Dear Mr. Cornwell,
I'm afraid I have to start this mail off with some sort of disclaimer. I wrote it in a text program, so the formatting was probably jumbled by the contact form and I'm very sorry for that. I'm just a bit more comfortable with a real program. Speaking of comfortable: I have never written a mail like this, so please excuse if I'm coming across as overly zealous, nervous or anything similar, nor is English my first language.
And sorry for the long disclaimer, if I'm already at the point of apologizing in advance. I also understand if you don't find the time to answer this mail since you probably get loads of mails like these every day. Nevertheless, still a big thank you for reading this mail and even bigger thanks in advance if you find the time to respond!
I've been a huge fan of the Warrior Chronicles/Alfred the Great Series/Saxon Stories (I have read so many names for the series, I'm really not sure anymore what to call it, although I quite prefer the first one in its similarity to the Warlord Chronicles) for years ever since I bought the first book in German while on holiday. After the third one in German I switched to the English books since I wasn't very fond of waiting for the translation. Luckily I noticed that the translations seem to be pretty true to the original English, so congratulate your translators for that, even if the translation of the title of Death of Kings seems a bit odd. The retranslation into English would be The Dying King, which just seems false.
I always felt it really easy to identify with Uthred since he seems to be the kind of person I'd greatly enjoy meeting. I especially loved how he said he liked the Norse heroes and tales more because they are not about weeping and redemption but warriors and battles. After I read that and looked back into my own childhood I noticed that I thought the same when I was a child. Funny enough, I also turned out a (north) germanic pagan in a christian country, even though in a really different time and place. All this kind of made Uthred feel like a real(er) person to me since I could empathise with him in a deep way, though he is only a fictitious character in a book. Personally what I enjoy most about Uthreds adventures and battles are the times he goes viking, leaving the christian kingdoms behind. It just feels more natural to a pagan in a christian kingdom than fighting against the Danes. Still, I really like the fact that he stuck with (nearly) all of his oaths through the years.
But I also wanted to ask you a few short things, hoping you might find the time to answer these questions. Since I am also a viking reenactor (10th century Gotland to be exact) as well as a historian by trade I'm very interested in reading more about how you do your research for your historic novels, how you incorporate what you learn and how you decide were to put fiction before fact (or the other way around).
The other two things are on a different topic. First, I was interested if you have anything planned concerning book signings in Europe for the coming months. Naturally I'd be mostly interested in Germany, but since I'm traveling quite a bit due to my job (especially to London, the British Library is a great place for research) maybe there's some date that coincides with one of those travels.
The second thing concerns a tip for an aspiring author. I've dreamt of writing something larger than just ten pages or so for quite a few years now (and I'm not counting my masters thesis here since that isn't fiction) but I never really managed to sit down to it. I'm now in the process of thinking something up in a more strategic kind of way, but right now it's all just in my head. The problem I'm having with sitting down and working on it is rather simple and probably one of the most common ones for authors new and old alike: I just can't get the names of persons, places etc. right. Everything feels kind of odd and unfitting. The thing I want to write about isn't really historical in nature but rather alternative history/steampunk (think something like Chris Wooding's Tales of the Ketty Jay , Tim Akers' Veridon Books or the great Leviathan Series by Scott Westerfield if you know one of those). Because of that I feel kind of uneasy with going 'just' with historic names that would fit a setting like that and I'm not entirely sure if you can help me out with this problem since what you are writing is anchored more directly in history. Still, any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated.
Let me end this mail how I started it: by saying sorry. This time because it got so long and out of hand. What I had in my mind was quite a bit shorter, but you probably know best how it is when you start down to write something that has been going through your head for days.
Best regards,
Dario Kaidel
The answer is much too long! Research is really a lifetime’s work . . . a lifetime of reading histories. Obviously I research a period in some detail, but much of the best material comes by accident, from reading things that are way off the subject – and I always try to visit the places I describe, even if it is two thousand years after the event. The second part of your question is easier to answer. I’m a story teller, not an historian, so the story always takes precedence over the real history – which is why Sharpe succeeds in the breach at Badajoz when, in truth, no one did. But I do confess my faults (or inventions) in the historical note at the end of the book. So fiction wins, though plainly I can’t take too many liberties – I’m constrained by the big story of history, so although Sharpe can shoot the Prince of Orange at Waterloo (well done, Sharpe) he can’t kill him, because the Prince didn’t die!
If the names feel wrong? They are wrong, and they’ll be an obstacle to you! You just have to keep trying, sorry! Mind you, if you just go with the names you might find they begin to fit? But I suspect you have to recast . . . .