Hughes has a natural writing style, which is sustained throughout all of her novels.

Descriptions of settings do not delay the action of Sandwriter, but inform the reader where the characters are. Setting is always important in a novel by Hughes, and nowhere more important than in Sandwriter.

People think and often behave differently in a desert or in a simple house than they do in a market or a luxurious palace.

When writing her book The Tomorrow City, Hughes developed an awareness of two halves of her mind: the right brain (imaginative, holistic, in touch with one's dreams and subconscious) and the left brain (linear, logical, source of language, without which stories cannot be written). From this understanding came Hughes's ability to construct a story which would be of interest, make sense, and mean something important to the reader.

Hughes finds story ideas everywhere: thoughts...