Ashwin Sanghi Quotes

The thing that most attracts me to historical fiction is taking the factual record as far as it is known, using that as scaffolding, and then letting imagination build the structure that fills in those things we can never find out for sure.

As a writer of historical fiction, I believe you don't want to fictionalize gratuitously; you want the fictional aspects to prod and pressure the history into new and exciting reactions.

While writing 'Half of a Yellow Sun,' I enjoyed playing with minor things: inventing a train station in a town that has none, placing towns closer to each other than they are, changing the chronology of conquered cities. Yet I did not play with the central events of that time.

I like writing historical fiction.

I don't separate my books into historical novels and the rest. To me, they're all made-up worlds, and both kinds are borne out of curiosity, some investigation into the past.

I always try to find a story in the margins of history, but I don't like to do too much that's improbable.

I feel that historical novelists owe it to our readers to try to be as historically accurate as we can with the known facts. Obviously, we have to fill in the blanks. And then in the final analysis, we're drawing upon our own imaginations. But I think that readers need to be able to trust an author.

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.

Asking the author of historical novels to teach you about history is like expecting the composer of a melody to provide answers about radio transmission.

Everything in 'The Tudors' is initially based on my historical research, and the fact is that the most unlikely scenes were the ones which were probably most based on reality. I prefer to be as real as possible, and there is so much of that story that you just can't make up.

There’s dramatic license, which is necessary or nothing’s fun, and historical truth, which is necessary or nothing’s understood.

This is what I think is fun about fiction - you get to use as much history as you want as scaffolding and then go beyond it and change it and mutate it.

We are not telling Tudor history; we are creating ' Wolf Hall ' from novels, which are already a rereading of Tudor history.

I've always been drawn to writing historical characters. The best stories are the ones you find in history.

Historical fiction is not history. You're blending real events and actual historical personages with characters of your own creation.

No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read.

I think any period in history can be adapted into interesting fiction, as long as you approach the actual history with respect.

What 'Floating Worlds' does draw on is Holland's artistry in bringing the past to life in her historical fiction and depicting the people who inhabited that past.

The novelist has a responsibility to adhere to the facts as closely as possible, and if they are inconvenient, that's where the art comes in. You must work with intractable facts and find the dramatic shape inside them.

There I was limited to what happened the same way I am with Riel. It doesn't feel like a great burden to have your story, to some degree, set. I am enjoying figuring out what I think is the most dramatic way of telling this set of historical facts.

Well, I think it can be quite helpful to be working on a character who actually existed, historically. Of course, you might have material to study and help you create the character.

I write novels, mostly historical ones, and I try hard to keep them accurate as to historical facts, milieu and flavor.

One decision I made in writing 'Henry and Clara' was that I would keep Lincoln's appearances and any dialogue by him to an absolute minimum, because I think readers don't quite believe it when novelists have Lincoln walking around and saying things. They just know they're in the presence of stage machinery.

One important idea I hope is reflected in 'The Poe Shadow' is that fiction can add as much to history as nonfiction does.

The script is always the main preparation for me. Sometimes you have a period piece where you have to research around it, but if the writers have done their homework well enough, the information is all in the script.