I’ve written 21 books, 6 of them novels, so it’s probably fair to claim that I don’t write just one kind of book. But up until now, there have been a few recognisable threads running through most of my books – if it had magic and myth and fabled beasts and Scottish landscapes, then it might be a Lari Don book.
But now I’ve written something totally different to anything I’ve ever written before. Because Mind Blind, my first teen thriller, is published this week.
Mind Blind is for older readers. I’ve written picture books (about bottoms and wolves), I’ve written short chapter books (about tigers and wolves), I’ve written adventure books (about dragons and wolves), I’ve written collections of legends (about heroines and wolves). The nearest I’ve come in age so far is novellas for reluctant readers (no wolves, yet).
But I’ve not written a full length novel for older readers before and it was a very different book to write. I could do a lot of things I’ve never done before. Swear. Injure people. Kill people. Make texts and smart phones an important part of the plot. Use public transport rather than dragons.
And Mind Blind is about a boy.A teenage boy. I’ve written as a boy before – a male phoenix and a blue loon in Maze Running – but only for a couple of chapters. Becoming a teenage boy for months on end was an interesting experience.
Also Mind Blind is written in the first person, so we are inside Ciaran’s head, seeing the world through his eyes, all the time.(Except when we’re inside Lucy’s head. This was meant to be a book about Ciaran, but Lucy became so important to the story, that almost half the novel is from her point of view… )
Ciaran Bain is not a goodie either, unlike Helen or Pearl in my other novels. He’s a criminal, he does a lot of dodgy and illegal and even cruel things. And yet I am asking the reader to care about him and what happens to him – which was a bit of a challenge!
So. Mind Blind has no magic, it has lots of crime, and it has no lovely Scottish landscapes.No mountains or forests or islands or caves or castles. Mind Blind happens on rooftops and at bus stations and in docklands.It’s not even set completely in Scotland!It starts in London, spends a fair amount of time on a bus (not a fun journey…) then finally ends up in Edinburgh and Leith for the last third of the book.
Mind Blind doesn’t tick any of my usual boxes. That is exactly why I wanted to write it. And exactly why I want to hear what you think of it!
(Though, as I write this, I realise there is one book which was almost the precursor to Mind Blind, in a tangential way: Drawing a Veil – a novella about a girl who decides to wear the hijab and how her best friend and classmates react. When I wrote it, I did keep thinking – gosh this is tough, solving plot problems without magic! The story also ends on a bridge in an industrial area, just like Mind Blind. In fact, both endings were inspired by the same bridge in Leith, but in both books the bridge has changed slightly to fit the plot. So anyone who’s read Drawing a Veil might have thought that I was heading for teen thriller territory. I didn’t realise it myself when I was writing about Amina though!)
I’m always keen to know what readers think about my books. Feedback is very important to writers, and especially so with Mind Blind – because it’s like my very first book all over again!
So, if it sounds like your sort of book, please go and read Mind Blind (paperback, ebook, from a shop, from the world-encirling amazon or even FOR FREE from your local library) and let me know what you think!
Many Mind Blinds in a box
And here is Mind Blind IN A BOX even if it doesn’t tick the usual boxes!
Today, I’m going to sit down and read Mind Blind, my new teen thriller. Which isn’t that unusual. I’ve been reading, rereading, redrafting and tweaking Mind Blind constantly over the last few months.
But today, I can’t change anything. Mind Blind has already gone to the printers. It’s going to be available in bookshops on the 20th of March. Next month! Today I’m going to be reading the manuscript without the power to change anything, which will be a bit strange and frustrating.
So why am I reading it?
Because this time I’m not looking for things I can fix or improve, I’m looking for quotes and readings.
My relationship with Mind Blind is changing. For a long time I was writing the book: getting to know the characters, following new ideas, finding out what happens next. Then for months (most of last year!) I was redrafting and editing: working out the best way to tell the story. But now, I’m getting ready to promote the book: telling people about it, getting readers interested in it.
To do that, I need to find readings and quotes.
It’s an odd time. It feels like the book isn’t really mine any more. I’m a writer, but I can’t WRITE this book any more. I can’t come up with new ideas, I can’t change any words, or cut out any flabby bits. All I can do is help the book get out there and find readers. Because once a book stops being mine, when I can’t write it any more, it becomes the readers’ book instead.
