Blending Facts Into Historical Fiction
Back at work on my Secret Novel, I'm working in a new genre -- literary (in my case, perhaps merely psuedo-literary) and historical.
By historical, however, I actually mean "1978-1998" so I'm also facing a new quadary. When I am writing a story loosely based on real people, what restrictions apply? My account is fiction and names and particulars are different, but is there a point at which historical research veers off into obnoxious intrustion into privacy, or even purgery? Is it gauche to base a fictional account on someone's real biography?
How overgrown with fictional elements should a portait be before it is wholly itself? And yet, if it is too changed, does it not betray the realism needed to tell the story?
[Art by Levi Van Veluw.]
Comments
But I tend to think of anything after the fall of Rome as too modern for my taste.
On the other hand, if you are producing a documentary or biography, then changing a known fact can be libel. See Primary Colors for an example of something that's a little bit truthy.
If you are just using true events to inspire your fiction, if the events are not broadly identifiable to a single person, and if you are doing whatever changes in character appearances and motivations and actions that the work requires to have maximum dramatic impact, then you're probably pretty safe.
Remember, as an author you're not after "realism", you are after both verisimilitude and effectiveness. You want your story to be more true than real life, because it has been purified and filtered through you.