Historical fiction featuring real people

 At https://awriterofhistory.com I read an informative article (2024/02/29) called "Historical fiction featuring real people - a debate."

A while ago an Ottawa writers' organization had an interview on Zoom with Kingston author Helen Humphreys, about her new novel centering on Henry David Thoreau. I tuned in and found her tips fascinating. 

I write historical fiction in which real people appear as minor characters, and my novels, "Grace and the Secret Vault," and "Grace in Love," centre on the late Grace Woodsworth MacInnis,  an NDP Member of Parliament in the 1960s and '70s who championed the poor and women, two categories that often overlap.  In those novels, I called Grace by her real name. In my novel, "A Striking Woman," the main character is so very loosely based on the late Madeleine Parent that I gave her character a new name, "Jacqueline Laflamme."

Ms. Humphreys was great but one of the writers' organization members asked her a question that made me shake my head. 

"I've never heard of writing a novel about a real person!" she exclaimed. "Can you do that?"

Obviously this would-be writer is not a great reader, or she would have known that it is done all the time. One thinks of the irritating character Hermione, in D.H. Lawrence's "Women in Love," who was very closely based on the real Ottoline Morel. More recently, one things of Paula Mclean's novels about Hemingway's first and third wives, or Colm Toibin's novel about Thomas Mann.

The article in "A Writer of History" explored the guidelines for writing about a real  person.  From it I learned that you cannot libel or harm the dead. Descendants who might dislike the portrayal of an ancestor in a historical novel are always free to write their own book.  A writer should avoid communicating with such descendants on social media and respond with "dignified silence."

If  someone's deceased ancestor was a public figure, like an actor, a politician, an artist, an activist, then they sought recognition, and were probably objects of public praise or criticism during their lifetimes. According to the article, a public figure is  "fair game if they're dead." 

I also think that if a deceased person has been the subject of a biography or autobiography, then their life has been revealed to the public already, and a fiction writer is merely dramatizing what is already known.

The main characters in my current historical work-in-progress are blends or composites of people living in a certain place and time.  Political figures are mentioned to establish the era.

The American author of the article "did due diligence reading copyright law and found that heirs have few grounds to sue for libel or slander or anything else, especially if they are removed more than a generation or two..."

All my life I have read  historical novels and have learned a great deal from them while being engaged and entertained.  The past is fascinating.