Malorie Blackman

And I kind of feel that's why when I work I tend to get my sort of overall plot arc first and my plots first.

But what I spend my time on is creating the characters and really getting to know them.

And I do mini biographies for all my major characters so that they become real people to me before I even start writing.

Because if they're not real to me, they'll never be real to anyone reading the story.

So I invest an awful lot of time in making sure that they feel like three-dimensional real characters to me.

But I know what I think, I think, um, for me as well, cause when I was growing up,

I think practically every book I read had a happy ever after ending and that, you know, they all lived happily ever after.

And I kind of, and then when I was a teen and very jaded teen, I kind of thought that this is not true life.

You know, that every book has a happy ever after ending.

For some people, they don't get a happy ever after.

I wanted it to be a hopefully ever after ending because the hope lies with their child who's kind of just born at the end of the story.

And so, you know, and I think for a number of people, maybe they, you know, especially if you're from an immigrant background where you put up with an awful lot of crap,

but you hope that your children will have it easier and their children will have it easier still.

And it's about investing in your children and your children's children.

And I wanted that kind of feel.

I wanted it to be a hopefully ever after in that their child had been born.

Callie Rose was born.

And so the hopes for the future lay with their daughter.

Yeah, of course.

Well, I'm working on a book at the moment, which is about a teenage girl who has cancer.