Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 184
November 4, 2018
Highlights: Accepting Submissions
All of you Highlights fans will be happy to know that the magazine is once again open for submissions. That said, the guidelines are new so even if you knew the old guidelines you will have to study this new version. You can find the updates guidelines here. The thing that I like best is […]
November 1, 2018
5 Minutes a Day: Finding Comp Titles
This is a topic that I go over with my students. My next session of Writing Nonfiction for Children and Teens starts November 12th. Before we discuss what you can do towards this end in five minutes, it helps to understand what comp titles are and why they matter. Comp titles, or comparison titles, are […]
October 31, 2018
Picture Books: Three Act Structure
What are the best ways to structure a picture book? In part, I’ve been wondering if you can apply the three act structure to picture books. In short, it depends on the story but some do have this structure. You can find it written up in Eve Hiedi Bine-Stock’s How to Write a Children’s Picture […]
October 30, 2018
Know Your Readers
Should your Halloween be super spooky or sparkly and Vamperina? Our tendency is to say that this is dependent on age level. Older kids are cool with spooky. Younger kids need cute Vamperina. And that’s true to a point. A young reader’s creepy and atmospheric is Creepy Carrots. For an older reader you can get […]
October 29, 2018
Outside Readers: Helping You Create Solid Content
It’s been a while since the publishing world went crazy over the thought of sensitivity readers. Was it a great idea or was it censorship? And whose pocket was this going to come out of anyway? If you missed last year’s debate, the idea was that people writing outside their own experience need sensitivity readers […]
October 28, 2018
The Great American Read: The Results
The people have voted and the results for the Great American Read are in and the winners are: To Kill a Mockingbird Outlander (Series) Harry Potter (Series) Pride and Prejudice Lord of the Rings The funny thing to me? Except for the Outlander series, I think of these as teen reads. To Kill a Mockingbird was […]
October 25, 2018
5 Minutes a Day: Explore the Library of Congress
If you aren’t familiar with the Library of Congress, spend some time whenever you have a few minutes and poke around. There are so many resources available including a wide variety of research materials. Two of the newest offerings are: The Theodore Roosevelt Papers. approximately 276,000 documents, this is the largest collection of Roosevelt documents […]
October 23, 2018
Suspense: Why You Want It and How to Create It
In a story, when we talk about suspense we are talking about the ability to keep your reader on the edge of their seat. They firmly believe that something is going to happen. It may very well happen soon. And the reader feels tense. Sometimes suspense comes with knowing something big is at stake. The […]
Fractured Fairy Tails: Go Big
I love it when I come across a new book that represents an original take on an old story. Some, in my opinion, are harder to redo than others. For me, one of the toughest is the Little Red Hen. In part, this is because I so loathe how some versions of the original end. […]
October 22, 2018
Genre: Can You Mix and Match?
Back when I started writing, we authors were told that we had to know where our book fit. Pick a genre and stick with it. It was the only way to know who your audience was as well as how and where to market the book. You still get that advice but, of course, I […]