So today, I’ll be rereading Mind Blind, looking for:
Sections to read during author events (in classrooms, in bookshops, in libraries, at book festivals etc)
Short quotes to give a flavour of the book
Sections to film on location
All of these readings need to be different – different lengths, focussed on different bits of the story – but they all need to have similarities too. All the readings must be exciting and self-contained, but they shouldn’t give away too much about the plot. They need to introduce the characters and their problems, but not give away how those problems are solved. They need to be short and punchy, and not need much explanation.
None of that is easy to find! So it means reading the book in a different way, almost with different eyes.
Also for the first time, I’ll be filming sections of Mind Blind in both London and Edinburgh, where the story is set, and that’s going to make things even more complicated. Normally I don’t choose readings from near the end of a book, but we’re planning to film in several locations in Leith which only appear in the final couple of fights and chases, so it’s going to be difficult to find readings which don’t contain spoilers!
But there is one other thing I will be looking for today, and it’s the most exciting thing of all. While I’m reading through Mind Blind, I might glimpse a few wee hints of story and characters and ideas that might, just might, point me in the direction of a sequel. And that would give me a whole new relationship, as a writer, with these characters.
So, here I go…
“I killed a girl today, just after the school bell…”
I’ve just been writing a scene where my main character was on her own, doing something slightly silly, and I knew another character had to appear right beside her and say something, then after a quick chat, we could get on with the rest of the evening’s adventures.
But who should appear? I had a choice : one character might make the next few moments of my main character’s life a bit mysterious, perhaps even creepy; the other character would say something funny and the next few minutes might be a bit embarrassing.
I couldn’t write both options, because the whole point was that the second character arrived when the main character thought she was alone.So I had to decide between two clear and distinct options for my character’s next few minutes.
And that’s what writing is. It’s about making the small decisions.
I often have huge massive exciting ideas for plots (ooh, what if…?)but then I have to turn those ideas into book-long adventures. And that process means lots of small decisions along the way. Decisions like this one, which is probably not going to change the wider plot, but will change the feel and tone of this scene, and therefore possibly the next bit of the adventure.
I think stories are made up not just of the big shiny “ooh, what if” ideas, but also these small decisions that writers make about every scene, every bit of dialogue, every bit of action.
So, how did I decide?
First I thought: how do I feel today? Amusing or mysterious? (Actually, I felt indecisive, which was probably why I stopped and wrote a blog post about this decision, rather than just making the decision and moving on…)
Then I thought: which of these two choices would knock my character most off balance?
And that’s usually how I decide. I consider what my character would prefer. Then I do the opposite! (Because I’m writing this book for the reader to have fun, not for the main character to enjoy herself.)
So, I made my choice. I made the small decision. That scene is drafted. Next I have to get them up a hill, on a cold dark night, to find someone unexpected at the top…
And while I’m off up a hill, here’s a picture of a toad for you, because a toad was one of my two potential sudden-appearance characters.
A toad (somewhere rather magical…)
Is the toad the mysterious one or the amusing one? You‘ll have to wait and read the book!
2013 has been a weird year for me. I moved house twice and had six books published, but not one of the six was a new novel.
So in 2014, I plan to stay put, publish fewer books and get stuck into some serious novel writing.
It seems weird that I published more books than even before in a year when I was distracted by house moves (and selling and buying and decorating and lawyers and packing and unpacking – all of which manages to be both boring and stressful.) However almost all the books I published in 2013 were written in 2012 or even 2011, and not one of them was a novel.
I was delighted with the new books though: The Magic Word has the most amazingly magical and funny pictures by Claire Keay and my first proper cat character (hello Beanie…); Masha and the Bear is possibly my favourite of the Barefoot Animal Stories so far, because I think Masha is the cleverest little heroine (nothing like Little Red Riding Hood – she doesn’t need anyone to rescue her from the animal she meets in the woods); but I love the Hungry Wolf too, because the lamb in that is so cheeky that you almost feel sorry for the wolf, and Melanie Williamson’s pictures of the daft wolf still make me laugh out loud.
2013’s picture books
So, three beautiful books with great pictures and stories that I’m proud of. I hope I’ve done that before though.
The big change for me in 2013, apart from the constant house moves, was the publication of my first (and second and third) collections of myths and folklore. I’ve retold old stories before, in the Mountain’s Blood, or the gorgeous Little Red Riding Hood. But this year, full length collections of Scottish stories (Breaking The Spell), heroine legends (Girls, Goddesses and Giants) and winter stories (Winter’s Tales) all came out. I wrote the Scottish stories a couple of years ago, and the heroine tales last year. Winter’s Tales is the only book out this year which I actually wrote this year – it was pulled together in the spring before the first house move.
