Work on the novel started in October 2018. For the first six months the Joined Up Writers played with ideas, researched local themes and places, and created characters. With fictional locations and people to work with, they found their story and started to develop it with rough draft scenes.

By spring 2019 they were planning the full story. Once they had mapped it out, they started to write the novel in full. Others in the local community got involved, for example, Women’s Institute members helped with a decision about the plot, and residents attending a summer fair contributed ideas about a climactic event.

Full writing started in autumn 2019. By the end of that year the first chapters were ready to be serialised in print and online. Chapters were shared here and in a local publication, The Magazine.

Participation was important throughout. The novel is entirely the work of the volunteers and includes images, sound and video as well as the written text. It can be read as a traditional novel but the online version contains some added extras: links to things that only certain characters know about, stories that branch off from the main plot, and parts of the back story. Look out for these as you read Trevow.

You can also see a gallery of images that show the joined up writers at work and the material they gathered while working on their novel.