Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 185

5 Minutes a Day: Testing Your Characters and Your Setting

Are your characters unique?  Is your setting woven into your story? These are the kinds of things that can make a story top-notch instead of ho-hum.  Here are some simple thing you can do to test how well you’ve done. Change the setting for your story. If your story is contemporary, consider resetting it 100 […]

Entering Contests: Check All the Boxes

I’m almost halfway through another batch of contest entries.  I’m judging not entering, but this has given me some insight into how an editor must feel.  With that in mind, here are four tips that apply to contest entries but also to fiction in general. Follow the rules.  That doesn’t simply mean entering fiction in […]

STEM Titles Coming Soon

It really is a toss-up whether I prefer to write about social sciences and history or science.  I think that’s why anthropology was the ideal field of study for me.  So when my editor contacted me and asked if I wanted to do a title in a series of evolution, it wasn’t a matter of […]

MSWL Day: Use This to Research Agents

Are you looking for an agent?  Then you need to check out Manuscript Wish List Day (#MSWL Day).  It is coming up on September 12, 2018. For those of you who aren’t familiar with #MSWL it is a tag used by editors and agents to Tweet about what they want.  You will see posts about […]

Writing Picture Books: How Much Dialogue Is Too Much?

“When writing a picture book, limit your dialogue.” This is a fairly common piece of advice given to picture book writers. The reasoning behind it is that talking heads make for boring illustrations.  Good illustrations contain action and emotion.  There are different characters and settings from spread to spread. And that’s not bad advice.  But […]

Book Binding

Those of you who have read my blog for any length of time know that I love to make things by hand. I knit and crochet.  I’ve started beading.  And I’m currently working on two old sewing machines. But here is a craft that relates directly to writing – book binding.  This video shows a […]

Rewriting: What to Do When You’re Making It Worse

One month.  I have one month to rewrite this picture book and turn it in.  After that?  Opportunity missed.  Bye-bye. I know, more or less, what I need to do. Create lyrical text on each spread full of sensory details and word play. Create an equally lyrical sidebar full of examples from around the world. […]

Writing Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults

If any of you are interested in learning to write nonfiction, I am teaching Writing Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults through WOW! Women on Writing.  The class starts on: Monday, September 10, 2018 Monday, November 12, 2018 This is an 8 week class that includes: Week One: Which Market Is Which. One of the most […]

Classes, Workshops, and Online Opportunities: What Do Writer’s Study?

I’m in an accountability group with several authors and one of my editors.  Yes, she also writes.  I love to take classes and it has been interesting for me the see what online opportunities other writers take advantage of.  Not surprisingly, a lot of writers take classes on writing.  Several of these ladies write essays so […]

Labor Day: Perspective

I hope everyone is enjoying Labor Day weekend.  We don’t tend to do the parade city event thing.  This is one of those weekends that we spend in rural Southern Missouri. We go to a small lake in Wayne County.  I was following them through the woods along a field and stopped to take a […]