And I am so happy about these collections. Every single one contains stories that I love sharing with children, stories which inspire the fiction and novels that I write, and it is wonderful being able to share them with even more people.
Breaking The Spell includes the legend of Tam Linn, Girls Goddesses and Giants includes a seven-headed dragon, and Winter’s Tales includes Loki the Viking trickster god – all stories I love sharing, all stories which have inspired plots and scenes in the First Aid for Fairies series.
2013’s myths, legends and folktales
Though it was weird writing these stories down! These are stories that I tell all the time in schools and libraries and at book festivals, to show what inspires my fiction, so I was typing exactly what I tell. And I think that’s worked (the books are getting really good reviews and reactions anyway…) It was also a fascinating challenge choosing the right balance of stories – dark and light, long and short, gory and funny, stories from lots of different places – and researching the background to them all. It felt like being a student again, only getting to choose my favourite thing in the world (stories!) to write my essays on.
So, lots of new books this year. Which is great. But unfortunately, there wasn’t much new writing in 2013. I often say that I can write anywhere: trains, staffrooms, cafes, outside dance studios… but that only works so long as I have my own study to go home to at night, so I can pull it all together. But when I didn’t know where I’d be writing next, and when all my stuff was in boxes, it was really hard to see ahead in novels, to concentrate on what happens next. So my writing this year has been a bit stop start…
Anyway, that was 2013. Three different studies and six different books. But no novels. I do feel bad about that.
However, 2014 is nearly here. And there’s a novel!
In March 2014 my first teen novel, a thriller called Mind Blind, will be published by KelpiesTeen. And I am SO excited.
Mind Blind
This is another big change for me. Mind Blind is for older readers, it’s not about magic, it has some very nasty characters and some very dark and dangerous scenes. I loved writing it (last year…) I loved editing it (this year, on lots of different floors in lots of different houses) and I am so excited about what readers will think of it (next year!)
And also, now that I’m settled in my lovely new bigger brighter study, I’m working on a new adventure. But I can’t tell you about that yet. You’ll have to wait until next year, or maybe even the year after….
(And yes, those are not-yet-unpacked boxes in the background of the photos. I’d rather write than unpack…)
When I write adventures set in the Scottish landscape, I always research the place I’m writing about. Caves, mountains, castles, cliffs, rivers, seashores, mazes – I’ve visited them all, to make sure that I’m describing the atmosphere and the location correctly in the book. I do this when it’s a real place (Traquair Maze, Dunvegan Castle, Smoo Cave) or when it’s an invented place (Dorry Shee forest, the village of Clovenshaws, the campsite at Taltomie, the Keystone Peak.) And yes, I know, I can’t visit an imaginary place, but I visit places like it and I create patchwork of all of them.
So, I always visit the locations. If you live there or if you go there on holiday, and you’ve read one of my books, you should be able to recognise the location, and feel like the story could really happen there.
But the one thing I hardly ever do is visit the location at the right time of year. I always seem to be writing the novel urgently at one time of the year even though the story is set at another time of year, or else I can only get to the other end of the country to research during the school holidays but the story is set in term time…
I researched the caves and cliffs of Storm Singing, which is set in the autumn, in February (and that is a COLD time of year to be on the Sutherland coast…) I researched the forests and islands of Wolf Notes, which is set in the spring, in the autumn. I researched the waterfall scene in Maze Running, which is set in the spring, on Christmas Eve. That was cold too. I researched the mountains of Rocking Horse War, which is set in the summer (so that my characters didn’t freeze) in the late autumn, when my family and I nearly did freeze.
And for First Aid for Fairies, which is set in midwinter, we visited the Ring of Brodgar in the summer holidays. Which sounds like it might be the only time I didn’t make my family shiver while researching a novel, but actually, it was windy and cold in Orkney that day and we had to shelter behind the stones to eat our sandwiches…
However, despite the shivers and the extra gloves, researching at the wrong time of year is fine for paths, rocks, walls, caves and castles, which are there all year round. But it’s not ideal for local plants, flowers and trees, which change with the seasons.
In the adventure I’m writing right now, trees are very important to one of my characters, so I really wanted to discover exactly what the trees in the right area of Scotland are like at exactly the right time of year.
