Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 250

Cooking as Research

I’m still doing the research for my Cold War novel and I realized that Frankie is going to have to eat.  But what should she eat?  Fortunately, I grew up in the 1970s and I have a copy of my mother’s notebook, each recipe hand written.  But I come to the question, was it hand […]

Don’t Dumb Down Your Characters

Recently, I caved in and joined twitter.  Since I’m trying to find an agent, I’ve been following the site #MSWL.  If you’re unfamiliar, that stands for “Manuscript Wish List,” and they catalogue #MSWL posts from twitter.  Unfortunately, they’ve been going through a site re-design so no new posts for quite some time.  I finally had […]

Character Emotions: Can You Describe Them?

How do you behave when you are uncomfortable vs when you are mulling over a difficult problem?  The facial expressions look a lot alike so how do you distinguish between the two?  What about anger and concern?  Or surprise and wonder? You can always tell the reader what your character is feeling but it works […]

Nonfiction vs. Informational: Do you know the difference?

As a nonfiction writer, I tend to have fairly firm opinions on fiction vs nonfiction.  Because of this, I sometimes find myself at odds with people who want to alter timelines or create dialogue.  Sorry folks, that’s fiction! But what do you call a book like Brian Floca’s Locomotive?  It doesn’t have a fictional plot […]

Picture Book Writing: The Wonders of a Good Rewrite

If you’ve been writing for any length of time, you know that 90% of writing is actually rewriting.  Your initial idea was brilliant but somehow what you got down on paper (on in a computer file) isn’t quite there.  Your picture book has a solid plot (fiction) or subject (nonfiction).  You’ve got everything there that […]

Friday Fun: Crimes Against Humanity as a lesson in knowing your audience?

For his birthday, we gave my son Cards Against Humanity.  He’d had a great time playing it with various cousins and at parties but my husband and I had never played.  If you write picture books of the cute and sweet variety, this game would probably horrify you.  Suffice it to say that my inner […]

Scene Structures: The scene and the sequel

As I do the research to write my mystery, I’ve been contemplating potential scenes.  What is a scene?  Try to find a definition online and you’re going to feel like you are looking for a unicorn or the Holy Grail. Simply put, a scene is a unit of story telling.  Part of the reasons that […]

Writing the Historic Mystery: When To Set Your Story

I’ve been doing some reading on writing historic mysteries.  The first discussion that I came across surprised me —  Is Your Time Period Truly Historic? A group of historic mystery writers had come to some sort of consensus that unless the setting is 50 years in the past when the book is published, it is […]

Research: Do I really need to find each fact three times?

I’m currently writing an article on the difference between a nonfiction picture book manuscript and a nonfiction article manuscript.  One of the writers I interviewed reminded our readers that they should find each and every article in three different sources.  I’m including her quote although I don’t necessarily agree. The reality is that someone can […]

Ask the Agent: Things to ask before you sign…

When I read blog posts and articles about what to discuss with an agent before you sign on the dotted line, I frequently find myself shaking my head.  Wouldn’t you want to know that before you contacted the agent?  I think this when I read questions like: Are you an editorial agent?  I want an […]