Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I've loved reading everyone's responses. On the one hand, I am not alone in my struggle with beginnings! That makes me feel much better about how many times I've rewritten mine. And on the other hand, it's always fascinating how differently everyone handles the writing process. How others can wrestl...

In my head I know it's too soon to worry, but I'm worried! I mean, it's my heart . You only get one of them, you know? I promise I'm not throwing my personal pity party with balloons and cupcakes (well, maybe cupcakes). I just needed to vent. This is the place for venting right? Oh, Sommer, I'm rea...

Strangely enough, right after that, everything just kinda came together. Haha. It's funny how much easier things get when you stop caring so much about what other people think. Reading about everyone's thesis experiences (and knowing people offline, too), I kinda don't regret that my attempts at po...

Beginnings are my nemesis. With both my last MS and my current one, I re-wrote the opening half a dozen times from scratch, trying to find that right balance of introduction and tension. No other scene in my novels ever goes through that many versions, not even the ending (which can also give me tro...

Tossing my hat in! Goals for September: 1) Finish revising/polishing my current WIP. It will need at least one more pass. 2) Start querying said WIP. 3) Start drafting SNI. Not sure what to set as a word count goal for the month. 15k, maybe? Partly depends on #1. 9/1 - 9/4: ...tweaked my beginning a...

Okay, so I started telling them the bones of the story, understanding that clearly, I hadn't worked everything out yet. But they blew so many stinking holes into my story that I almost want to can it. It was so disheartening and I'm not sure I'll do that again. Talk about knocking the wind out of m...

Your plan sounds like a good one. I start querying when I reach the point where I'm ready to set my MS aside and move on to the next one, when I feel like I've made all the big changes that need making and mostly all that's left is tweaking words here and there. It is so tempting to start querying b...

I think it varies both from chapter to chapter and from book to book, depending on the pacing of the story and the writing style (voice) of the author. The chapter breaks can be used to denote a change in focus or POV, or a shift in pacing, they can be inserted in strategic spots to create minor cli...

I actually wrote a great, very long post about this on my blog last summer and I'll post pieces of it below, but the most important thing about dystopians is that they are not about chaos and destruction. Sorry, this might get a little long. I am not good at brevity. This was a really good summary ...

I think somewhere along the way "dystopia" somehow became equated with "war and chaos". I'm not sure why this should be, because the two aren't necessarily correlated. Consider accepted dystopias such as Matched, Divergent, Delirium, even The Hunger Games. Prior to the start of t...

From the subject line I thought you meant something that's helped improve your writing process. In which case I was going to say starting to use my daily walks with the dogs as WIP-mulling sessions, whether I have a plot block or not. Lots of interesting ideas come of just thinking about the work. B...

"Sign bombing" Going to a bookstore and randomly signing copies of my book with secret messages. Maybe that lead to youtube videos or other fun prizes/content. I love this. :) If I'd had more time I would've liked to've stopped in bookstores as I was doing my tour. As it was I just stoppe...

Fun question, Shipple. I actually haven't read most of the stories your listed characters are from, but recognize the character types you're describing. I've got two that are my primary favourite MC types: The outwardly cool, put-together, confident character who's extremely skilled in some area (wh...

The site I've used a lot is this one: http://www.arbookfind.com/UserType.aspx You have to specify an identity (student/parent/teacher/librarian - no option for "reader", but it doesn't really matter what you pick, it doesn't affect site usage), then you can type in the name of the book in ...

Fan-art of my characters. (Well. Right after "string together book sales into a career." )