, Cookie. If I don't finish book three soon MY head will explode!

Amen, Wordranger! You know what they say, reality is just a crutch for those who can't handle SF and Fantasy!

Mike R., my YA trilogy has aliens and spaceships and is set on a colony planet. But its humans and their steamships and trains and airships and flying boats and biplanes and submarines and Art Deco skyscrapers are more important to the plot. So it's Steampunk, or more exactly, Dieselpunk, both of wh...

Selfish bratty hero, Mike R.? A good challenge indeed!

Of course you're speshul, Margo!

Sommer, I agree. Seriously! C. S. Lewis and others have warned that sincere do-goodery can become the worst form of tyranny, and the appetite for power over others much worse than any mere greed for wealth.

Margo, Akila's question was about a variation in chapter length between 6,000 and 8,000 words, which I do not consider significant. Akila also gave the reason for the extra words, that the chapter is all on one subject and stands together well. As it happens, I agree with you versus very long chapte...

'Selfish bratty bastard', Mike R.? You say it like it's bad!

You too, Margo! What's wrong with 'Mwahahaha 'I do it cuz I'm insane.'? It worked for Ghengis Khan and Stalin and Mao.

Notes, ideas, I did this, I did that, dreams, blog comments and posts like this one, all that and more goes into my diary, which is a computer file, but not online or for publication. Several hundred thousand words each year, much more than my novel writing. 'The Collected Tweets of Charlee Vale, Vo...