#HistFicThursdays - Writing Real People

One of the most problematic aspects of this genre is that, inevitably, we end up covering real people in some way, shape, or form. My books have included a range of real people, from kings to outlaws, prime ministers to military captains. It's not really possible to write a convincing historical fiction story without at least referencing someone who was a true historical figure, and with this comes a series of considerations which historical fiction writers have to address.

My multiple-great-grandfather,

William the Conqueror

(pic: Man vyi)

Firstly, in what way are you choosing to reference this character? It could be one of three things, and each of them have pros and cons attached:

1. The real person is only mentioned. There is a pretty decent likelihood that your invented characters will know of the people who existed in the real world. This is a cunning way of setting a time and place for your story. The obvious one being a reference to a ruler and, unless you're writing with the very lower classes, most people knew who their leader was.
   PRO: No ethical or historical constraints - these people are literally just words on a page!
   CON: The main downside to this is that it's easy to lose track of historical accuracy. When people are only names, we can quickly ditch authenticity and this can lead to other plot holes in research.
2. The real person is a friend of a friend. Yes, he fought alongside Wellington, but that was two years ago! This immediately sets your character as "one of them", whoever them might be!
   PRO: This works exceptionally well for the old mentor type character. You can see s/he's learnt from the best (or worst!) because history has told us what the mentor's mentor was like.
   CON: A person is judged on the friends they keep. Consider what being a friend to this real person might actually have meant to your character. This system requires the most research because you're not just researching the real individual, you're also researching their social circle and their social circle's social circle!
3. Go the whole hog and have the real person as a character in their own right!
   PRO: This real person becomes a real character, and your real character at that! You can modify them to whatever you think they would (or even should) have been.
   CON: You can't entirely re-write history. Whatever you write about, you should be able to support, even if it's only in a throwaway comment at the bottom of a letter.

Next, consider how would they would interact with your fictional characters. Letters are invaluable for this. Most people who we still know of from the past will have written letters, whether or not those letters are available is a different matter! If you are choosing to write from a historical figure's point of view, add diaries and journals to the necessary research documents.

There are also ethical questions. You have to be very careful when handling the issue of real people who living people may be connected to, whether by blood or inclination. I'm not sure whether there is another genre where characters can create such division amongst readers as historical fiction which explores real historical characters.

Girolamo Savonarola

by Fra Bartolomeo

So, having chosen to star a real-life character, how far can you push reality? This is a very fine balance because, after all, you've chosen this character on purpose so that must mean you don't want to completely alter who they were or you would have chosen someone else! Because I am a stickler for authenticity, I tend to really explore who a person was, where they were at any given date (if the information is available), but most of all: how they reacted to other people and events. This is how we really see what a person is like. Here's an example from my current research...

At the moment, I'm delving into the world of 15th Century Florence, and one of the key figures in my novel is Girolamo Savonarola. He is fabulously contentious and so multifaceted that he makes an icosahedron look positively flat. When I first looked him up, the first words which sprang to mind were "zealot" and "destructive", but these were based entirely on the things for which he is best known. A closer look showed he was more complex than even his "outlandish" religious ideas. The aspect I selected to explore was his relationship with Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Here was a friendship which defies pretty much everything which was expected from him, so this was worth exploring... 

...And the rest, as they say, is history!