Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Are you going for omni or limited? I guess that's the real question. If you want to keep it limited, then you should only change at scene breaks when it's very clear to the reader that you are doing so. Otherwise I think it has a tendency to feel very head-hoppy. With omniscient, however, you could ...

my opinion is that it stems from the 3 act structure of greek and roman drama. generally a story arc fits nicely into 3 installments, and therefore it is easy to split things in that manner. There are plenty of series that don't adhere to the trilogy (Taltos series, Sword of Truth series, Tiger and...

I know for me, personally, if I'm stuck on something it's because I either haven't sorted something out enough to write it yet, or because something has gone wrong in the story and I have to figure out what that something is before I can move on. I used to be a seat of the pants writer. To a degree ...

I think if your main character is an adult and it's her point of view, then the novel is automatically going to be adult, even if she is immature in some ways. You might just have a shorter novel. How many words do you have at this point? I've typically seen anything 60k and up is considered novel l...

I don't write YA, so take this with a grain of salt, but I've seen similar questions answered elsewhere so I'll share what I've learned. Apparently YA is as much about voice as it is the age of the protagonist. I'm wondering how exactly a teenager fits into a murder mystery, honestly. I suppose it c...

Yeah, I also think some stories just aren't made for happy endings. One of the things I always admired about Stephen King was that he wasn't afraid to give you a depressing ending if the story called for it. Actually, my favorite Dean Koontz book is the only one with a ridiculously sad ending. That ...

The rattle and clatter of plastic CD cases tumbling to the floor like broken glass finally brought me out of sleep. I scrubbed my face with my right hand, wishing for the umpteenth time for two peaceful nights in a row, and hauled myself into a sitting position. The damage was better than usual. My...

I wonder if that's an indication of the writing of the book itself or the query. I know for me the query was a lot harder to write than the book itself. Well, in terms of the writing. Obviously the book required much more time and effort, but for it's size the query letter was very difficult and req...

I really like your shopping comparison. That makes perfect sense. I like to say that there are no absolutes. I also tend to think often rules are mostly designed to help new people starting out not make mistakes that a more experienced person would recognize. And this is a good example of that, btw....

Okay, so I'm no agent, but if I had seen, "It was a dark and stormy nightmare" followed by the type of writing Gaiman typically does, I'm sure I would have been hooked from the start whether it was a debut or not. In my opinion, the problem is what was mentioned before. If that's where the...

I'm definitely in the first camp. I'm actually probably not buy the hardcover of my favorite author's book this time around. He's started putting them out faster than he once did, but he's also working on more than one at a time and the past three or four just haven't been as good as he usually is. ...

JenLT wrote:Internal monologue in 3rd person POV needs to be italicized or in quotations marks. Either are correct, so you can mix and match between those all you want. My personal preference is italicized.

I'm the opposite. ;) I think it's basically a personal preference.

I'm weak on story and I know this, so I really need to outline and plan in advance to give myself a good idea of what the conflict is going to be and make sure the story works as a whole. My plots still tend to be pretty simple, but they're much better than they once were because of it. Otherwise, I...

I love talking about dreams with my friends, marveling at how bizarre they can be and trying to decipher what the subconscious is trying to tell us. But after an experience I had at an intensive writing workshop I'm wary of ever again including a character's dream in a novel. A page from my manuscr...

You know, just write it. I mean, if it doesn't work right now that's fine. I essentially completely rewrote a couple of chapters (more than once! grawr haha) after I had my first draft finished. I'm talking took out some scenes, completely revisioned some, put others in new places, etc. So the revis...