Nathan Bransford - The Forums

...and I don't mean the genre. Let's face it, we all have those daydreams we can't squash. Multi-published, bestseller, seeing your characters in fanfic. We may be pragmatic and realistic about the chances of us becoming the new Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, but we all harbor those little fantasies ...

My first thought was the movie Face/Off - John Travolta and Nicholas Cage switch faces and chase each other around the other person's life. While not strictly following the format you laid out, there are a lot of similiar elements there.

You might try conveying some of the emotions through action that illustrates the emotion. Did you ever read the Wicked & Tricksy post I did on why my characters don't cry or say "I love you"? That. Yeah. That was kind of what I was saying. Showing us how he feels, rather than having h...

Wow guys, these are awesome recommendations! Thanks so much. Yeah, I guess I'd better get myself a copy of Hitchiker's Guide . No, I've never read it, and yes, I realize that's practically a crime. I'll grab it as soon as I can! :D I'm surprised at how many people have suggested Anne McCaffrey. I di...

So yeah. The rules have been pretty well covered. As to personal preferences, I feel like having 'the' capitalized all the time is awkward as well. I would do just about anything to keep having a formal 'the' at the front of my items. If it's purely down to stylistic choice, I'd leave it lowercase.

I'll obviously welcome answers from everyone, but I'm specifically looking at the men of the house for some help here. I tend to write male protagonists, usually third person limited POV, who are too whiny or too introspective or, well, girly to be believable. My critique partner confirmed my fears ...

I like what Brandon Sanderson has to say. In one of his lectures, he stressed that you have to figure out how believable you want your story to be. People accept uber-realistic fight scenes, and they accept the Hollywoodification (his term) of fighting which sanitizes, speeds up, and generally makes...

Haha, you all who wondered if Margo and I were related? We're like six chromosomes shy of a doppleganger. ... So spill, what are everyone's weekend goals? I wouldn't say doppleganger, per se. More like Two Face's gorgeous lady friends (from Batman) - one's all sweet and cute, the other's evil but e...

I also recommend the full six Dune series books by Frank Herbert. His son also wrote some Dune continuation and spinoff novels. Orson Scott Card does the Ender books, which are also great. I read the second Dune book and didn't enjoy it very much - the third...well, let's just say my husband (big D...

Those of you who were in Vegas, you recall Margo's session on dialogue, right? Making your conversations have double duty, show characterizations while advancing the plot. Yes? No? Imaginary Margo smacked me over the head this morning. :) Yes. Oh my gosh, yes. I can hardly write a section of dialog...

Hi all, Anyone who knows me knows I'm a fantasy freak. I read it, write it, love love love it. A good 85% of the books on my bookshelf are either epic or urban fantasy (the rest are classics). I'm wanting to branch out into some more sci-fi but I'm not sure where to start. About the only true sci-fi...

Sommer, that sounds awesome! (Except the being sick part.) <3

Suggestions? Sure. Deep breaths, junk food of your choice, tea, new books (the reading kind, not the writing kind), and time off. It sounds like you've been working a lot and working hard. The human brain can only be so creative for so long before it just peters out. This is normal. Everyone needs t...

I got story engineering. It was good, but Brandon Sanderson's classes were better :). I may have to finish Story Engineering. He kept on padding his word count with some ridiculous SPAM like pitch. Yeah, Brandon's classes were awesome. :) I had a hard time with Story Engineering at first, because h...

So, I've been reworking my first pinch point because it has always felt wrong and it felt like I was taking way too long to get to the midpoint twist (which I was. My word count is all screwed up.) And as I've been replotting and rewriting, I started getting this weird feeling that maybe what I'd w...