Talk about differences in style! Both of them deal with American history, which I love. However, as Vidal says in the Afterword to Burr, "...the attraction of the historical novel is that one can be as meticulous (or as careless) as the historian and yet reserve the right not only to rearrange events, but most important, to attribute motive -- something the conscientious historian or biographer ought never do." I have always wanted to write fiction, and I have wanted to incorporate history into my stories about Halo Hathaway. Although Gore Vidal is not writing mysteries in his Empire Narratives, he presents the best example, I believe, of how to incorporate historical fact into the popular novel. This was important to me several years ago because, although I love history, I love fiction even more and made the choice to follow that road.
Perhaps the biggest reason for choosing fiction writing was the freedom to add dialogue. I had a dear friend who passed away in May who read my first draft of my novel and said, "I really like the way you write dialogue." (He thought the first draft too wordy in the narrative and he was correct. Hopefully, that has been corrected in the ensuing six rewrites. [And that will most likely be seven as soon as my editor gets done with her job in the next week or so.]) Dialogue is fun. It is what breathes life into the characters. It is what allows the reader to create a complete image of the characters in his or her mind. I can fly through dialogue. I tend to bog down writing narrative. But that is also why I admire people like Frank so much. The time, the effort and the skill required to write good history is mind-boggling to me. David McCullough has probably perfected the art better than anyone as witnessed by the popularity of books such as John Adams and 1776.
Anyway, I am a long way from either Vidal or McCullough. But, damn, they do set great examples to aspire to.
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