Early on in Hughes' work on Sandwriter, she determined that there were two countries in this world, one rich in natural resources, and the other a desert. "Then suddenly my heroine Antia appears," Hughes says—in an essay on the origins of the novel Sandwriter—"stamps her foot and says, 'Dust and flies. It's nothing but dust and flies! I won't go!'" The story is overturned by the strong-willed princess Antia, heir of Kamalant and Komilant. Hughes could not force her, but had to think of a way to persuade her to change her mind.

Hughes has read the works of Robertson Davies, who talks in his novel Fifth Business about the character in opera story-telling who is "Fifth Business": the character who alters the balance of the story. That is what Hughes needed: a Machiavellian tutor with his own secret...