Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I have a favorite. She's a scientist know-it-all mother of one of my mc's. People either love her or say "what the h is she doing here?" I LOVE HER AND SHE'S STAYING. Umm, was I yelling there? I don't care. She's staying. She's brilliant, she's sexy, we should all strive to be her. Yeah, t...

On the off-chance (yeah, right) I'll sound like a cliche, I heard a voice. It said "Don't make me normal." I thought, "Who the f are you and why are you talking to me? I have two children already and I have no idea if they're normal or not. What the f is normal?" (I said this bec...

Another tip - check Query Tracker (or another one that tracks responses, I use QT) to see what each agents response percentages and times are. I sent out my first 5 to agents who always respond so that I could be sure I wouldn't be sitting there for 3 months wondering if my email went through this e...

My sister can fold her tongue in half, but as far as I know, no other blood relatives (including me) can do it. However, everyone in my family - me, my sister, my two kids, and 12 cousins - can hang a spoon off our nose. We're a lot of fun at weddings when we all sit together :) Ink - Sorry about th...

My biggest fear is having absolutely nothing interesting to say. The only TV I watch is sports (mostly baseball), Brothers and Sisters (because it's the only time I have the house to myself), and Big Bang Theory (because I think it's hilarious). The fact that my 9-year-old is one of the best basebal...

I just started writing my synopsis and have been doing some research on them, although the information out there isn't nearly as plentiful as the info. on queries! First of all, I agree with Alyssa - you have too many characters listed. After the 2nd sister, I lost track, and then while rereading, I...

I entered because I feel like I'm [this] close to being done with revisions and I've already incorporated the ideas of several members of my awesome critique group. I'm ready for query stage, but it would be great to get some last-minute feedback from an expert. It's hard for me to get into a lot of...

I'm constantly reading as I write, so I think it's pretty free of typos, etc. My biggest problem is writing in 1st person that reads like 3rd. Once I go in and add details, it's several pages longer. Then once I delete all the justs and reallys, it's roughly the same length it started.

Title: A New Day Genre: YA comtemporary romance I slammed the car door and shouldered my way past the men scattered around the front yard. I spotted my mother and just about growled at her while waving my hands at the moving van. "This is ridiculous. Get my stuff out of there!" I tried not...

I can get the words out, but I get stuck in editing - sending to critique partners, stewing over their every word/suggestion (both good and bad stewing), searching for crappy words like "just" and "really" and spending several minutes deciding if they're really just needed after ...

Adverbs/adjectives can definitely (ha) be overdone. I haven't read through all the posts here, but it seems like this is the hot topic. They can be used by inexperienced writers (I'm including myself in this group) as part of the narrative. Since action should outweigh narrative in most books (can't...

I think this heavily correlates to which genre I'm reading. Mystery, thriller, suspense - I want closure. YA, romance, chick lit, humor - I'm assuming their lives go on after the book, so as long as the main plot line is summed up, I'm okay with an open ending. Also, if I liked it enough to finish i...

GeeGee, I'm jumping in, too, just for a second to offer story similar to yours. A writer I know was asked for a partial and the agent expressed how excited she was about the ms, requested a full, and then asked for a rewrite of the last 2/3 or so of the book to better reflect the style of the partia...

Someone above said they had started a few novels, but never got past 30 pages and I'm in the same boat. My only finished ms was started last July and was more-or-less done with the first draft by the end of the year. I had it 3/4 done by September, but since I'm a teacher (and wife, and mom, and...)...

An acquaintance of mine published a posthumous memoir for her father and I "liked" her Facebook fan page for the book. She later graciously accepted to look over the 3 working versions of my query. I went to her page, found her email address, wrote a hugely long letter detailing my problem...