‘All the best writers were edited, and seeing how some iconic books differed in their original drafts from the finished books reminds you how crucial that polishing process is.’

‘Every character and every scene – and every word, every piece of punctuation – should serve the story. If your reader tells you they were pulled out of the story because of a certain phrase or image, you owe it to your story to interrogate that phrase or image.’

‘We are all used to sitting down at our own desks and fighting the urge to do other things, but in a classroom with ten other people writing beside you there is another energy that can deliver the seeds of new ideas.’

‘For me, writing a complicated character is like putting together a puzzle with a thousand pieces, without a clear picture on the box to help guide you towards the final scene. And with puzzles like that, it’s always about where you start.’