Initially I only decided to try and write a novel because I wasn't getting enough screenwriting work. It wasn't a long-held ambition, and certainly the idea came first.

I don't use real people for inspiration.

I love research, and in fact it's liberating because you have to create your own world. No one can say "I've just got back from the 1860s, and you got it wrong." Anyway, it's fiction.

I definitely do feel a pull toward people and places that are far from my own life.

I don't think I could write about someone I didn't feel some sympathy for.

Whenever I pick up a book I think, "Tell me something I don't know."

Because I work quite slowly, I have to keep myself interested over a long research and writing period. So I can't see myself writing about modern middle-class Londoners anytime soon.