Both books I’m writing this month – the teen thriller I’m editing and the adventure book I’m about a quarter of the way through writing – are set in October. And this IS October. So I’m really lucky that when I’m checking what time it gets dark in Edinburgh next week, which is when the thriller is set, I’ll just be able to look out of my window. And when I wanted to know what a birch wood in Speyside looks like during the tattie holidays, I just went up last week, and took a few photos and a lot of notes (in the rain and wind, obviously!)
So, for the first time, these books will be researched, at least partly, in not just the right season, not just the right month, but even the right week! Which I hope will make the stories even more convincing. Even if all my notebooks are a bit soggy…
Now, I’ve done the research, I’d better get on with writing the adventure!
Meg’s Widd, at exactly the right time of year!
A mysterious cave, at exactly the right time of year! (And it was raining, which is the best weather for the monster who might live here…)
I’ve now written six books with wolves inside, five of which have a wolf on the cover, and two of which even have a wolf in the title.
Just last week, the wolfiest book of all was published. The Hungry Wolf is a retelling of all the best ‘daft wolf tries to eat clever lamb’ stories I could find, stunningly illustrated by Melanie Williamson.
But there are lots of wolves in my other books too:
There’s a helpful wolf in the last story in Girls, Goddesses and Giants, my recent collection of heroine stories.
There’s a smooth-talking sharp-toothed wolf in Little Red Riding Hood.
Sylvie, the rather snappy wolf girl, appears in both Wolf Notes, the second novel in the First Aid series, and Maze Running, the last of the series.
And I have a collection of Winter’s Tales coming out later this year (just in time for the first frost and snow!), which has a lovely lemon-yellow wolf on the cover and a howling wolf story inside.
There is no one other creature, apart from possibly 11 year old girls, that I have written about as often as I have written about wolves.
So what is it about wolves that draws me and so many other writers to them? (Many of my favourite kids’ books are about wolves, like Michelle Paver’s Wolf Brother, or werewolves, like Roy Gill’s Daemon Parallel… To save me listing lots more, here are seven of my favourite wolf books for adults from the Scottish Book Trust website…)
So, what is it about wolves?
There are many theories about people’s fascination with wolves, but I think I know why I’m drawn as a writer to stories about wolves, why I love retelling ancient wolf stories and creating new wolf stories.
Wolves are both cool and scary. They are beautiful creatures, but they are also dangerous. And what’s so handy for writers is that EVERYONE has a reaction to wolves. Wolves are story shorthand for lots of useful, dramatic things. We don’t need to explain wolves. So wolves are a bit like dragons, which are also fascinating, beautiful and very dangerous. Perhaps wolves are the real world equivalent of dragons…
In stories, wolves can be equally convincing and equally useful to the plot as either a friend or an enemy (or, like Sylvie in Wolf Notes, as a mix of both.) So wolves can be tricksters: never entirely trustworthy, just as likely to be a baddie as a goodie, and very likely to move the story in unpredictable ways. That’s why one of my favourite mythical wolves is Fenrir, the son of Viking trickster god Loki.
One of the reasons I tell so many wolf stories is that so many cultures tell wolf stories. Almost every part of the world has had wolves as a main predator at some time, so wolves appear in lots of stories. This is another similarity between wolves and dragons, which are also an almost universal story baddie. (I know Irish dragon stories and Chinese dragon stories, Greek dragon stories and Scandinavian dragon stories; but I also know native American wolf stories and Viking wolf stories, Scottish wolf stories and Sanskrit wolf stories.) It is fascinating to see how the role and character of the wolf changes across cultures: almost always a baddie in Europe, often a wise goodie in native American culture.
I have a personal reason for feeling strongly about wolf stories too. I used to be scared of dogs, ‘cross the road if a dog was walking towards me on a lead’ type scared. Then I spent months researching wolves’ social organisation and intelligence for Wolf Notes. Once I understood a bit about wolves, I suddenly realised that I understood a bit about dogs too – mainly that they weren’t remotely interested in me because I was neither another dog nor their owner / pack leader – so I stopped being scared of them. Which just shows that writing books about wolves can change your life.
So, now I have six wolf books on my shelves. I wonder what wolf I will write next…
What animal are you particularly drawn to writing (or reading) about, and do you know why?
I think I’m a novelist, who writes adventure books like First Aid for Fairies, Rocking Horse War and Maze Running.
