Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I was reading in another thread about the difficulty one of us was having finding a critique partner. I'm in the same boat. I live in a small town where there are no writing groups and only have free hours in the middle of the night (who needs sleep anyway).
Is anyone else out there searching for a fresh set of eyes to check out their WIP and give advice (I mean someone besides your mom)?
So here's my idea (if it's a stupid one, I'm sorry for wasting your time).
Maybe we could use this thread to send out a request for a critique partner. Post the genre of your novel, word count, and how many chapters a week you think you could critique for them. If someone's interested in being your partner, they can click on your name next to your avatar and send you a private message. Once you guys agree to work together, you come back to this thread, edit your critique partner request comment to indicate that you've found a partner. Then the two of you can get to work.
They'll read your work, and you'll read there's. You two can work out all the particulars amongst yourself. You both solemnly vow to be completely honest yet respectful. If you disagree, that's ok. No need to fight.
I don't know, it's probably a bad idea, but here it goes anyway...

My WIP is YA Paranormal Fiction, currently at 99,000 words, and I could critique two or three long chapters a week, or about five short chapters. Ok, I found a partner, now... err, maybe 2...

Yay, I found a partner, so I edited my post.

Maybe we should ask Nathan to start another forum for this incase the thread gets burried?

I know a lot of forums set up a critique partner section, where you answer certain questions about your work in progress, and what kind of critique partner you are looking for, that way, you get matched with someone who is interested in reading the genre you are writing for etc.

I met my critique partner on line, at first we began just exchanging pleasantries via email and then progressed to changing pieces of work. It's been over 6 months now and i've never looked back Now, when I write something, she is the one person I hope will like it and I always wonder what she will think, or what her feedback will be. Because of her, my writing is has become more defined. I really hope the same for yourself.

Edit: I found one!

~JD

EDIT: Found a critique partner. Thanks, Erica75!

Hi all,
Anyone interested in critiquing a contemporary YA romance with a time travel twist? The manuscript has already been through six rewrites (the next rewrite should be finished in the next week, I hope), so I'd love if someone else had a book that was pretty much done and wanted to swap. And I admit that I'm a bit impatient about timing, so if you're willing to review quickly (within a week or so), I'd promise the same back to you.

Justine,
I checked out your blog since I'm looking for a critique partner, too, but I'm writing a YA book so we probably won't work for each other. Regardless, just wanted to say that I like your blog, and your daughter seems very sweet. Good luck with your YA novella for her!

Cheers, Evelyn

EDIT: don't need one any more...

Hi there everyone,

I'm seeking a critique partner.

I am a newbie and have been at this for a little over three years now. I write fantasy and a little sci-fi. At present, I have a WIP in need of a second look. How much we exchange can be discussed later.

I can't promise to be nice but I will be honest. PM for further details.

Found an awesome critique partner!

Also, I think that maybe starting with the first two or three chapters would work, just to see how well we'd work together. :)

Hi Everyone,

I'm a newbie on this forum, but a long-time fan of the blog. My manuscript is going through (hopefully) its last re-write. It's evolved from a Fantasy, to YA Fantasy, and now to a romantic fantasy (no longer YA so I could get some juicy stuff in there) and is currently at 77,800 words.

I work full-time and have two kids, so I could return a critique probably a few chapters at a time. I'm looking for the same so I can get opinions on how the chapters progress, etc. I'm looking for honest, constructive feedback and will give the same. Here's a brief summary (still in its early form):

Kathryn spends the evening of her thirtieth birthday alone with her dog when love comes calling in the form of a black void eating her kitchen—with them in it.

Torn from snowy Vermont, Kathryn awakens in the middle of a gray desert. She could handle popping into another world—it happens all of the time in the movies—but being hunted by seven-foot-tall creatures is another story. Enter Lanclor, a winged human knight, whose curse forces him to keep everyone at a distance. Lanclor rescues Kathryn, introducing her to the only army capable of defeating the creatures.

Kathryn joins the fight after learning through a series of prophetic dreams that the army is close to defeat. After one night of passion without the identifying ranks of their armor or the anonymity of their helmets, Kathryn finds herself longing for the one man capable of bringing down her defenses.

Please PM me if interested!

I would love to take part in this as I live in a small town also but unfortunately my MS is still WAY too long. If anyone wants to critique a YA novel with a fantasy/mystic side I would be happy to reciprocate but it still over 300,000 words so I should really finish cutting first!

Hello everyone!

I am new to the forums, but have been subscribing to Nathan's blog for a while. I am desperately seeking a critique partner. My MS is a 110,000 word historical fiction set in the US and England during the American Civil War time period. Here is an excerpt from my query:


Julienne Dalton is the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner, accustomed to a privileged, but lonely life. With the advent of the Civil War, her world is turned upside down by the murder of her father and the destruction of her family’s ancestral home. Determined to be the victim no longer, Julienne involves herself with a Confederate espionage ring. She thrives on the danger of her new role, but she is secretly haunted by the traumatic rape that followed her father’s murder.

When an English detective name Alexander Caulfield is hired to apprehend her, Julienne finds herself falling in love with the enemy. Their hasty marriage is a love match, but Julienne is determined to stop tragedy before it starts. She flees her husband for Europe, but ends up in England, where she constructs a new life, but never fully resolves her love for Alex.

The Enemy Within is a novel that spans two countries, one torn apart by war, the other enjoying a golden age of prosperity and innovation.


I would prefer someone who has some knowledge of historical fiction. I have been using ReviewFuse and my major problem with it is that my reviewers don't have even the faintest grasp of history! I will be willing to reciprocate, of course, however I should not that I don't have an interest in science fiction or fantasy. If you're interested, please PM me.

Thanks in advance!

A critique partner would be amazing. Because the only things in my town that bear any semblance to writer's groups are for non-fiction only (my own life is not interesting enough for me to write non-fiction about it). And everyone else I know (i.e. my mother) would just be like "Everything you write is amazing" (which is not true lol).

My WIP is 75,000 words, so I suppose it's fairly short relatively speaking. And I'm still having some genre trouble (to YA or not to YA), but I guess if you want to crit it you can help me out in that area. It's basically a coming-of-age tale set in the mid to late 1980s in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship.

So I guess PM me if you're interested. And I'm a fourth quarter senior in high school, which means I'm not busy at all and can crit (as well as I can--be sure to tell me to be harsh if you want because otherwise, I'm *too* nice) work in return.

Anybody still looking for a crit partner?

Hey guys,

First off yes, this thread was a good idea. You'd be surprised how little Australia has to offer the literary world. *Sigh*

I'm looking for a crit partner to go over my 85,000 word MS. It's YA fantasy currently in it's final stages of revision and my main focus is to weed out any plot inconsistencies, clumsy wording or just things that plain don't make sense.

I am happy to look at pretty much anything but at this point I can only commit to one chapter a week. (Ten page chapters I'm talking. Could be more but that's just a safe guess). However if you're after a partner that will sugar coat everything and tell you how talented you are I'm probably not what you're looking for. (Unless you are exceedingly talented - then I won't hesitate to tell you).

If you ARE looking for someone that has a good memory for plot, decent knowledge of grammar and punctuation and will tell you when something just isn't right; PM me. I will work just as hard as I expect my partner to, to get both MS up to publishing standards.

Thanks :)