The Scent of a Story: Frank Herbert, Functional Scent and Obsession
How Frank Herbert fills Dune with the heavy scent of spice, making one commodity permeate the planet’s ecology, economy and people.
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Ideas about stories, pictures and publishing
The Scent of a Story: F. Scott Fitzgerald and Status Scents
How F. Scott Fitzgerald perfumes Gatsby’s mansion with flowers that sparkle, froth and advertise the cost of belonging.
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The Scent of a Story: Maurice Sendak and the Smell of Sanctuary
How Maurice Sendak uses the smell of supper to call Max home from the wildest reaches of imagination.
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The Scent of a Story: Stephen King and the Sensory Paradoxes of Fear
How Stephen King combines the smells of living bodies and physical decay to create creatures that violate the boundary between life and death.
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The Scent of a Story: Clive Barker and Smell as Forensic Proof
How Clive Barker turns blood, sweat and bodily decay into evidence that reveals horror before his characters can see it.
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The Scent of a Story: Toni Morrison and the Weather of the Soul
How Toni Morrison uses sensory traces and rememory to make the past enter a character’s physical present.
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The Scent of a Story: Leigh Bardugo and World-Building Groundwork
How Leigh Bardugo uses fish, bilge water and refinery smoke to reveal Ketterdam’s geography, industry and social order.
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The Scent of a Story: Raymond Chandler and Conceptual Decay
How Raymond Chandler transforms orchids, perfume and poisoned air into signs of moral corruption in The Big Sleep.
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The Scent of a Story: Gillian Flynn and the Perfumed Rot
How Gillian Flynn turns clean rooms and pleasant fragrances into warning signs that something ugly is being concealed.
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The Scent of a Story: Roald Dahl and the Visceral Prank
How Roald Dahl uses one revolting smell to reverse a child’s perspective and make an imaginary danger feel instantly real.
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The Scent of a Story: Patrick Süskind and the Cathedral of Scent
How Patrick Süskind layers the beautiful and disgusting smells of Perfume until the reader feels trapped inside another person’s nose.
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Stop Writing in Silence: Dashiell Hammett and the Telephone in the Dark
How Dashiell Hammett uses ringing bells, creaking beds and sudden impacts to make every sound perform an action.
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Stop Writing in Silence: Edgar Allan Poe and the Heart Beneath the Floor
How Edgar Allan Poe turns one muffled heartbeat into an unbearable rhythm of terror, guilt and confession.
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Stop Writing in Silence: Virginia Woolf and the Chimes of Time
How Virginia Woolf turns the chimes of Big Ben into the sound of memory, mortality and a city sharing one moment.
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Stop Writing in Silence: George Orwell and the Voice You Cannot Silence
How George Orwell uses barking screens, marching boots and mechanical voices to make oppression something the reader can hear.
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Stop Writing in Silence: Gabriel García Márquez and the Sound of Discovery
How Gabriel García Márquez surrounds a silent block of ice with noise, wonder and the unforgettable sound of discovery.
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Stop Writing in Silence: Ernest Hemingway and the Sound of the Marlin
How Hemingway makes us hear the speed, weight and power of a great fish hidden beneath the ocean.
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Stop Writing in Silence: Hilary Mantel and the Whispering Court
How Hilary Mantel turns whispers, footsteps and overheard fragments into the intelligence network of Henry VIII’s court.
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Stop Writing in Silence: Cormac McCarthy and the Click of No Return
How Cormac McCarthy turns one pneumatic click into the sound of a life ending—and a door that can never reopen.
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top Writing in Silence: John Wyndham and the Clattering Plants
How John Wyndham gives walking plants an inhuman language—and turns an ordinary garden sound into a warning of coordinated attack.
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Stop Writing in Silence: J.R.R. Tolkien and the Drums in the Deep
How Tolkien turns a single drumbeat into the sound of an enormous and inescapable fate.
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Stop Writing in Silence: Harper Lee and the Footsteps in the Dark
How Harper Lee makes footsteps in the darkness reveal the distance, movement and intention of an unseen threat.
