Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I also write fairly clean first drafts, and I prefer to find & fix problems before I build on them, so I run each chapter by my alpha reader as I finish it. (My chapters usually average around 5K words, so it's a hefty enough chunk of text for her to sink her teeth into.) When the novel's done, ...

It's hard, Regan. Heck, it's hard to find time to write even without the 40-hour job; life always expands to fill the available time, and then some. An 8-hour writing session is great when you can get it, but you may have to train yourself to write in small increments. Coffee breaks, lunchtime, etc....

New second paragraph is definitely better; it's much more specific about what Eric finds himself facing. Might I suggest tweaking the end of it to something like: When his sister abandons him at the school and disappears, claiming she has something "important" to do, Eric has had enough. H...

Sommer Leigh wrote: How do you know if your writing is any good?

Yep. And even the long-time pros struggle with that one.

So when you're working on a novel and inspiration strikes for something totally different, what do you do? I usually try to work on both. This... does not work as well as I might wish. ;) Put the new thing on hold and risk the fire of inspiration dying, or put the old thing on hold and risk never g...

It really would be fascinating to know what the percentage of 'atypical' first novels (doorstoppers, multi-POV, etc.) is relative to the number that are queried at or above a basic quality cut-off (i.e. they really did need to be that long). I'm not blind to the economics of it, as Margo has laid o...

No, my issue is the fact that we writers tend to dole out chipper platitudes about following our hearts, listening to our muses, writing what characters tell us to, without also adding BUT be aware you do so at your own peril . All this assuming we're talking about writers pursuing traditional publ...

I think you're good up to the end of the second paragraph. Loved the quilt, loved "married a guy with wings while Eric was out of it." There's just enough mention of the school & the friend to know they're there, without getting bogged down in details. I too wonder why Eric's intereste...

I provided 8 writers of varying experience with very specific guidelines. Only two were able to follow those guidelines. One of the others left me hanging by waiting until he was supposed to submit a finished product before telling me he had gone in a DIFFERENT direction. I think that's somewhat of...

Margo, you make valid points, but I think you're also making an assumption: That the aspiring writer with a 200K manuscript is going to be happy if they get it published but have to cut 40% of it to do so. If they are, then great -- that 40% probably needed to go anyway. But if they're not? Which is...

Sounds like he doesn't know very much about the industry. Plenty of people have legitimate criticism of the Big 6 and how they do business, but it sounds like he has limited his research to some of the more vitriolic, one-sided blogs. He's got a few books out -- small press, obviously, but well-rec...

Margo wrote:But there are plenty of reasons to go with an agent.

Oh, yes. I didn't mean to imply that that was the only reason a writer might want an agent, merely that it might be one of several good reasons.

Valid point about the Big 6, Margo. (Of course, this author was of the opinion that the only reason anyone would covet a Big 6 contract was if they were a money-grubbing fool who thought they'd be the next JKR. You see why I wanted some other voices?) Personally, I'd love a Big 6 contract for my boo...

I've been talking recently with an author who's absolutely insistent that it's millions of times easier to get published solo than to get an agent, that an agent won't help anyway, that anyone who wants an agent is just naive, and that agents are thieves and losers who either cheat their clients or ...

A lot depends on context. Is this one character silly, when all the other characters are more serious? That could be a problem. Or are the other characters well-supplied with foibles and bad habits, and played for a similar level of silliness? That could be no problem. It also depends on how you han...