Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Hello!

My name Maude and I seek writers to exchange sections from ongoing literary manuscripts. While my particular emphasis is creative nonfiction (I am finishing up the first draft of a family memoir), I am very open to working with people who do fiction as well.

The most important thing is that anyone with whom I partner needs to be serious and willing to offer fair, tough-minded critiques for the same from me. I currently have two beta readers and they have both been quite encouraging. But the agent who has expressed interest in my MS is very demanding, and I want to give her nothing but the best that I can offer.

As for my work: it's about the relationship I had with my immigrant parents – and in particular my father – and the way that relationship has haunted me – sometimes very destructive ways – throughout my life.

I am a wide reader of all sorts of writing and have published both CNF and poetry in a number of literary journals. I'm also a professional critic with Kirkus who has reviewed primarily in the areas of memoir, biography and history. You can find my website at: austinwritinglife.net.

If you're interested in doing critiques, you can email me at: mmadjarian@gmail.com.

Maude,
I’m interested in the immigrant experience, and have 12 years experience in critique groups, facilitating two. I’m looking for a critique partner for my 90k word crime novel/psychological thriller. I need big picture criticism—is it publishable; do you connect with the protagonist; is the storyline engaging? In return, that’s the critiquing I do best.

My criterion for partnering is that I enjoy reading your book and you enjoy mine.
Either of us can stop reading at any point where we lose interest, and exchange critiques.
We exchange in-process critiques periodically, eg. every 10 chapters or every Saturday, so that we are roughly spending equal energy and getting equal results.

Here’s a start for my novel:
Pitch:
Journalist JuShon investigates the death of a young woman found dressed in an ancient Roman gown, lying in the redwood forest above Oakland. Meanwhile, a former high-tech exec stalks a woman who does expressive dance to jazz on a stripper’s pole. As the first body becomes two then three, JuShon finds she is being investigated in return.

Opening:
To reach the body before the crime scene techs threw a tent over it, JuShon ran through the gloom, dancing between dark the potholes and erosion ditches that pocked the hard clay trail. Rounding a bend, she stopped short—a policeman lit by the orange glow of his cigarette, stood at the entrance to the forest path up the mountainside. A young couple sat on a stump near the cop, arms wrapped around each other, hunched over like mushrooms in the moonlight. She couldn't distinguish words, but heard the boy's choked fearful tone, and girl's soothing response. Witnesses.
JuShon checked the gps Video-Bob had sent her. Due west, up the slope. She grabbed branches and pulled herself up, and with her phone on dim, side-stroked through intertwined oak and thorny nettle. V-Bob had promised her the body was “ultimate cool, blow-out news.”
Bright spotlights twinkled through the brush, and she clawed her way to the edge of an illuminated teardrop shaped clearing of grass and brush. A policewoman unrolled yellow crime tape, tying it to trees, while two techs walked a grid pattern, eyes on the ground. Two more knelt, working on something hidden behind bright yellow flowering scotch broom—the body.

If this appeals to you, reply.
Bruce