I know I write a few other books once in a wee while, like the occasional picture book when I need a break from ambushes, and sometimes I gather together collections of my favourite myths and legends.
But mainly, I’m a novelist. Yes?
Well, maybe not.
I won an award last week, when Orange Juice Peas (written by me, illustrated by Lizzie Wells) won the Dundee Picture Book Award, which is voted for by local P1s and by the P6s who read the books to them. The other shortlisted authors were proper picture book writers, all of whom travelled up from the south of England to be in Dundee. It was a real award ceremony, for real picture books.
And my book won.
Just like The Big Bottom Hunt won the Hawick Picture Book Award a couple of years ago…
So perhaps I’m a proper picture book writer as well.
Perhaps I need to take being a picture book writer just as seriously as I take being a novelist (though I’ll still spend at least year on each novel and a few weeks on each picture book – the number of words just work that way!)
But of course, I won’t take being a picture book writer TOO seriously – picture books work better when they aren’t serious at all!
And it’s not just picture books which are muscling in on my novels. I have six books coming out this year. One of those six is a picture book (it’s called The Magic Word and I’m so pleased with Claire Keay’s lovely pictures, I think it’s going to be … magic!) and five are retellings of traditional tales. I have two retellings of animal tales coming out in short chapter books (Masha And The Bear and The Hungry Wolf, both illustrated by the wonderful Melanie Williamson, who also did Never Trust a Tiger and The Tortoise’s Gift) and three collections of myths and legends: a collection of heroine tales, a collection of Scottish stories and a collection of winter tales.
So am I now a reteller of old tales, as well as a novelist and a picture book writer?
Yes I am, and that’s fine too – because I love these stories, which are one of the main inspirations for the fiction I write, and it’s wonderful to be able to share them.
But don’t worry, I haven’t become any of these other kinds of writers INSTEAD of being a writer of adventures. I’ve just finished one novel and started another, and the oddities of publishing timetables means both novels might be published next year.
But in the meantime, I will enjoy the fact that I have the freedom and opportunity to write all sorts of books, and to be passionately proud of every single one of them.
And here, if you want to see just how seriously I take picture books, is me making a real mess of my kitchen while reading Orange Juice Peas:
What’s the most important part of a picture book?
The pictures! Definitely the pictures, rather than the words…
I’m a writer, so I’m a big fan of words. But I know the draft of a picture book is going well when I can slice words out because the pictures are telling the story so well.
That’s what I’ve been doing this week. I’ve spent the last couple of days working on my next Picture Kelpies picture book. It’s called The Magic Word, and this week for the first time I saw all Claire Keay’s draft illustrations, which meant I could work on the final edit of the text.
But I’ve not been working directly with Claire. I’d love to meet her sometime and chat to her about the story and the characters, but that’s not how picture books usually work. Writers and illustrators rarely sit down together to plan their books or inspire each other. The editor and the designer at the publishers talk to the writer and the illustrator separately, then make the pictures and words work together on the page.
So I’ve been working with my lovely editor Eleanor. We’ve looked at all Claire’s incredible, magical, cheerful pictures, then we’ve looked at the text we agreed months ago (the text which Claire has been working with) and finally we said, ‘Well, we can take that word out, or that phrase out, or that whole sentence out.’ And why are we slicing words out at this late stage? Because the pictures make the story so clear that we don’t need the words any more.
Picture books really only need words to explain the story that the reader can’t see in the pictures, like what people are saying and sometimes what they are thinking, and perhaps what order things happen. Though it’s also good to have words which sound lovely or funny or exciting read out loud.
But this week, we’ve been able to take out lots of words, and that’s all due to Claire’s wonderful pictures and Helena the designer’s clever layout, which lets the story dance along without a lot of help from me.
So what’s the writer for, if the pictures are the important bit? Well, the writer comes up with the story. And sometimes taking out exactly the right words requires just as much thought and effort as writing those words in the first place.
So I’m really looking forward to seeing the final version of The Magic Word in the autumn, with (fewer) words and (coloured in) pictures together.
Here’s a wee taster:
Here’s the list of questions I’ve been asking myself over the weekend:
Is it true nothing can grow under a holly tree?
Do polar bears roar?
Do reindeer trot?
What do trolls smell like?
When did the Maori first arrive in Aotearoa?
How many pomegranate seeds did Persephone eat?
Do Venezuelans wear ponchos?
What colour are an ibis’s legs?
