Author

I aim to be translucent, so you don't notice the words, just their meaning. I haven't much insight into people's motivations.

I enjoy learning technical details.

I don't think there's any great mystery to writing female characters, so long as you talk to them. If you lived in a monastery and never met any women, maybe it would be difficult.

People are much more complicated in real life, but my characters are as subtle and nuanced as I can make them. But if you say my characters are too black and white, you've missed the point. Villains are meant to be black-hearted in popular novels. If you say I have a grey-hearted villain, then I've failed.

In my books, women often solve the problem. Even if the woman is not the hero, she's a strong character. She does change the plot. She'll often rescue the male character from some situation.

I have quite a few different Bibles. Having rejected my parents' religion, I still think the King James Bible is the most important work of literature in English. None of us can help being influenced by it.

I like to create imaginary characters and events around a real historical situation. I want readers to feel: OK, this probably didn't happen, but it might have.

I want to tell a story that makes the reader always want to see what will happen next.

I might not be a good socialist, any more than I'm a good Christian, but I am one.

I start with the history, and I ask myself, 'What are the great turning points? What are the big dramatic scenes that are essential to telling the story?'

My favorite period is World War II, and I'm in the middle of writing my fourth novel set in that era.

Most of my stories have some basis in fact.

Well, for people who want to write best sellers, the best advice I can give is to say that the novel has to engage the reader emotionally.

Without books I would not have become a vivacious reader, and if you are not a reader you are not a writer.

Be a perfectionist.

I like reading history, and actually most authors enjoy the research part because it is, after all, easier than writing.

There is a real connection between Philosopy and fiction.

World War II is the greatest drama in human history, the biggest war ever and a true battle of good and evil. I imagine writers will continue to get stories from it, and readers will continue to love them, for many more years.

We all now tell stories by cutting from one dramatic scene to the next, whereas Victorian novelists felt free to write long passages of undramatic summary.

I started writing stories in my spare time.