Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Dear [AGENT], Lieutenant-Colonel José de San Martín deserts the Spanish Army, desperate to free his homeland, and to conquer his opium addiction. This line isn't really doing anything for me. It's probably just me though. Why does he need to conquer his opium addiction? I'm assuming that he is Argen...

I'm going with misstante's version Query #1. It gets to the point quicker and it grabs me into the story while leaving room for conflict at the end. If I may say one thing, this isn't seeming like Paranormal Romance to me. Paranormal, yes, but Paranormal Romance is typically reserved for books like ...

I think this is reading more like an outline than a query. I don't really have a good feel for Dani or what she wants. Does this story take place in our world or another world? I'm also wondering how she traces her family into the alternate world and why the villain wants her dead. What special powe...

Kira-Kira and Love, Stargirl. I can read those any day.

Entertainment Value is different from Literary Value. Twilight might suck but it entertains people, just like dancing monkey videos. Now to my English teacher, well she might have given it an F if it were a school project. Just goes to shows that people prefer entertainment over anything else. Only ...

Have you checked out how much these cost? For a good freelance editor, looking at a whole novel, you're looking at four figures. Four figures in front of the decimal point. And the first number isn't usually a '1'. I've heard of top-notch editors who cost more. Much more. I suspect self-pub operati...

Much better, if anything explain why no-one is freaked out about the girl coming back to life. Why isn't this weird? Why isn't it on the news? And list next to your word count whether or not this is fantasy, horror, or a comedy. Tighten up the second paragraph as well. Why doesn't she want her mothe...

Is this fantasy? If so, I'd mention it near the word count. This is reading more a like a synopsis, or really a list of things that happen to Leigh. And I'm sort of confused as to why people are coming back from the dead. Are they zombies? Why isn't the government doing anything? Why aren't people f...

Ray Bradbury and Philip K. Dick all the way. Behind Lies the Wub - Awesome.

Think of the subplot like this. You have a goal in life right? Whether it be to become rich, or get famous, or whatever. That is your main goal. How you approach that is your main plot. Lets say you meet a that special someone while you're working to become rich. Pursuing them becomes a sub-plot in ...

Tessa sounds too passive to me. She doesn't really do anything, but rather things are happening around her. Also, why is the world under wizard rule a bad thing? I understand the stakes, but why is the Fire Wizard evil? Uniting a people under common rule was what Genghis Khan, Caesar, and Alexander ...

Much better but I'd cut out Zebra Love. the Impoundment, and the Last Snout, to focus on the major conflict -- the Finale. I don't like that I know Derek dies right off the bat. This a great improvement over your other queries. at least to me. But hit with more query and less synopsis.

'That is true. Twilight was written for adults, but later was turned into YA. But there was nothing in Twilight, content wise -- and I'm an anti so I have certain objections to many morals Twilight puts out but that's for another day -- that would object to teens. And it takes place in a high school...

I'm going to give this a go. Magellan Talbot is having a chat with a goddess, and she’s not happy with him. Reword, right now the subject of this sentence is confusing. Before I realized that Magellan was a guy I thought that he wasn't happy with the goddess. Word like this -- A goddess is having a...

This is almost already a query by itself - the background, the shocking event, and the conflict: becoming someone they never wanted to be, because they're trying too hard. Sounds like a really interesting story and I'd love to see your query when it's finished. That was my favorite too, I just didn...