Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 251
February 25, 2016
Friday Fun: I Wish I Had Thought of This…
About a week ago, my son was home on a sick day. That means that instead of listening to an audio book while I eat lunch, he picks out something for us to watch. His choice? The Deadliest Warrior. I was less than thrilled until I sat down and watched it. By the time it […]
February 24, 2016
Mentor Texts: A Right Way and a Wrong Way
I have to admit. I’ve been struggling to get going with my latest fiction idea. Granted, it is an adult novel so it will be longer than anything I’ve written to date but that isn’t what’s been slowing me down. I’ve been working from a mentor text. Several agents have tweeted that they would love […]
February 23, 2016
Agents: Still Searching
Let’s get this out-of-the-way. I’m not delusional. I never thought this would be easy, but seriously. Recently, I stumbled across an agent’s blog. As I read, I found myself linking to various posts, printing a few out to guide rewrites and just generally fan girling all over the place. Fan-girl is a strange state for […]
February 22, 2016
Ready to Read?
Tomorrow (2/24/2016) is world read aloud day. Sponsored by litworld.org, the goal of tis day is to help develop a community of readers and celebrate the fact that literacy belongs to everyone. This is one of those things that should be really important to you as a children’s writer, especially if you write picture books. […]
February 21, 2016
Research: How much is enough?
Recently I read a blog post about how much research you need to do before you start writing a piece of historic fiction. The author of the post had been researching the year in which her story was set (1939) for a full year. She wondered when she would have enough research to start writing. […]
February 18, 2016
Remember: Writing for Children is FUN!
When you write for a living, sometimes you have to remind yourself that writing for children is fun. No really. It is. Or at least it had better be. If you don’t have fun, your readers won’t have fun either. So how do you remind yourself to have fun? Some people manage to do it […]
February 17, 2016
Opening Scenes: How to Start Your Book
How you choose to open your book sets up an expectation in your reader. Open with a chase scene and the reader expects high adventure, speed and excitement. Open with something that goes bump in the night and your reader expects tension and continued spooks and scares. That’s well and good for fiction but how […]
February 16, 2016
Stretching it Out: Scenes that Matter Need to Last
If the scene that you are writing carries great weight in your book, it needs to last. Whether it is a battle scene, a character’s death or a moment of brutal realization, it needs to take up space. Unfortunately, these scenes are hard to write, because this is where we literally torture our darlings. These […]
February 15, 2016
Have You Written Your Two Throw Away Books?
The first book manuscript that you finish may very well not be the first one that you sell. Why? As an unknown author, you need a book that is going to pack a powerful push to help you gain readers. Once you’ve done that, a book with a little less market appeal may be possible. […]
February 14, 2016
President’s Day
Happy President’s Day! Have you ever written anything about one of our Presidents? I wrote about Martha Washington once and I have to admit that I’d love to write a series on America’s First Ladies. I think it would make a great group of early readers. I’m just begining to research a book set when […]
