My basic advice when writing is to get three things happening every two
pages. Keep things moving. Think about the book from beginning to end
and see the key moments. I recognize my strength and my weakness as a
writer. My strength, if I might say so without being immodest, is that
by and large, once people start reading they can't stop because they
are drawn in. The weakness of course is you don't really hang about and
develop characters too much. You don't stop for long lyrical passages.
I do like stories. I like the business of telling a story. Having said
that, there is no reason why a story shouldn't carry a lot more freight
with it. You can get at a truth as a novelist in a way that you can't
as an historian. I think you can bring things alive, the sense of fear,
prickly fear, the sweat, the smell of the place and so on.
