Writing historical fiction has many common traits with writing sci-fi or fantasy books. The past is another country - a very different world - and historical readers want to see, smell and touch what it was like living there.

In the industry, trying out new genres is not always encouraged but what I've discovered is that as a writer, a jaunt outside my comfort zone generally brings new skills to the main body of my work.

As a historical novelist, there is very little I like more than spending time sorting through boxes of old letters, diaries, maps, trinkets, and baubles.

I've found myself moved by letters and diaries in archives as well as trashy, summer blockbusters. It's possible to make a connection with any kind of writing - as long as the writing is good.

We can learn so much looking outside our core field of expertise.

I know a lot of writers, and everyone works differently, but this is something that we truly have in common across all genres - the fiction has to be real inside your head.

Crime writers, I've noticed, can be jumpy. They live in a world where there are murderers on the loose and they haven't been caught yet!

Writing the same kind of material is no guarantee you'll be working from the same ethos so that writers from different fields are just as likely to have an understanding of each other's work as someone working in the same genre.