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' I already have the story in my head'

5 September 2014

‘I write by hand, then type it up. When I've finished a scene, I'll read it and, if it needs editing, I write all over it, then retype it. I fax the copy to a typist, who puts it on a disc, and she faxes it back, then I edit it again.

When I start a new novel I already have the story in my head, including the ending, so I begin by doing an outline and then write it consecutively - page one is always page one.

I've always loved writing stories. Some of my earliest memories are of my mother reading them to me, and by the age of seven I was writing my own. When I was 10, she sent one to a children's magazine in London, and I couldn't believe it when they said they wanted to publish it. You could say my destiny was sealed.'

Barbara Taylor Bradford, author of A Woman of Substance and Cavendon Hall,  in The Times