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Some people hear the word trope and think they’ve heard it all before. And maybe we have — but I still love them. Tropes, to me, are at the core of storytelling: familiar patterns we gravitate toward not because they’re predictable, but because they offer comfort and endless room for reinvention.

As someone who reads (and writes) a lot of fantasy retellings, I’ve noticed I keep coming back to certain story shapes. So here they are — my 10 favourite fantasy tropes, and why I adore them.

1. The...

Every great hero — or dare I say, even great villain — has an intriguing origin story. From Batman’s tragic loss to the Wicked Witch of the West’s mistreatment over something as simple as being green, it’s the dark and twisty parts of their past that shape them into the characters we love — or love to hate.

So, in that vein, I thought I’d share the origin story of my book, The Old Crones Club.

In a previous post, I talked about my “why” for writing this book. But the idea itself came together...

This post is a celebration of Bristol’s marvellous indie bookshops. Yesterday, I joined a Bookshop Crawl — think of it as an old-school pub crawl, but with books and bookish people. There were two competing tours that day; we chose the longer, four-hour walk. We visited eight bookshops in total, but there are so many more that we’ll be doing Part 2 soon to cover the route we missed.

Shop #1: Max Minerva’s

maxminervas.co.uk

This was a brilliant start to the day. I was slightly worried about...

When I started planning my novel I used the amazing resource Blueprint for a Book, by Jenny Nash. She takes you through a unique process for outlining your book while staying true to your purpose for writing. One of the key parts of the book is working out the “why” for your story. This really resonated with me as I am a big fan of Simon Sinek and his book Start With Why, which is all about how people inspire action and create a lasting impact — and in my life books have been a constant...