WRITING CHARACTERS AND FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS
Stepping back in time as I did when I wrote My Little Brother, I discovered a whole head full of memories of my own childhood. Events that happened which I’d tucked into the recesses of my mind. When I was a little girl, an event happened which I have magnified for the sake of My Sister’s Secret and made so much more of it than it was at the time. It was a fleeting brush with something that could have turned out so much worse than it did. I was never traumatised then. Years later when I was writing about children, this memory emerged to nag at me. Did I do the right thing? Should I have done more? What if my silence had cost someone else? If you’ve read any of my books already, you’ll realise that I write character based largely. Yes, the plots are thick with twists and turns, but the characters create them. My Sister’s Secret is heavy on people because I wanted that complex relationship of a large family, with different personalities kicking in. The ebb and flow of emoti