Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 249

Why We Need Children’s Books with All Kinds of Characters

As a young reader, I was lucky.  My parents were readers.  My grandparents were readers.  In short, the adults in my life supported my love of reading.  I was lucky because I could see myself in a lot of the books that I read whether it was the Little House books or Meg Mysteries.  But […]

Manuscripts wanted: Lerner

Lerner editor Amy Fitzgerald is accepting proposals for top-notch middle grade manuscripts through the month of May.  She is looking for: Manuscripts that are funny and/or heart wrenching.  The best will be both. Manuscripts that transcend time either because they are historic but relevent today or contemporary but with solid roots. Manuscripts that represent underrepresented […]

Interrobang – The Exclamatory Interrogative of Nonstandard Punctuation

Tell me — am I the only writer who was unaware of the interrobang?  That’s it over there on the right.  It is a nonstandard punctuation mark (something else I didn’t know existed) that is used to mark an exclamatory interrogative.  You know like “What the heck,” only my seventeen-year-old did not say heck. It was […]

Not Right for My List

“Not right for my list.” That’s one of those phrases that writers hate to see on a rejection letter.  It just seems to subjective.  What does it really mean? This week I read an interesting blog post on this by agent Janet Reid.  She pointed out that we all have a list.  Most of us just […]

Editors: You’re on the Same Team

I have to admit — I just don’t understand how some writers view editors.  Some see them as mysterious powers on high.  Mmm.  No.  They’re just people although some of them amaze me with their talent.  (I can be irritatingly egalitarian, sorry.) Then there are the writers who see them as The Enemy.  Every interaction […]

Inner Dialogue: The window to your character’s thoughts and feelings

“I have no idea what your character is feeling?”  “Give me more of your character’s thoughts.” Character emotion and thoughts are two things that I have trouble balancing.  I’ll think I have it right and my critique group disagrees.  So I rewrite it and then it looks, to me, like way too much. I think I […]

How Soon Do You Share Your Work?

I know people who won’t bring a manuscript to critique group until it is polished.  Me?  I’ll bring a much earlier draft.  After all, I’m less interested in line edits than I am in knowing if the plot works. Then I read a blog post from a writer who won’t even discuss a manuscript until […]

Is your setting real enough?

My new project was humming merrily along as, each evening, I added two new pages. They’d fled, evading capture, and headed off up the mountain. Then, as they approached the area where they would make camp, the story ground to a halt. I dutifully kept my butt in my chair, adding a sentence, deleting a […]

Characterization: Do Your Characters Engage in Group Think?

Earlier this week I read a blog post about historical fiction.  The blogger was encouraging us to keep our characters true to their time.  Then he said something that set me free.  He was discussing the British class sytem and how much the lower classes must have resented cruel masters.  “But it never would have occurred […]

We Have a Winner

Periodically I mention a post that I’ve written for The Muffin. That’s the blog over at WOW! Women on Writing.  There are a team of us who blog there and we just got some great news.  We won placement in the Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites award again for 2016!   Woo-hoo!   Check it […]