Ben Kane (on Writing Historical Novels)

Research is an intimate part of writing historical fiction. It’s the foundation upon which each good story rests, and as such, it needs to be robust and well-laid. In my opinion, without a good basis in reality or fact, historical fiction becomes either historical fantasy or alternate history. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with those genres - I’m fond of them myself, especially the latter - but they fall into a different classification to the books I write.
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Sunday Times bestselling historical novelist Ben Kane at http://writinghistoricalnovels.com/2013/02/08/on-research-to-write-historical-novels-by-ben-kane.