Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 214

Education: What Should a Writer Study?

I’ve always felt like the odd duck in the children’s writing community.  It seems like 90% of the writers, both published and up-and-coming, that I meet have backgrounds in education, literature or library sciences. Me?  In addition to Freshman English and Junior English (both required), I took maybe two lit classes.  After all, I needed […]

Look Forward: Advice for Swimmers and Writers

When my son was a newish swimmer, competing in the 25m breast stroke, I’d watch him bobbing up again and again. Every now and then, he’d sneak a peek to one side or the other.  It was obvious why he was doing it.  He wanted to know where he was in relation to everyone else. […]

KidLit Cares: Hurrican Harvey

Like me, I’m sure that your hearts go out to those impacted by hurricane Harvey.  I have family and friends scattered throughout the state of Texas.  My kin is all far enough west to avoid the serious trouble.  Yes, they had to deal with rain and wind, etc. but they are safe. Some of my […]

Writer’s Market 2018 and New to Me Markets

For those of you shopping for your annual market guide for 2018, consider Writer’s Market.  Yes, I’m a bit biased because I have an article in this edition.  You can find “Why, When, and How to Co-author a Book” on page 41. There are also pieces on publicity, e-mail newsletters and how much to charge for […]

MSWL Day: Coming Soon to a Twitterfeed near You

Are you, like me, one of the many authors looking for an agent?  Then you need to check out Manuscript Wish List Day (#MSWL Day).  It is coming up on September 12, 2017. For those of you who aren’t familiar with #MSWL it is a tag used by editors and agents to Tweet about what […]

Dialogue, Narrative, and Action: Getting the Right Balance, part 2

Yesterday I discussed just how to balance these elements in a chapter book.  In my two page sample, 3 lines were narrative, in this case interior dialogue.  Half of what remained was dialogue and the other half was action. I had been reading about not using too much narrative and wanted to see how much was […]

Dialogue, Narrative, and Action: Getting the Right Balance

Tuesday, I read a Writer’s Digest piece on what characters say and what they think.  The writer discussed needing to get the balance between dialogue and narrative just right. Balancing dialogue, action and narrative was one of the things we discussed when I did the novel rewriting workshop with Darcy Pattison.  I remembered doing a manuscript […]

YA: Writing It Real

I remember reading YA novels while my son was in upper elementary and middle school and thinking, “Whoa!  These are teenagers?  You’ve got to be kidding me.”  Kids with their own cars taking lengthy road trips.  Teens with credits cards buying this and that and hotel rooms?  No worries. Of course, now that I’m the […]

Author’s Copies: I’ve Run Out of Space

Another pair of author’s copies arrived in the mail on Friday – these are What Are Race and Racism?  The series, Race in American, is with Abdo. Once again, I had the opportunity to work with Duchess Harris who was the topic expert for this book.  After the author turns in an Abdo book, the topic […]

Plotting Your Story

As an occasional writer of fiction, I understand how important plot is.  I even know how to use a plot diagram.  But I hate doing it when it comes to working on something book length. When I use a diagram, I want to be able to fit everything on one page.  I don’t want to […]