Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 193

Setting: Be Specific

This past week, my family and I were in the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee.  I love mountains.  Love them.  My father was born in the Davis Mountains in West Texas.  That’s them below with historic Ft. Davis in the foreground.  The Davis Mountains are my default setting for mountains.  Big.  Rocky.  Not overly cluttered with […]

5 Tips on Regrouping and Recharging: When to Stop Writing

I’m prolific. At one level, it seems like bragging to say that.  But the reality is that I am. So far this year I’ve written 2 nonfiction books for teens, 2 for older elementary students and rewritten three of these with comments from my editors.  I’ve reworked two nonfiction picture books for the retreat and […]

Creating Depth: Adding a Bit More to Your Manuscript

Sometimes I manuscript will catch my eye because I am surprised that an author managed to sell it without the illustrations.  Let’s face reality, writers-who-cannot-draw.  Some manuscripts simply work better when pitched by an author/illustrator because it is easier to get the concept across with pictures. This past week I read Whose Poop Is That? by Darrin […]

Query Letters

You’ll have to excuse me while I swoon. I had to write a query letter.  Not even a query with accompanying pages.  Just the letter.  Ugh. I’m not sure why I think I stand-alone query is so swoon worthy but I do.  But I sat down and made myself write it, let it sit for […]

KS/MO Conference: Apply for the Scholarship

Society of Children’s Book Writer and Illustrator conferences aren’t cheep but they are well worth the price.  If you’d like to attend the fall SCBWI Kansas/Missouri conference but can’t swing the tuition, apply for the Vanderpool Work of Promise Scholarship. The scholarship honors the 2011 Newbery winner and SCBWI Kansas/Missouri member, Clare Vanderpool. The scholarship includes conference […]

Spin Offs: Re-imagining something that’s already out there

Sometimes I pick up a book and wonder, was this author inspired by Title X?  Did she love that book when she was growing up?  Or are the similarities just coincidental? I don’t believe that the similarities are always intentional.  But sometimes they are and the authors will tell you all about it.  That’s why […]

5 Minutes a Day: Outlining a Mystery

About two month ago, I wrote a post about outlining your novel.  I’m in the pre-writing stage of writing a mystery and I’ve been working on outlining my plot.  The problem was that something was missing.  It had to be.  My list was only about 20 scenes long.  Even I know that’s not enough for […]

Writer’s Block: Take a Walk When the Words Don’t Flow

I’ve heard of people who go through days and months where they cannot write.  They are utterly and completely blocked.  For the most part, I don’t have complete blocks although I do have slow downs.  When it happens, I do these three things to get the word flowing again. I get up and burn some […]

Reading List

Are you a PAL member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators?  PAL means “published and listed.”  If the answer is yes than SCBWI has an opportunity that you are going to want to take advantage of this opportunity. The SCBWI is putting together a Recommended Reading List for 2018.  This is something they’ve […]

Picture Books: Writing a Biography

I’ve been reading picture book biographies lately in part because one of the women in my critique group at the retreat had written one.  It didn’t quite work, so I wanted to study what does.  Here are five things to keep in mind when writing a biography for young readers. There are two types – […]