How should Historical Fiction use real people?

AI update and a rude word, so be warned

A reminder my two published novels are still available, including from some people here. I can sell signed copies in UK only.

How should Historical Fiction use real people?

Minor spoilers for Our Child of the Stars and Our Child of Two Worlds

Pic: History in HD, Unsplash

Odd dilemmas of writing something set in a real historical period. How do you handle real people?  Especially, still living ones. I’m not talking about novels like Wolf Hall which centre real historical characters on purpose.

A pleasing, big-hearted read, its late-1960s setting well evoked ― FT

Our Child of the Stars is set in a recognisable 1960s town in rural New York. Exactly where is a bit fuzzy. We get where Ambridge, Blandings Castle, and Derry, Maine are without it being exact.  Most of the important characters are fictional but I throw in a few real people. These people react to the way history is knocked off its course.

The Meteor landing in sleepy Amber Grove is a big deal and people write songs about it. Simon and Garfunkle do a good one, at least Gene and Molly who were there for the disaster think so. I was sure that such a dramatic event, let alone the arrival of an alien, would be a massive media and marketing phenomenon, down to what’s on the jukebox and what toys are sold.

Joan Baez is Molly’s favourite singer, in fact Farewell Angelina is playing in the first chapter. Molly admires her artistically and for her tireless work for good causes. Baez is seen in one part of the book – trying to calm a crowd by getting them singing - and two fictional songs she writes are there.  She’s briefly mentioned in a fundraising concert in the second book.

I had no qualms about using real people politely. But if I wanted to be rude about people, I made them up.

Walter Cronkite anchors the Moon Landings, as he did in our history. It’s 1969 and Cory is getting excited about the Moon Landings, because his human Dad is so excited. Cory’s people have been in space for generations, but it’s a big deal for humans.

The world is watching and things don’t go to plan. Cronkite tells the story as he must.

My editor and I had a standoff because I didn’t feel comfortable putting real people through what happens – Buzz Aldrin is still alive and other astronaut’s families are alive even if they themselves have passed. People who become public figures end up being used in all sorts of ways and maybe I was being too delicate.  It seemed right in my guts to have a different fictional crew and we went with it. Just because someone has been made a public figure, doesn’t always make things right.

My editor was fine with me inflicting disaster on Disneyland. Go figure.

Another issue was the President, a notorious red-baiter who wants to follow the war in Vietnam to victory, like his Democrat predecessor. He’s seen as untrustworthy by much of the country. including Gene and Molly, and that’s one big reason why they keep Cory a secret.

He’s really Nixon-like, down to his physical awkwardness and dark jowls. He’s not named as Nixon, though. Although Nixon is one of the most analysed and debated Presidents of modern times, I wasn’t interested in people quarrelling about his actions. What my President does is consistent with his character in the books, although I would argue, probably in line with historical Nixon as well.

I follow this approach in my Victorian novel in progress. Real figures from popular culture appear. I used the real Commissioner at Scotland Yard. The Prime Minister is a Liberal who won a landslide attacking imperialism, as Gladstone did, but he is not named.

What do you think?

Pic Vanguard

AI news

The Authors Licensing and Copyright Society gives authors a payout based on secondary uses of their work. They’re seeking views on how so-called AI companies could be drawn into this. Specifically, two things:

1-pay reparations for having used artists work for training without consent. Reminder, most companies who trained AI knew they were using copyrighted material and ought to pay.

2-pay for those artists who going forward choose to let their work be used for training and prompts

I think it’s a consistent moral position that I should be paid for their theft AND entitled to stop them doing it again.

Whether the notoriously lawless and amoral tech industry can be brought to heel I don’t know.  The new government promises to regulate AI. Meanwhile, opinion is cooling in finance land. Goldman Sachs has called it a trillion-dollar investment looking for a trillion-dollar problem it can solve.

Tony Blair gave a speech citing research that AI could do most human jobs. This research turned out to be asking Chat-GPT to come up with an answer that sounded OK. I hope the politicians looking at this take a wider and smarter view.

A reminder that under my Terms and Conditions, any use of my online material to train AI will lead to you being eaten immediately by giant space bats.

Pic Gabriella Clare Marino, Unsplash

A considered position on Large Language Models used to replace human creativity

I do not want your AI crap

I do not want it on my app

I do not want it on my screen

I do not want a lie machine

I do not want it spying in the bath

I do not want it fibbing with a graph

I do not want it stealing art

I do not want it from my heart

I do not want it stealing words

I do not want it faking birds

I do not want it killing skill

Or making people poor and ill

I do not want this tech-bro joke

Just f..k off and go flat broke