Switching to Fiction
Since the publication of my novel The Making of Martin Sparrow in 2018 I have often been asked the question ‘What made you turn to fiction?’ This has turned out, usually, to be a question with a sub-text: ‘What made you, a long-time historian, cross over to the other side?’ But whatever form the question takes, my answer is always the same: ‘That’s easy,’ I say, ‘you get to make things up.’ It’s a rejoinder that is nowhere near as liberating as it may sound. Just what is meant by ‘make things up’? And is the writer now free, discharged of all responsibility to history, having gone over to the other side?
