Simon Scarrow, author of 'Eagles of the Empire' - Bestselling Historical Fiction author discusses the rules of genre, thorough research, and why you need to get on with it
Writer's Routine
Dan Simpson
4.9 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 22 May 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week's guest is the phenomenally bestselling author, Simon Scarrow. He mainly writes historical fiction, best known for his 'Eagles of the Empire' series, and has written about Ancient Rome and Nazi Germany too. He's also published futuristic sci-fi, and began writing dystopian fiction and comedy, before realising he should write what he wants to read, not what he thought might sell.
Simon has sold more than 6 million books, and has been translated into 25 languages. His passion for storytelling was perfected at boarding school, learning how to engage class-mates, and keep them hooked with a daring cliff-hanger. He then expanded this passion as a teacher, before finally becoming the author he always wanted to be.
His new novel is 'A Death in Berlin'. It's an Inspector Schenke book, with a tale about the exceptional investigator fighting to keep criminals off the streets of Nazi Berlin at a time of war. We discuss the inspiration for the novel, and what he does to pull together a threadbare skeleton to write with.
You can hear why he's a stickler for the rules of historical fiction, also why he's inspired to write new series, and why the great illusion of writing is something you can fall prey to... instead, get on with it!
Get a copy of the book at uk.bookshop.org/writersroutine
Support the show at -
patreon.com/writersroutine
ko-fi.com/writersroutine
@writerspod
writersroutine.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome along to a brand new episode of writers' routine where this week we're talking to Simon Scaro, a phenomenal bestseller. |
| 0:17.5 | His work has been translated into more than 25 languages, and he's back with a new |
| 0:24.7 | novel called Death in Berlin. You can hear what he does when he still comes face to face |
| 0:31.2 | with a tricky middle. It's not going as I planned, and I don't feel we can see the end yet. |
| 0:36.5 | And of course, the reason you can't see the |
| 0:37.6 | end yet is because the story's kind of telling itself and it hasn't got to the point where it reveals what the story is going to be. So you always have to get over that hump about, you know, mid-world through the book. And then once you kind of see how everything fits together and how the end's going to be about three quarters of the way it. The whole thing is downhill from there. |
| 0:55.2 | And you can, you know, write loads very, very together and how the end's going to be, about three quarters of the way it. The whole thing |
| 0:54.2 | is downhill from there and you can, you know, write loads very, very quickly because you're |
| 0:59.4 | totally engaged with what you're doing. Also, why he doesn't have much time for writers who hang |
| 1:04.2 | around and wait for the muse to strike. There's too much of this dulyle-age idealism about writing, that somehow, you know, we sit there at our desks, you know, cigarette half burned out in one hand, glass of whiskey in the other, looking wistfully out of the window, waiting for inspiration to come. You know, it's a job. You have to get the thing done. You can't just sit there and, you know, wait for somebody |
| 1:29.1 | to write the book for you. I mean, I'm not a great believer in the single writer's block. |
| 1:34.2 | You know, other professions don't do it. You don't get doctors block. You don't get sort |
| 1:38.5 | of nurses block or policemen's block or anything like that. Stick around. It's a real |
| 1:42.5 | legend of historical fiction. |
| 1:44.8 | Let's get into it with a brand new writer's routine. |
| 1:52.1 | Yes, welcome along. My name's Dan Simpson. This is writers routine where we take a look inside |
| 1:58.4 | an author's working day. |
| 2:04.1 | You can go behind the scenes of the show, |
| 2:06.1 | the writer's routine world, |
| 2:10.1 | with our substack page posted last week about my absolutely random, unexpected, |
| 2:15.0 | face-to-face meeting with one of the most famous faces in the world outside a toilet. |
| 2:20.7 | So there's all of that and loads more writing tips besides news on guests that are coming up, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dan Simpson, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Dan Simpson and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.