Nathan Bransford | Writing, Book Editing, Publishing
Helping authors achieve their dreams
One of the strangest things about writing fiction is that it often needs to make more sense than real life. In real life, people fall into grief-stricken states of paralysis, wander around aimlessly without knowing what they’re looking for, and endlessly endure unpleasantness without trying to change anything about their circumstances. It’s extremely difficult to […]
Learning to effectively manipulate time is one of the important skills novelists and memoirists must master. You can brush past centuries or linger for pages on a split second depending on what the story requires. Crafting effective connective tissue and making sure you have the correct events dramatized on the page are super important elements […]
Some of the most beloved scenes in movie history involve training for combat. Obi-Wan Kenobi making Luke put the blast shield down so he can train blind with his lightsaber in Star Wars: A New Hope. Morpheus and Neo fighting an epic, beautiful, mesmerizing joust after Neo learns kung fu in The Matrix. Take your […]
Writers are often told that they need to raise the stakes, crystalize the stakes, sharpen the stakes, stakes stakes stakes. In fact, we hear it so much I worry sometimes writers think it means that unless literally saving the world is at stake in their novel, they don’t have the right stakes to pursue traditional […]
When novels are bloated with an excessive word count, the extra words are often where you’d least expect them. In fact, when I’m editing, I often find that very long novels are among the most tightly plotted. The authors know the word count is a problem, so they trim all the extra scenes and streamline […]
I’ve dished out plenty of edits as a former literary agent and current freelance book editor, and been on the receiving end as the author of a middle grade trilogy and several guides to writing and publishing. When I receive an edit, I know that the (usually brilliant) suggestions my editors make are nothing personal. […]
Helping authors achieve their dreams
