Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 175
March 12, 2019
F&W Media Filing Chapter 11
Sadness. If you haven’t seen the news yet, F&W Media filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 10. This is the company that annually publishes The Writer’s Market, The Children’s Writer’s Market, The Guide to Literary Agents, and The Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market. They also publish a wide range of magazines including Writer’s Digest, Popular […]
March 11, 2019
Characterization and Dialogue: Keeping Things Real
One of the most fascinating parts of writing fiction is creating characters that sound real in every way. This means that their dialogue has to sound real and they have to be three-dimensional. Dialogue can seem false when it is straight forward and oh so linear. Character A asks a question. Character B answers it. […]
March 10, 2019
Adults in childrens books
Recently I read an interesting Twitter thread from David Bowles. You can read the thread here. In this thread, Bowles discusses how, when writing middle grade fiction, he needs to give full agency to the child characters and somehow prevent the parents from parenting. He can make the parents bumbling fools or otherwise do away […]
March 7, 2019
Graphic Novels: What’s Coming Out This Spring
If you are into graphic novels, sign up for this School Library Journal event to see what is coming out this spring. Title: Spring Graphic Novels Date: Thursday, March 14, 2019 Time: 02:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time This one hour event is designed to help librarians expand their graphic novel collections. That said, it is also a great idea to […]
March 6, 2019
Setting: A Matter of Modern Mystery
A realistic setting is vital to your story. VITAL. It is one of the things that makes your story real and pulls readers in. We’ve all heard this advice time and time again. Yet there is something that I’m realizing this year. Not every author reveals where their book is set. If I hadn’t decided […]
March 5, 2019
Cover Reveal!
Look what I found on Amazon yesterday while researching “Additional Reading” to go in the back matter for another book. STEM CELLS! This was one of those projects that turns out to be much more difficult than anticipated. For one thing, I knew very little about stem cells when I started. I wanted to know […]
March 4, 2019
Fiction or Nonfiction: Deciding Which to Write
I’ve been working on a new nonfiction project, another work-for-hire book. In the course of my research, I discovered a woman and her two daughters that I would love to write about. The issue that I’m facing now is rather to write nonfiction or fiction. And, if I write fiction, do I write historic fiction […]
March 3, 2019
Read Across America
You would think I wouldn’t miss this, but I did. Read Across America is held every March 2nd. It is a day to encourage children across the US to read. This year the theme is Celebrating a Nation of Diverse Readers. Diversity in books is vital and this video speaks to that point very well. […]
February 28, 2019
Graphic Novel Day
Are you interested in writing graphic novels? If so, then the KS/MO SCBWI region has a great writing event for you. Graphic Novel Day: The Whole Picture is all about writing and illustrating graphic novels. When: April 6, 2019 from 8:30 to 4:30 pm Where: KU Edwards Campus, BEST Conference Center, 12600 S. Quivira – […]
February 27, 2019
Characters: Doing Things Right and It Still Goes Wrong
Recently, I rediscovered the Tweet to the right on Pinterest. It’s one I pinned that has been getting saved a lot lately. Yet again, it really spoke to me. I’ve been trying my hand at writing fiction and getting my characters into trouble without having them look like complete ding bats is tough. I returned […]
