Perhaps there's another, much larger story behind the printed one, a story that changes just as our own world does. And the letters on the page tell us only as much as we'd see peering through a keyhole. Perhaps the story in the book is just the lid on a pan: It always stays the same, but underneath there's a whole world that goes on - developing and changing like our own world.

I like to visit my horse, have a walk with my dog.

But after all, the villains are the salt in the soup of a story.

Why did death make life taste so much sweeter? Why could the heart love only what it could also lose?

My daughter, Anna, is almost 15, and my son, Ben, is almost 10.

Writing stories is a kind of magic, too.

They're all cruel,' he said. 'The world I come from, the world you come from, and this one, too. Maybe the people don't see the cruelty in your world right away, it's better hidden, but it's there all the same.