I’ve been giving a lot of thought to heroes lately. What makes a good one? It’s not enough that they’re a genuinely decent person – after all, some of the best heroes are the ones who aren’t the shiniest, or nicest, or most morally upright.

Think about Severus Snape and his selfish motivation and scathing tones, or Katniss Everdeen with her unfriendly manner and total reluctance to be what everyone wanted to make her – these aren’t heroes on white horses swooping in to save anybody’s day.

I think the one thing you see in all heroes is one thing I touch on in my book: Resilience.

Heroes aren’t necessarily the best at what they do, or the most beloved, or the person who makes all the right choices.

What they do is keep going. Maybe because they’re driven to, maybe because they have to, maybe because they think they’re running away but it doesn’t work out that way.

They just keep going.

As writers, surely we can relate to that, above everything.