Nathan Bransford - The Forums

In the midst of a raging thunderstorm, seventeen-year-old Nicola Summers finds her classmate Tristan chained to her driveway, struggling to break free from the restrains [I believe you mean "restraints". Restrains is a verb.] before the rain comes [the first question that arises is--how could it not...

Nice second try. You'll see my comments below in blue, and my examples for how you might want to revise in bold. Keep in mind I am no expert at query writing and I obviously don't know your story from a hole in the ground, so these are examples only. On the day of Wallace McHardy’s release from reh...

First comment--this is a big block of text. Break this up. It's up to you how you want to do it--I broke it up below so my comments were actually readable; they are not suggestions for how to divide your paragraphs. On the day of Wallace McHardy’s reprieve from rehab, Sailor Crownan offers him a ni...

Remy and Ash are identical brothers, but they don't know it. They both wake up in separate parts of the city with total identity amnesia. I suggest "identical twins". I know you're trying to establish they're male because the names are somewhat gender ambiguous, but "identical brothers" sounds weir...

Looks like you fixed your problem by changing your plural subject ("days") to the singular ("week"). And you changed both your verbs to match! Bravo. Sometimes I marvel how little things like that make so much difference. Also--sometimes something is grammatically correct and STILL reads awkwardly, ...

In my opinion, your query is hugely improved. Really. A lot. I like it. I think I even like sample 1 better now, because you found a way to weave it all together. Great job. I'm sure others will have more content-oriented comments, so I just have three bits of grammar feedback. If you don't believe ...

It looks to me like you're quite attached to a few of the sentences and phrases in your query, and so you're finding a way to fit them in--but they don't. Like the two sentences about luck vs. evolution. It really doesn't fit. I have such sympathy with falling in love with certain things you've writ...

In life, Salt Lake City’s district attorney and Dragan Sakic never met. When the DA dies, Dragan comes to know him as one knows a close friend. Some people might say they were brought together by an act of God. Not Dragan. He sees it as a buildup of countless imperceptible changes and, like evoluti...

I see, you want to go almost punctuation free! I'm the worst person to give feedback on that because I'm like a super-punctuator! I go way over the top. I actually saw what you were trying to do and tried to keep my suggestions simple. But anyway, if that's what you want to do--no punctuation except...

Thanks to each of you for your incredibly useful feedback thus far. To answer some questions (because they are the things I'm struggling with): this novel is entirely from modified third person perspective--it's all in Sasha's point of view, not from both of their points of view. Seth, the male MC, ...

I made just a few suggestions to smooth things out a bit. I changed some passive voice to active. I think you're going for a clean, spare, dispassionate voice, so I kept that in mind as I suggested changes. Overall, I think it's nice and consistent. I don't know the context, but it seems interesting...

OK. I incorporated some of your very helpful feedback! Here's a revision. Thanks in advance for your opinions and critiques! Sasha Bennett roams the streets at night in the aftermath of the car accident that nearly took her life. Unable to make herself seen or heard, she wonders if she’s dreaming, ...

I see you've edited this a lot, and when I first read this new version, I thought it was pretty good. My big concern is that now, when I read the last sentence of your first paragraph, I was entirely unsure of the "fate" to which you're referring. I couldn't tell if it was being pursued by bounty hu...

I think your story sounds utterly fascinating. I do think the second sentence of your first paragraph is redundant, because it's kind of apparent what the book is about from your excellent first sentence. I'm not sure I'd miss the last part of that second sentence if it was deleted entirely, and the...

Hey! Your second version is a little closer! Here are some things I'd like to know: You indicate Nadine has a sheltered, ordinary life, but you say nothing else about her. Therefore, I don't understand why she would end up engaged to a prince, nor do I understand why a white witch would summon her a...