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Master storyteller Ken Follett’s latest novel, The Armor of Light, is the fifth volume in his epic historical fiction series that began with the 1989 bestseller The Pillars of the Earth. The English author, 74, recently attended a state dinner hosted by France’s President Emmanuel Macron for King Charles III, held in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. He shares some of the evening’s star-studded details, as well as his dream dinner party guests, favorite authors and advice for aspiring writers.
What’s the secret to writing a good book?
I don’t think it’s a secret. I think there’s a very simple answer to that. The reader must share the emotions of the characters in the story. If somebody is in trouble, the reader’s anxious. Something scary is happening and the reader is sitting on the edge of the chair. Something sad happens and tears come to the reader’s eyes. We put our characters through all these trials, and we write about how they feel. If the reader doesn’t feel emotionally about the story, it’s not going to be a bestseller. It’s not going to be a good novel. There’s no reason to read that book if you don’t care what happens to the people. I think that’s the most important thing — to make sure that the reader really cares profoundly, emotionally about what’s happening in this story. If you think about books that you’ve read and enjoyed, it’s always all about the emotion.
What advice would you give to an aspiring young author?
The important thing you have to do is read a lot, because you learn so much about a novel. Every author I know was an avid reader from a very young age, and they all continue to be readers. That’s how you learn about a chapter, a paragraph, a sentence, how you learn to describe landscape, how to do dialogue, how to do a cliff-hanger. When you start to write your first novel, you have an enormous amount of knowledge about what a novel takes.
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