Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Michael is quite stoic, but totally freaked when we decided to off one of the viewpoint characters (well, she's not dead but is no longer human, and not able to recover). I tend to be pretty stoic about my characters suffering, but seriously squee when they have a cute moment.

karenbb wrote:
side note: as one of the lucky people on the planet who've read cheekychook's first book, I can say that her characters made me cry (and laugh and smile) too.

Wow, what an accolade. I want to read it!

Me too! CheekyChock, PMme!

This is a really great thread. It's touching.

I always have happy endings. I can't cope with hurting my characters. I'd feel guilty forever, and ever.

And I want to read CheekyChook's book too.

do not remember the character but there have been many plots and situations in a novel that brought tears in my eyes....

hey now, everybody's going to get me in trouble with cheeky. It's a very difficult club to get into to, the one where you get to read her book, and it's not for the faint of heart. It involves a finger prick, a dance around a fire, virgin sacrifice (and let me tell you, it was not easy to find one of those), and other things that are simply unsuitable for polite conversation. I was merely trying to acknowledge that someone else who'd made a comment in the thread has created characters that make other people cry--that's the trick, right? It's one thing if they make you cry, but it's something quite different when they can make other people cry.

Okay, karen, you're off the hook. :)

(And definitely let's not beg cheekychook for pages this month while she's going for the gold with NaNo :)

karenbb wrote:hey now, everybody's going to get me in trouble with cheeky. It's a very difficult club to get into to, the one where you get to read her book, and it's not for the faint of heart. It involves a finger prick, a dance around a fire, virgin sacrifice (and let me tell you, it was not easy to find one of those), and other things that are simply unsuitable for polite conversation. I was merely trying to acknowledge that someone else who'd made a comment in the thread has created characters that make other people cry--that's the trick, right? It's one thing if they make you cry, but it's something quite different when they can make other people cry.

A finger prick, a dance around a fire and a virgin sacrifice? Where was I during all of that? I miss all the fun. And good God, woman, what did you do to the virgin?

I'm glad my characters make you laugh and cry. And you're not in trouble. Not for this anyway...

karenbb wrote:virgin sacrifice (and let me tell you, it was not easy to find one of those)

I resent and resemble that. I'm 29 and proud to be a virgin, who's only really been pecked on the lips, thank you. :3

Quill wrote:Okay, karen, you're off the hook. :)

(And definitely let's not beg cheekychook for pages this month while she's going for the gold with NaNo :)

So you're saying December 1 it's fair game to start begging me? I'll mark my calendar...

sierramcconnell wrote:

karenbb wrote:virgin sacrifice (and let me tell you, it was not easy to find one of those)

I resent and resemble that. I'm 29 and proud to be a virgin, who's only really been pecked on the lips, thank you. :3

Not to worry, Sierra, Karenbb was referring to a male virgin sacrifice----your virtue is safe with her.

Quill, BComet, Mira---Flattered by the interest, but I'm afraid I'll have to see some ID... :)

cheekychook wrote:

sierramcconnell wrote:

karenbb wrote:virgin sacrifice (and let me tell you, it was not easy to find one of those)

I resent and resemble that. I'm 29 and proud to be a virgin, who's only really been pecked on the lips, thank you. :3

Not to worry, Sierra, Karenbb was referring to a male virgin sacrifice----your virtue is safe with her.

LOL. Yeah, this day and age it's impossible I think. I keep hoping to find me one.

bcomet wrote:Yesterday, going deeper into Donald Maass' Breakout Novel Workbook, once again I was astounded at the power in these exercises.

They're great, aren't they?

Of course, the trick is to get the readers to cry.

I'm good at crying at books, movies, television shows, very nice commercials...so I like it when a book makes me cry. I like to feel the emotion built up in a story that has the power to break my heart. Most of my own stories, however, are not very sad.

Three books come to mind that had me all wrapped up emotionally so that when a particular moment of the story came, I couldn't stop with the sobbing which inevitably had my husband running up the stairs sure something horrific was happening to me only to discover me clutching the book and bawling into its pages. These books win, in my book, when I'm crying so hard I can't read the pages anymore.

1. Feed by Mira Grant has a deceptively heartbreaking twist. Generally zombie stories shouldn't bring the tears. This one did.
2. How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford sort of has the warning right there in the title, but when it hits you in this book, it kind of knocks the breath out of you. I had to put this book down and walk away to have a good cry before I could even continue reading.
3. The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson is actually pretty special in that I cried pretty much from page one to the acknowledgements. How a book manages to hook you into fate of the MC on page one is a sort of writing magic I'm really jealous of.