Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Dear Agent, (Personalised sentence) NIGHT BUTTERFLY is a 65,000 word gritty suspense novel with romantic elements. When Valentina Lebedeva’s 14-year-old sister Anya goes missing, she must leave her home in Russia to find her. The leads take Valentina to Paradise Seven, a strip club in London’s East...

Dear Agent, (Personalised sentence) NIGHT BUTTERFLY is a 65,000 word London thriller with romantic elements. "London thriller" isn't really a genre. I'd go with romantic thriller, or even just thriller. I'm going to assume that it's suspenseful since it's a thriller, and since there's a m...

I feel for you, Skyhawk - that's about how my first jaunt into the wonderful world of querying went. So many form rejections is a clear indication that something's not working, but it's hard to say exactly what that something might be. Did you write your proposal from the wrong perspective? Did you ...

I'm going to be completely honest: This query had me hooked within a few sentences, even though the initial concept sounded a little stale, and by the end, I wanted to be an agent so I could request the manuscript:) (That last paragraph is fabulous, by the way. I thought I had it all figured out, an...

I started my second agent hunt in June by sending queries out in batches of 10 every two weeks or so. By the end of July/beginning of August, I had five partial requests. I decided to regroup at that point, wait for some feedback, and sent out my next round of queries in mid-September, with subseque...

I think this query sounds really intriguing - I've often wondered what a western fantasy would look like, and this sounds just like what I would want it to be. That said, I agree with the other commenters who have pointed out the choppy paragraphs and lack of proper names; fixing both of those probl...

I'm actually going to disgree (a little) and say that I think this needs more detail. The writing in the first paragraph is nice, but I want to get a better sense of the conflict and stakes than I do. Is Cyrus Blackwell our villain? If not, who (or what) is? I like your line "and some of the mo...

On the whole, I like this. But there were a few grammatical problems that really hung me up. Dear Agent Please consider for representation my 197000 word science fiction novel, OF SHADOWS AND ANGELS. Sometimes peace costs more than war. Layne is about to find out how high that price can be, and who ...

I agree with the other commenters' line-by-line advice. I'd just add that, in general, sharing some of the smaller details of the story is what will give your query life; this seems to skate over the surface of it a bit, and it loses its individuality. You mentioned at the outset that you're concern...

Having not read the previous version, I have a few questions. First off, I don't see how James's and Derek's stories overlap. Are they running off together? And is it merely coincidental that they decide to run away at the same time? Secondly, how does Derek lose all this money? I didn't make the le...

There were too many generalities in this query for me to really sink into it. Some examples: "This is a gritty, heart-wrenching story of salvation, love and acceptance." "In the course of his search for security, tragedy strikes in the form of more violence, fueling his rage. As the n...

When you work this up into a query letter, you might try rewriting it from the main character's point of view. As it is, I can't tell if the MC is Derek, Jo, or the three crazy great-grandfathers. If the grandpas, you could rework the first paragraph to give us a better sense of their terror/euphori...