The story

I’m so pleased with the story this photo tells. My oldest grandchild, who is eleven, slipped away from her somnolent, post prandial family and disappeared. Some time later I went looking - and found her in a pool of light at her desk, working on her laptop.

She’s embarked on a story, a dystopian near-future tale with political overtones and echoes of Hunger Games. It’s imaginative, confident, and written in the dramatic present tense. We had a short chat about the difficulties raised by this device- the temptation to forget your tense when you take a break - and about effective paragraphing.

I can’t begin to tell you how pleased I am ...