Hello Mr. Cornwell, I doubt you remember me so if you dont object please let me give you background on myself. I am a high school student who wishes to write a novel about Bull Run. I have some questions to ask you if you dont mind: (1) In many of your novels you have parts of your books where you show characters from the other side. Example Adam from starbuck or various French officers. How do you keep the balance with those characters and your lead characters? And how does a writer know when its best to show the other viewpoint?
(2) When you depict real people like Wellington and Gen. R.E. Lee how much of those descriptions would you say are taken from historical research and how much is fiction? I remember in Sharpes Escape there was a commander, who rode up wearing night coat and nightcap. Do things like that come eyewitness account or your brilliant imagination?
(3) Have you heard of the book, Battle at Bull Run by William C Davies? I was thinking of buying at help with my novel on Bull Run and was wondering what you thought of it. Or can you think of any other good books about the (1st) battle of Bull Run?
(4) I would like to know where you got the idea for Starbuck in the first place? I wont even bother to ask you to finish. Wait I just did didnt I? Thanks for your time. PS: Please tell your Personal Assistant thank you for the link to the 95ths web page. I really helped. Good luck with your next novel whatever it may be. Adam Azzalino
I hope I don't keep a balance! Those characters will be introduced (or the story told from their viewpoint) solely to advance the plot . . . . and if they or those scenes don't do that, they won't be there. Which is the best I can do to answer your question! The hard work (awwwww) of writing a book is getting the plot right, and knowing just how much information to give the reader at any one time, and those characters work to that purpose! So it's plot driven! I hope that makes sense!
I try to work as far as possible from original sources . . and to get, say, the physical description right (as well as, obviously, the events of the life). But you can't restrict yourself to what is only available from such sources, so the essential trick is to try and project the character into fictional scenes, but staying true to what you know about him or her. Wellington and Lee are both quite easy, because both are strong characters, and we have many recollections by people who knew them, and so it's fairly easy to get a good picture of what they were like. I fear I don't remember the nightcap episode - whether that was imagination or an eyewitness account.
William Davies's book is terrific. You can' go wrong with that. There may well be something more recent, but I fear I haven't kept up with the literature since I wrote that first Starbuck, so not sure I can be really helpful, other than to say that Davies is very good. Try putting Bull Run into Amazon's search engine . . . you should come up with anything more recent.
Honestly have no idea! Certainly living in the US made me interested in the Civil War, so I began reading about it, and the idea must have come from that reading. I remember visiting Nantucket and being struck by the name Starbuck (a Nantucket family) - this was just before a coffee lover was also struck by the name. This all happened twenty or more years ago, and the genesis is lost in the mists of my head.