Mr. Cornwell,

I continue to be a huge fan of all your books, and find myself quite often going back for a 2nd and 3rd read of many. I’m getting close to a 4th read on a few!  Thank you for bringing history alive and giving me many hours of enjoyment.

I recently embarked on writing my first book.  I am currently deep into researching the time period, and the historical figures that the story will be based on while also trying to get words down pages daily.

While a few historical texts, both ancient and recent exist for this period, many details of the main protraganist’s life, as well as of the contemporaries that will fill the story, are very sparse.  I also find that while there seems to be a general common summary and belief of how things turned out various scholars over time have tended to contradict each other on specific dates, how key events transpired, and how they have interpreted the lives and motivations of key subjects.  At the same time though I have picked up on some common threads of information and insight that weave through all of the writings.  The challenge is that those threads keep leading me down a creative path that in many ways contradict the general summary and world view of these people and events as presented over the last thousand years by writers and historians.  I am torn between trying to tell the story in line with prevailing themes, or striking out in some new directions.  Key dates and actual events would remain consistent with the “majority” view on the history, but some of the characterization, and dramatic arch of certain story lines would be breaking new ground.

My questions for you are:

1) In your books what is the furthest you have strayed from known, or generally agreed upon historical fact to drive your story?

2) Has push back from historians, or armchair historians ever derailed a book for you?  Published or unpublished?

3) Would you recommend reaching out to historians directly?  I would love to bounce my ideas off someone with deep knowledge and expertise, but being a first time novelist I am nervous about approaching published academic historians. Have you done that much, and do you think it is worthwhile?

Well…..a million more questions, but I’ll stop with that.

Cheers,

David Ruehr