Sophie McNaughton

Photo by Rob Curran on Unsplash Alex and Olivia exit the tube station and slip into the crowd at Oxford Circus. ‘Take Goodfellas, for example,’ Alex says. He can smell the sun baking the tarmac. ‘Henry Hill works his way into the cabstand as a teenager. Doing odd jobs, parking Cadillacs, running errands. He’s nestled at the tete of the mob.’ Olivia gives him a look and smirks. They weave around an elderly couple looking startled and small amongst the mass of commuters on their way to work.

In her creative writing MasterClass series, Margaret Atwood, critically acclaimed author of The Handmaid’s Tale, Alias Grace, and Oryx and Crake, talks about the classic fairytale, Little Red Riding Hood. To inspire her pupils to think of stories in a different way, she proposes a new opening sentence: ‘It was dark inside the wolf.’ It’s these switches in structure and experimentation with narrative voice, setting, imagery, and characterisation that turn stories on their head.

Do you know someone who has scribbled, underlined, highlighted, and put dozens of post-it notes in the battered, crumpled old copy of their favourite novel? Or someone who has never missed a book signing by their favourite author and always manages to get to the front of the queue for a personalised message in their copy of the latest release?