Nathan Bransford - The Forums

BTW you should fix your sig. Right now the link points to bloTspot.com and I'm pretty sure you mean bloGspot.com

Not off the top of my head, but I would post it here, under all things feedback. Just post the whole thing and ask people what they think.

Nathan has a great post about this: http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2007/08/how-to-write-synopsis.html , but I find it really difficult as well. The only thing I would add is that for me it is really hard to keep in mind that a synopsis is simply a condensed summary of the plot, i.e. this happens th...

Hmm. Hi Crystal, I think this is a decent start. I find myself wondering what put Angelina in the hospital. From the nightmares mentioned it sounds like she may have been attacked, which is intriguing. Is this the first page? Also you note in your sig that you are working on your first project, a my...

I think it all depends on what you're writing. I guess I mean genre but not exactly. If you're writing epic fantasy I think having the narrator, or any character speak directly to the audience would ruin dream like quality of being drawn into such a fantastic world. If it's romantic comedy, or anyth...

I don't think it's a problem - as others have stated already - as long as it's done without distracting the reader from the narrative or breaking the suspension of disbelief. Hopping heads, or POVs within a paragraph sounds too jarring for me, but of course it would depend on context and I'm sure it...

If using gmail it may also help to click "plain text" right above the body of the email. Simpatico's advice about Notepad is great as well.

First off, respect to theWallflower for his/her blue skinned advice. It was well informed and you should heed it. Regarding their first quote I would suggest (but certainly not insist upon) this: 15 year old Clara finds classmate Edwin's musings against the dictatorship of Pinochet, ‘Savior of the ...

I agree with polymath. I'm not sure it's the kind of thing that can be broken down mathematically quite so simply but what he says makes sense. Think of a simple phrase like ... I don't know ... "I love you". Simply written it seems cut and dried but (not counting punctuation like quotes, ...

Please don't ever let rejections discourage you, EVER. I got over 50 before I received any requests. This is mostly because I stank at queries and began sending them before my novel was ready (see my blog, linked below for details). As a first time novelist it's not that big a deal. Some will hurt a...

Justine, don't even let it bother you. The fact that you got a full request means your query is good. The fact that your MS got rejected says absolutely nothing about it, at least not without any reasons why it does. I think it is important to attempt to find a certain Zen in all of this. KNOW that ...

I have a new blog with a stupid name: The Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment. Some seem to find that title funny. I think it's annoying. Annoying but appropriate because the querying process is a bit annoying, or if you're like me it's hair-pullingly tedious and impossibly esoteric. At l...

Please come read my blog and let me know if (that) you think it is a wonderful and brave idea. In it I am posting every query I have sent and the responses (mostly rejections, but a couple requests) I have received for my only novel. It is a pretty scary and very embarrassing process, especially con...

I think it is important to remember that rejections are based on your query letter. They have not even read your actual work. Even when an agent allows the first five pages to be included in the letter they rarely read the whole thing unless the initial query grabs them. Of course, not being an agen...

I sure do. In fact my blog is only 3 days old and so far I have 4 posts ... so that's more than one a day so far, but of course it is Friday. It's a blog about Querying (yes I capitalized that on purpose). I am a novice writer who has written his first novel and I queried for about six months last y...