Do German children put spiders on their Christmas trees?
What was Anat the goddess of?
Where is Finnmark?
Can you make an arrow from dragon tendon?
I’ve been researching all of these questions in order to be sure that the stories I’m retelling for a myth and folklore collection are as accurate and realistic as any book with talking reindeer and warty trolls can ever be. (It’s a collection of winter tales, hence the polar bears and the Christmas trees.)
And I found answers to all of them.
That’s the reason writers love the internet. You can just type in ‘reindeer trot’ or ‘polar bear roar’ and a few clicks later, you have an answer. But the reason writers get annoyed by the internet is that you are then tempted to watch reindeer trotting, or listen to polar bears roaring, and before you know it, you’ve lost an hour of writing time…
So I tend to put together a whole list of questions (like the list above) and do them all at once when I need a break from writing or editing. Then I can concentrate on ticking them off one by one, rather than getting distracted by any particular question.
This works in theory. Though roaring polar bears are quite hard to ignore…
But now that the winter tales book is drafted, checked and sent to my editor, I need something else to write.
So, now for the biggest question of all:
What am I writing next?
The answer is I’M WRITING A NOVEL and I’m starting now. Apart from being fairly sure it doesn’t have any trolls, reindeer or polar bears in it, I can’t tell you what it’s about. But I can tell you that I’m very excited about it….
I’ve met lots of kids dressed up as their favourite book characters in the last couple of weeks, for World Book Day and for Comic Relief. And one of the questions I’m asked most often during school visits is: who’s my favourite character in the books I write?
So I’ve been thinking about how we choose our favourite characters, and whether readers and writers like different characters for different reasons.
Do readers choose their favourite characters because those characters are like them, or very unlike them? Do readers choose the characters who are the funniest or bravest (or the easiest to dress up as?) Do readers choose characters they’d like as a friend?
Do writers like the characters who are most fun to write, or the characters who are most challenging and difficult to write? Do writers like the characters who keep the story moving, or who can be relied on to make any dialogue sparky?
I know readers have very strong relationships with their favourite characters, because I often get emails from readers demanding to know why I’ve done particularly terrible things to the characters. (The best example of this is a series of questions from a class in Inverclyde – you can read how defensive I got about all those injuries in First Aid for Fairies!)
I’m not sure writers make a decision to have a favourite character. I’m often surprised at which character turns out to be my favourite. Emmie is probably my favourite character in Rocking Horse War, and that wasn’t meant to happen at all. She was meant to be a minor character, but she just took over, which took me by surprise and makes her one of my favourite characters ever to write.
My favourite character in the First Aid series is Yann the centaur. That wasn’t the plan either! He was grumpy and aggressive and not very nice to Helen when I first met him. He argues with me in my head when I’m writing, and he can be very touchy and rude to other characters as well. He’s inconveniently honest (which I played with in Storm Singing) and unnecessarily keen on action and violence (which I did my best to deny him for most of Maze Running) and I’m absolutely sure that if I met him in real life he’d be angry with me about how often I’ve injured his friends and how I use his strengths against him to make my stories stronger. And I don’t really want to meet an angry centaur! But he’s definitely my favourite character, and that wasn’t a choice, it’s just what happened as I wrote the books.
However, I’m glad I don’t have to dress up as a centaur!
I’ve met people dressed as Lavender the fairy (purple dress and wings), Rona the selkie (silky dress and sealskin) and Helen (first aid kit and violin).
But I’d never met anyone dressed as Yann, and I wondered if that was because he wasn’t anyone else’s favourite character (perhaps I’ve done too good a job of making him grumpy and aggressive?) or if it was simply because it’s not easy to dress as a centaur!
So you can imagine how pleased I was when I met a boy at Flora Stevenson Primary on World Book Day who was dressed up as Yann. And he had the best horse’s bottom I have ever seen! (Even better than a real theatrical centaur costume which I saw at the Lyceum a couple of years ago.) He couldn’t sit down in it though. (I find that with Yann as well. He stomps about in a mood while everyone else is sitting down chilling out…)
I was delighted that a real reader of my books also likes Yann best, and very impressed that he (and his parents!) had put so much effort into a centaur costume. Here it is:
the Flora Stevenson centaur!
How do you choose your favourite characters? Does having a favourite character in one book make you want to read more about them in another book? (Is that why series are so popular?) And when you’re writing a story, are you ever surprised at which character you end up liking the best?
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