Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I like what you've done to revamp it, and gotten rid of the quotation marks. Now the only general problem I see is that you're focusing almost solely on one event. We hear about the lead-up to her finding out he's a Reddo, but after that we don't know any external conflict. We just know the internal...

My characters are amalgamations of people I've met or seen. Then there are some who are created because I wished they existed.
And they constantly surprise me. Many plot twists can be attributed to characters simply going where they want to go instead of where I intended.

Thanks to both of you! It helped a lot. Reading it with those comments made me realize how...sparse it was. I'm finding it hard to make a balance out of not surpassing 250 words and putting enough of the plot in. In this version, obviously, I leaned towards sparseness. I'll post the new query once I...

Ahhh rewriting. The bane and tonic of a writer's existence.

I'm not sure about unpublished first chapters (but I do too get the chills at the thought of posting it all online), but I do know I enjoy reading the first chapter of published books online. In fact the first book I purchased on my kindle was bought because I read the first chapter on a blog and ab...

Dear Agent, When fourteen-year-old Sarah Whitman is captured by pirates while en route to her fiancé, she can’t help feeling relieved at escaping the arranged marriage. There’s one small problem though – the captain of the Griffin's Song, Tiras, plans to kill her on her sixteenth birthday to ensure ...

What's the word count, and have you found anyone yet?

Congratulations! And lucky - my imagination is buried under revisions right now.

Dear (agent): In his quest to break a big story awkward phrasing , young journalist Tyson Palmer infiltrates a mind controlling cult, but soon falls under their control insert comma becoming an unwitting soldier in the army of with(?) a charismatic leader with a dark political agenda and no qualms a...

My ramblings on the death of the 3rd person narrative
http://startingonthewritepage.blogspot.com/

Thanks for the advice and sympathy, Brenda! I might just go to a book store and try that. Will have to make sure I don't bring money though, because without fail I will exit with at least 4 books. And I don't think my bookcase can handle the extra weight.

Not to mention frustrated because we wish it was something we could whip out in a weekend, instead of the months that constitute reality.

Good to know! Then for a romantic suspense you've definitely got a good hook. Then the feedback I would give is that you might want to include some indication of whether or not she's looking for a place to hide out, or meeting someone there for an interlude. Of course, this is just the first page, a...

The one thing that jumped out at me was that you switched tenses. You'd be in past tense and then switch to present. Also, you might want to have a few more paragraph breaks, just to separate action. That, however is just a personal preference. Otherwise it looks like an interesting beginning to a s...

I definitely like your hook. It makes me think this lady is angry with a bit of a devil-may-care attitude. But I was wondering, what is your genre? Is it meant to be a thriller, romance, what? And a short summary would help before making a critique So far I'm liking it!