Nathan Bransford - The Forums

It's much more fun and less terrifying to critique everyone else's queries! I'm hoping some of you can pick up on things I'm blind to as the author. I do have several versions, but this one seemed to fit the "romance query" prototype the best even though the novel isn't a strict romance. ...

I did have one question, mostly to satisfy my curiosity: were women/people purned for petty treason? I thought burning was reserved for religious crimes (heracy). Even witches were hanged in England. It depended. In theory the crimes that directly attacked the social, political, or religious order ...

Thanks everyone! I've put a bit of polish on here, taken out some of the confusing bits, and hopefully clarified Bridget's place in all of this. I look forward to further criticism. Is the reference to "any rebel they can find" too obscure? Hmmm. Old House - as it stands it's 294 words, a...

SGF and DTW, Thanks for getting back to me. You've actually highlighted one of problems I have to wrestle with - not turning the novel into a history book. To start with DTW's point about petty treason - if a wife killed her husband, or a servant killed his master or mistress, the charge was not mur...

I know I haven't totally finished my HALEY query yet, but this is the query for the book that I plan on writing for NaNoWriMo, so I wanted an opinion it it before I started. What do you think? ======= Dear Agent, Nineteen year-old Janet Nakano loves her brother Jude. That's why she has to kill his ...

Dear Agent, It is 1644, and Parliament’s armies have risen against the King and laid siege to the city of York. Even as the city suffers at the rebels’ hands, midwife Bridget Hodgson becomes embroiled in a different sort of rebellion. One of Bridget’s friends, Esther Cooper, has been convicted of mu...

OK, let's try this: Ghosts, shamans, and divine beings watch as Michael Roland places the Brazilian (does the Brazillian-ness matter? Not charmed? Magical? Possessed? amethyst on his forehead and tries to go to sleep. As he nods off slightly , his mind wanders into uncharted territory and when it W...

And in a sentence, you prove you could be a shrink as well as an agent.

Thanks, Nathan!

airball

Hi Nathan, I know you touched on this to some extent in your "Bio" post, but I can't help wondering about the details, and if my assumptions are off base. Rather than an MFA, I have a PhD in history. This is relevant in that I'm writing a historical mystery, so I assume I should include th...

Hi All, Along the same lines of a few other posts, how do you decide whether to go with a US or foreign agent? I'm in the US, but my work (historical mystery) is set in the UK and will find a good chunk of its audience there. Does this matter or should I just stay closer to home? Thanks in advance, ...

I don't know that there's a lot of competition between pig and cattle. Historically speaking, it's sheep and cattle farmers who had the hardest time getting along. It had to do with how the two animals grazed - sheep take it down to the roots, which ruins it for cows. (At least I think this is right...

Honestly, cut, cut, cut. Why have the entire team there? Keep the people in the room to a minimum and you don't have to worry so much about tags. Bits that can go: So, I bought a map of the city. - Does it matter how he got it? Backstory matters, but not this much! with most of the homes well over t...

I'm going to finish an entire draft before going back over it. If something changes along the way (ie. I need to tweak or drop a character), I'll sometimes go back and make notes in the margins, but I also maintain a file dedicated to changes I need to go back to make. As you say, in many cases, whe...

I have two main plotlines in my WIP (mystery), and sketched out each separately - around 750 words for what looks to be a 85,000 word novel. I also have much longer character sketches so I'd know how everyone would react to different situations. Once I had that, I started writing, periodically makin...

Thanks, everyone, I really appreciate the feedback, advice and links! I think Murderer #1's escape works, and while nemesis-ness is in the cards, it's not obvious to the reader. (So closer to Moriarity than Voldemort.) Actually, if anyone's read the Matthew Shardlake mysteries, think Sir Richard Ric...