Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 267
July 16, 2015
Dumbing Down: When Your Character is Dumb to move the story forward
“Why would anyone do that?” We’ve all seen America’s Funniest Home Videos and a variety of YouTube videos where people do amazingly stupid things. These acts often involve sliding, skating or biking down hill or up a ramp and end with a spectacular crash. My general assumption is that these videos involve alcohol and a […]
July 15, 2015
Characters: Tormenting Your Darlings
“Create a character that you love. You’re going to be spending a lot of time together.” That’s good enough advice and it is something that most writers hear early in their careers. The problem with it is that we also have to make our writing interesting. This means that we have to create problems for […]
July 14, 2015
Culture: Character Beliefs
Last week when I wrote about world building, one of the things that I wrote about was culture. Culture is anything that makes up how a group of people live. It includes both their technology and their beliefs. When you write about your characters’ beliefs, be certain to include a range of beliefs. There are […]
July 13, 2015
How Do You Write: Your Writing Process
I recently read a post by Darcy Pattison on her writing process and how rewriting can vary from book to book. Do you have a set process? Do you always outline? Or always draft the entire book before writing? Or do you have to craft a perfect chapter before moving on to the next? I’ve […]
July 12, 2015
Agents: Agents Currently Looking for Authors
If you are at that point in your career where you are thinking about finding an agent, here are several who are in the market for your writing. Linda Camacho with the Prospect Agency is looking for middle grade and and young adult fiction in all areas. She is listed as interested in both picture […]
July 9, 2015
Child Characters
When we create fictional characters, especially children, we have to make conscious decisions regarding whether they will be typical or extraordinary. We have to consider whether or characters will have unusual skills or talents or whether they will be “every child.” Personally, I tend to aim for somewhere in the middle. I do this because […]
July 8, 2015
Blog to Book: Tips on how to blog a book
I’ve been reading a lot lately about how to blog a book. Some of these blog posts detail how to blog a book from the start, meaning that the author has a plan for a book and starts a new blog to build an audience. Other posts involve taking material from a running blog and […]
July 7, 2015
Building a Bridge
One of the keys to writing strong fiction and nonfiction is bridge building. The fact of the matter is that any time you write about something that is unfamiliar, you have to build a bridge. It doesn’t matter if you are writing nonfiction about a unfamiliar time period or fiction about a made up world, […]
July 6, 2015
World Building: Setting and Culture
In the past year, the vast majority of my work has been nonfiction. I’ve been thinking about fiction a lot lately. I have two novels in the works (note: long deserted) and really want to get back to them. They are both fantasy which is going to require a lot of world building. What do […]
July 5, 2015
Bombing of Pearl Harbor
Lookie, look! I just found my book cover on the Abdo Publishing web site. A flashing green marker assures me that it will be available SOON. It is so ironic that I find this today because I’ve been contemplating not nonfiction but fiction. Nonfiction is my bread-and-butter but I have two fictional stories that […]
