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There is an odd sense of responsibility attached to appearing in a drama about a real piece of history. A work of fiction is fun.

I think one of the paradoxes of writing fiction is when people enjoy it, they want it to be real. So they look for connections.

Fiction allows you to embody certain ideas and give them an emotional reality. The characters allow you to get close viscerally to an idea.

It's a cliche, and in a way it's a conservative idea about fiction, but I did learn the hard way that plot does need to dictate the story.

I think in our time, you know, so much of the information we get is pre-polarized. Fiction has a way of reminding us that we actually are very similar in our emotions and our neurology and our desires and our fears, so I think it's a nice way to neutralize that polarization.

One reason we love fiction is because stories have a comforting shape. They provide a resolution that's lacking in our regular lives.

What's most explosive about historical fiction is to use the fictional elements to pressure the history to new insights.

When you're reading, like, a character's thoughts, or when it's in first person, you're reading kind of their own story, so you have the opportunity to see what makes that character complex or complicated. And to me, that's what the whole point of fiction is.

We've all faced the charge that our novels are history lite, and to some extent, that's true. Yet for some, historical fiction is a way into reading history proper.

Fiction has subversive potential. People let it into their minds, like the Trojan Horse. They don't know what's inside. You hook them with the story, and God can work below the level of their consciousness. Fiction can be propaganda for evil or convey a theme that impacts people for good.