Nathan Bransford - The Forums

There are quite a number of fantasy books that show violence towards children, so I'd say it won't be a dealbreaker.

Thanks for posting this.

This is Garcia: if he dropped a pizza on the floor, and the piece that landed closest to him also landed cheese side down, Garcia would eat that slice. First. Good characterization, but irrelevant to the query. CLASS is the story of Garcia, a chronically static young man who stumbles into careers i...

I agree with the "gee, isn't it nice to sweep historical racism under the rug and pretend it never happened?" commenter. And I think the "clean version" is missing the point-- yes, there's racist language, but there are some much more important issues about race and power in the content of the book....

Empire of Illusion by C. Hedges
The Creation of Scotland by H. Trevor-Roper
Nesting Season by B. Hendrich

mudpuppy wrote:I love ranch dressing on just about everything.

Including ice cream? lol

Lengthy descriptions without a sense of a viewpoint character's presence open rather than close narrative distance. Openings of any dramatic unit ought best close narrative distance. Endings can open it up somewhat. I agree with Polymath here: if you have a omniscient PoV, this may work. Though if ...

Michael and I want to get our final draft polished up and queries on their way (we're already behind schedule, but life happens...).

IMHO, slipping in lots of little details is a much more reader-friendly way to build a setting than having the description all at once. Using specific nouns helps a lot, and also showing characters going about their everyday lives. As for symbolism, I think it's fairly easy to have the characters fo...

I like it so far.

I can't speak for Michael-- somehow I don't think he'd want me posting random stuff about him on the internets while he's on vacation. As for me: *I don't drink caffeine *I have several forms of synesthesia (honestly not as exciting as it's cracked up to be) *I speak almost fluent Japanese, though I...

Do romance novels count as "bad writing"? No, of course not. Are they intellectually stimulating? Not quite. But I don't think they intend to be. Believe it or not, some authors just want to write books people enjoy and don't give a squat about making literary history. One of my aunts calls these b...

Thanks for all the help!

Once again... (Also, Holly: your advice has been great, but I'm retaining some of the details given that they're significant to placing the story in its historical context.) *** Dear Agent, Because of [personalized stuff], I would like to submit FORGOTTEN GODS, a a 96,000 word historical fantasy nov...

Thanks for all the feedback, everyone! Here is the revised version. Also, I have done academic work on this time period (including analysis of the propaganda that inspired this novel) which is currently stuck in review purgatory. Should I mention this? *** Dear Agent, It’s winter, 1745, and Scotland...