Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I am using Microsoft word 2000 for my manuscript. For my drafts, i am not indenting paragraphs, but when i do start to do proper formatting how do i properly indent? I was told you can not just type space bar 5 times or hit the tab key to create the indent.

I am working on my first thriller, PREACHER'S BLOOD, and am looking for a critique partner. I am only about 30k into the story.

And right there, you hit the thing that worried me the most -that i would have to tweak, add or otherwise fool around with the plot, and that is something i would not want to have to do. I end up becoming a slave to counts, trying to see each section i work on come in at anywhere between 2k and 4k, ...

my ultimate fear is that once i tell the story that it will be short on words and i dont know how easy it is to go back in and add stuff, epecially if you think the story is told and what if you feel you are like 10k short, how easy is that to really fix during edits?

Do you guys worry about your word count when you are writing? For instance, when i write, i start every new chapter by opening a new document and at the end of each document i hit the function at the top of the page for word count, record it, and keep track of the count in each document, adding the ...

Barry cited most of the same points during his interview and it seems very possible that self e-publishing could be the wave of the future. My one concern is how it might go for a first time, previously unpublished writer. The marketing could be a bit of a problem. Without a publishing house behind ...

I guess that by now this is old news but best selling author Barry Eisler turned down a $500,000 contract to go the route of self-publishing. He was interviewed by author JA Knorath and i found his answers and insights very interesting. The trend, as far as Barry sees is, might lean toward his route...

The forged paperwork is interesting and could work. This part of the scene is meant to be small and low on the problematic scale. Paperwork would solve it nicely. But, it might be fun to have my main character do a roleplay, molding the desk worker to what would work for me. Maybe he sees she is flu...

I need to have someone play a character, or as the CIA calls it run a movie, in order to get information from a college registrar. I need the next of kin info the college has on file. I need to play a character that will get the info out of whoever is working the desk, let's say it is day time and t...

As i thought it over i realized that if the cousin has the baby it follows logically that the cousin would be the closest relative, meaning that in all probability her name and location would appear on records that list a next of kin, such as any medical records or even college records. There is a s...

I was thinking if the baby went with the cousin then it would be highly likely that the name of the cousin would be listed as an emergency contact person on a form somewhere, maybe on medical records or on college records.

Okay, suppose you need to locate a person and all that you know about this person is that he/she has possession of her cousin's child. You know the name of the child's mother,presently not alive, and that is all you have to go on. How could you locate this nameless cousin who has the child!

I have been writing in between all of this. I have a good 25k written in this story so far and it has been a lot of fun building the tension as the MC and his partner try to unravel the clues and find the leads that will lead to the ending. I now have a clear and credible vision of where this goes. ...

This is a single house, no community, no other houses, that was commissioned to be built deep in the Pine Barrens by our head baddie. There will be a small, sleepy town nearby where, of course, the bad guy basically owns the Sheriff department and is able to control other factors. And by small, i me...

No, i definitely will stay away from this becoming fantastical in any sense. There will be this house, it will be set deep in the Pine Barrens and this is where all the experiments are going on. There are a few small scenes there and, of course, the final scenes where the location is finally found a...