At the heart of writing - at the apex of storytelling - there is only one principle, and it winds like a golden thread across all the books and courses.

But it gets lost in the ever-spreading panoply of detail that the creative writing industry relies on to keep its wheels turning.

This book pulls out that thread, polishes it and reveals the way it penetrates storytelling.

It will be invaluable to anyone creating fictional worlds - but most particularly to novelists, who are most in danger of forgetting it. Or not noticing it in the first place.

Tim Lott knows he can't teach anyone to write a novel (that's one of the lies propagated by the novel-writing industry).

But he can teach someone how to build a firm platform on which they can stand in order to explore whether they have the talent, will and determination that writing a novel takes.