Sandy Vaughan asked C.W. Gortner:

I like your take on women. I think it must be hard to show the reality of the distant past to modern day women and men and get the readers to really understand all the dynamics. I first started reading romanticized historical fiction. After a while, I got bored with "hysterical" fiction. How did you take your love of history from dry tombs to lively, believable, historically accurate fiction to teach us?

C.W. Gortner Thanks so much! This is a tough question to answer in a limited arena. Basically, despite the dry facts of history, it was lived by people - human beings, with foibles, personal desires, and all the emotions we still feel. Their situations or concerns might have been different from ours today, but they still had families, loves, hates, lusts and pains. I think for me, the trick, as it were, is to never forget that beneath the facts surrounding my character, she was a flesh and blood being, and subject to all the complexity that being human means. I try to bring that to the fore: who she might have been, under the gowns and historical framework, and to not judge her bur rather present her point of view to the best of my abilities. Let the reader decide how they feel about her. Not judging her is key for me; the moment I start passing judgment on my character, then she ceases to be her own creation and becomes mine. I don't want to be "seen"; it's her story, so if I do it right, her voice is the only one the reader should hear. I might not agree with her (I often don't) but that's not the point. If she believes what she's saying or if she's lying to cover her tracks, that's her choice. It says something about her. I play a bit with my reader in my books: is my character being honest or is she coloring her story to suit herself? The facts are there, but she has to transcend them and give her perspective for us to engage with her. Not sure how I do it, as far as process goes: it's organic. When I write, I know instinctively whether she's present or I'm just banging out hollow words. If I feel she's eluding me, I stop and try to find her; I want to be inside her skin, looking out. Not looking at her from a distant vantage point. I have to feel her and believe her, regardless of her honesty.

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