Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 185
October 21, 2018
Copyright: Should You or Shouldn’t You?
Every now and again someone asks me if they should copyright a story before sending it to an agent or a publisher. Some even suggest taking the time to get a piece copyrighted before taking it to critique group. “You mean that you don’t trust me not to steal your work?” “It could happen.” “And […]
October 18, 2018
Recharge and Renew: Pajama Day
Last week, I rewrote a 15,000 word piece of teen nonfiction. This week, I turned in a chapter and outline for my next project. If you only count books under contract, this will be number 7 for the year. If you count un-contracted projects, add two more to the tally. And I wrote 2000 words […]
October 17, 2018
Series Writing: Recurring Conventions
Even if you don’t recognize the term, recurring conventions, you’ve spotted these elements in your favorite series. Elizabeth Craig calls them tropes. Camille LaGuire uses the term rituals. These are the situations, settings and other elements that recur from book to book. In Harry Potter, we have Harry’s scar and the fact that the Weasley’s are […]
October 16, 2018
Facts: Accuracy Is a Must
Facts. It doesn’t matter if you are writing fiction or nonfiction. You have got to get them right. If you don’t, you’ll alienate your reader. That’s why I dug in my heels this week when my editor wanted me to make a change on my manuscript. The content consultant wanted me to discuss the things […]
October 15, 2018
Fact vs Fiction: Stories Based on Real Life
This past week, a fight broke out at the local high school. Apparently it was “a big one” by whatever standards are used to quantify these things. The students who started it were not from our school and somehow accessed the building in spite of locked doors, students required to wear IDs and security guards. […]
October 14, 2018
National Book Awards: Finalists Announced
Last week the National Book Foundation announced the finalists for the National Book Awards, winners to be announced on November 14. In the category of “Yound People’s Literature,” the nominees are: Elizabeth Acevedo, The Poet X (Harper Teen). “Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has […]
October 11, 2018
5 Minutes a Day: NaNoWriMo
Do you plan to take part in NaNoWriMo? For those of you who have somehow missed the phenomenon that is NaNoWriMo, it stands for National Novel Writing Month. During the month of November, each participant commits to drafting a 50,000 word novel. No, you can’t rewrite something you’ve already written. No, this isn’t the time to […]
October 10, 2018
Writing Humor: Oddly Specific
Way back when I first started writing, I attended a conference workshop on how to write humor. At the beginning of the session, the presenter encouraged us to imagine our character’s backpack. What would be inside? He explained that the expected items might include a math book, a spiral notebook, a pencil, even half a […]
October 9, 2018
Setting Goals: 5 Steps to Getting the Writing Done
When you write full-time, people have no problem telling you how lucky you are. “You get to do what you want every day?” While that isn’t quite true, I am far too easy for people to find, I do acknowledge that this is pretty awesome. But it can still be tricky to squeeze the writing […]
October 8, 2018
Graphic Novels: Is This Form Right for Your Story?
Last week, I attended a webinar by School Library Journal on comic book writing. The guests were Ethan Aldridge, author of Estranged, and Wendy Xu, part of the SLJ team. One of the things that they stressed was how vital it is to recognize both novels and graphic novels as legitimate means of story telling. A novel […]