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Stop Writing in Silence: Shirley Jackson and the Knock at the Door
How Shirley Jackson turns an unseen knock into something with weight, distance and terrifying intention.
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Writer Mind Games: H. P. Lovecraft and the Cosmic Crush
How Lovecraft makes incomplete knowledge more terrifying than any visible monster—and reduces humanity to a speck beneath the stars.
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Writer Mind Games: Octavia E. Butler and the Body Trap
How Butler transforms empathy from a noble emotion into a dangerous physical vulnerability the reader can almost feel.
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Writer Mind Games: Ted Chiang and the Big Stretch
How Ted Chiang makes an impossible language feel logical—and stretches the reader’s mind until past and future exist together
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Writer Mind Games: Vladimir Nabokov and the Beauty Trap
How Nabokov uses dazzling prose to expose the danger of mistaking a beautiful voice for a truthful one.
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Writer Mind Games: Ken Kesey and the Mental Fog
How Kesey traps us inside a narrator’s fog until hallucination begins revealing more truth than reality.
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Writer Mind Games: Jorge Luis Borges and the Mental Maze
How Borges turns one short spy story into an infinite labyrinth containing every choice, consequence and possible future.
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Writer Mind Games: Haruki Murakami and the Dream Walk
How Murakami persuades us to accept talking cats, falling fish and impossible coincidences without waking from the dream.
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Writer Mind Games: Ursula K. Le Guin and the Big Realization
How Le Guin turns light and shadow into a quiet revelation about power, identity and the parts of ourselves we fear.
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Writer Mind Games: Fyodor Dostoevsky and the Heavy Guilt
How Dostoevsky traps us inside a brilliant, spiteful mind—and makes its contradictions feel uncomfortably familiar
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Writer Mind Games: Agatha Christie and the Analytical Itch
How a train full of convincing alibis turns the reader into an unpaid detective.
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Writer Mind Games: Franz Kafka and the Brain Spin
How treating the impossible as ordinary leaves the reader trapped between two realities.
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Impending Doom has caller ID
A look at the “micro-dread” of suspicious calls, silent voicemails and modern phone interruptions.
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Why Is “Annotate Books” Exploding in 2026 — And Should Children’s Authors Care?
Why active reading, annotation and participation matter to children’s authors.
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Should Your Next Book Be “Read Aloud”?
How rhythm, dialogue and performance can make a children’s book work aloud.
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The Brutal Truth About Self-Publishing (And What To Do Next)
Why discoverability—not necessarily quality—is the central problem facing many self-published books.
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Can a Traditional Children’s Book Be “Reborn” in Roblox Form?
Can a turn-the-page story become an interactive visual experience without losing its soul?
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Can a Children’s Book Start WITH A CONFRONTING IMAGE?
A discussion of tension, emotion and dramatic imagery in children’s books.
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Does the Price of a Book Change How Much We Enjoy It?
How price, labels and expectations can influence the experience of a book.
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If I analyse a bestseller and reverse-engineer it… ?
What studying bestseller structure can teach an author—and what it cannot guarantee.
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Why the First Page and the Last Page Matter Most in Children’s Books
How beginnings, endings and the serial position effect shape what young readers remember.
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Why do great children’s books always include IMAGES like this?
Why quiet illustrations can build atmosphere, trust and emotional investment.
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Why Some Stories Feel “Familiar”… in a Good Way?
Why unfamiliar stories can still feel instantly right through emotional patterns shared across cultures and generations.
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The Secret Chemistry of a “Mojo” Book Cover
Why some book covers stop us scrolling while others disappear into the background.
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Not Everyone Wins at School. Some Win at Life.
A reflection on why struggling at school is not a life sentence or a limit on later achievement.
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Why We Crave Heroes and Villains?
Why readers still respond to recognisable heroes and villains even when stories embrace moral complexity.
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The Snobbery Scale in the Arts
A look at status, accessibility and what can happen when an artist becomes a brand instead of a person.
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Did Dragons Ever Really Breathe Fire?
How burnt landscapes, smoke and the unknown may have helped fire-breathing dragon stories take shape.
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