Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 231

Twitter: A Game of Roulette

Social media and marketing are two book related things that closely resemble roulette.  You know that there’s a small chance that you may win. You have to believe this or you wouldn’t bother to play.  You place your bet, making the pick you think will be a winner, and then you spin.  Where that bouncing […]

Finally Fall: Writing in the Gray

Here in Missouri we had an unseasonably warm October.  Fall weather would bob into view and then bob away again.  It didn’t settle in until about a week before Thanksgiving.  But now the days are more gray than sunny and we’re getting those fall rains.  Personally, I love the sound of rain on the patio […]

Advice I Rarely Follow, or Write What You Know

Last week, I got a message from a RedLine editorial assistant.  Would I be interested in working on a series about E-sports? I happened to be on the treadmill when the message came through but I hopped off and ran upstairs.  “E-sports?” I asked my son who was playing CS:GO. (As was explained to me, […]

Creating Spot-on Characters

As I do the various bits of prewriting necessary before I start writing Iron Mountain, I’m spending a lot of time noodling over my characters. My story is science fiction but I want me characters to seem real to my young readers.  Here are some tips on how I plan to accomplish this. Abandon Being […]

Holiday Writing: Do You or Don’t You

With Thanksgiving behind us we are heading hard and fast into the holiday season.  Decorating. Shopping. Events and more.  How does a writer find the time to write? For some of us it isn’t entirely a choice.  This is how I keep the lights on.  I like electricity and water and all the other utilities […]

Happy Thanksgiving

For those of you who celebrate, I’d like to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving.  Take the time to recharge your creative battery. I don’t know if this is just a MidWest thing but our Thanksgiving day tends to stretch into Thanksgiving Weekend.  Thursday, we have dessert with my Dad and dinner with my sister and […]

Developing a Story: Do you talk to others about your work or not?

I’ve been gathering the material for the story I’m calling Iron Mountain. It is a science fiction novel for teens. Since it hasn’t entirely come into being, I don’t know yet if it is middle grade or young adult. I think it may be young young adult but there is a “thank you but no” […]

Plot Planners: Making Writing Advice Your Own

As I write this, I’m still in Chapter 4 of Martha Alderson’s The Plot Whisperer.  One of the things that I was supposed to do way back in the beginning of Chapter 3 was make a plot planner. A plot planner looks a lot like the graphic for acts and rising tension in a story.  Something […]

Theme: Take some time to play

Ask me what the theme of a book is and I’m going to stare blankly for a moment.  It doesn’t matter if it is something I am reading or something I am writing, I am a do-er.  Generally the first thing that I identify is plot.  Or character.  Theme may come into play only after […]

Graphic Novels: Telling Nonfiction stories

Oh, the vagueries of the internet.  Monday or Tuesday a story popped up in my blog feed.  It was extolling graphic novels that tell stories of science, nonfiction stories of science.  Awesome!   Then I took a closer look and realized that the original post was from 2013.  Okie-dokie, not sure why it decided I […]