using estranged historical figures...

Hah. How about Sir Lancelot?

On a more serious note, I encourage you to troll Ren Fair sites for some very initial research. They like to drop obscure names in their cast list, and can at the very least give you a start.

billz015 said:

I had an idea today, if I were to find an estranged historical figure(in the way whoever wrote Field of Dreams did) and write a novel about them what would be the problems? I don't care about making stuff, I'm just curious about how legal it is.

Click to expand...

Do you mean an 'obscure historical figure'?

And who would be the obscure historical figure in Shoeless Joe (that's the book -- Field of Dreams is the film)? Shoeless Joe Jackson? JD Salinger?

You could pick anyone. Seriously though it's the middle ages, there's nothing illegal about reimagining history in fiction. People even do recent history.

billz015 said:

I had an idea today, if I were to find an estranged historical figure(in the way whoever wrote Field of Dreams did) and write a novel about them what would be the problems? I don't care about making stuff, I'm just curious about how legal it is.

I've had this idea for a novel set in the middle ages but I can't start it because I don't want to completely fictionalize things and I'm hoping I can find a duke or something that was in it that has no personal history that anyone can find, just his achievements.

Click to expand...

If the duke's achievements are recorded, probably some of his personal history is as well.

Do you read historical fiction? Incorporating real people into the story is done all the time.

I think he (or she?) meant infamous...or something along those lines. As in someone with a murky past or not-completely-stellar reputation. I'm just guessing though.

Never mind, just re-read the post and maybe obscure IS the word they wanted. But yeah, Shoeless Joe was hardly obscure. Heh.

characters

It's fiction. You can do anything you wish with historical figures. Or with history itself.

billz015 said:

And besides Field of Dreams what are some similar examples(taking a character who did basically one thing recorded in history and then imagining your own history), I hope I don't sound too pushy, but I'm really curious.

Click to expand...

I've seen mystery and thriller novels that used Queen Elizabeth I, Jane Austen, Lucretia Borgia, Theodore Roosevelt, etc. It's a pretty clear bet that these people never solved a murder mystery. But that hasn't stopped people from writing mystery or thriller novels about them. There are even anthologies about famous people solving mysteries, or even following another path and ending up in a different life. (Look for anthologies such as Alternate Kennedys, edtied by Mike Resnick, or some of Martin H. Greenberg's "what if" anthologies.)

In recent historical fiction, I've seen books based on Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scotts, Anne Boleyn, even Anne Boleyn's sister, etc. OK, not exactly obscure figures, but each one approached the characters in different ways. Some made Mary, Queen of Scotts out to be the villainess, while others gave more sympathetic treatments of her. There's even The Perilous Guard, a children's/YA novel about a girl exiled by Queen Mary Tudor who later ends up involved with faeries.

And if you want to get really out there... In SF, there's the alternate history novel 1632, which takes several historical figures (major & minor) and throws them in the middle of the chaos that erupts when a modern-day town ends up tossed into Europe in 1632. Or even more extreme, there's To Your Scattered Bodies Go, which throws oodles of historical figures on a large planet after the end of the earth, including explorer Richard Burton, Alice Lidell (inspiration for Alice in Wonderland), Herman Goerring, and even Mark Twain. Oh, and speaking of Alice Lidell, I read a contemporary fantasy novel about Alice Lidell long ago. (There's also the movie Dreamchild, which is about the older Alice and her memories of Lewis Carroll.)

billz015 said:

But I was worried if I did relatives would find me and ask royalities if I got it published, and what's the reality of it being successful?

Click to expand...

Relatives wouldn't have a claim on royalties. You don't split royalties with the descendants of someone you write about.

In my (unpublished) historical fiction, I combine fictional characters with real historical personages and events. Reading the history is seductive, and I am tempted to learn as much as I can to keep verisimilitude alive. The nature of historical fiction is to be true to the era, fairly close to true to the historical personages, and to tell a good story.
The hardest decision for me comes when a good story, one commonly accepted as true but recently disproved by archeologists or modern scholars, is present. Do I retell the old lie-- fable, fantasy--or create a new lie? So far, I have told my lies only about my fictional characters. There is no reason not to attribute whatever act intrigues you to a fictional character acting in an accurate historical context.

Just do as much research as you can. I'm using Thomas Jefferson as a major character in my WIP. I thought long and hard about it. I didn't want to get any major details wrong and get crucified later for it, so a did a lot of research. About six months worth. Once I felt that I had as complete a grasp of Jefferson as I possibly could without devoting the rest of my life to it, I started writing.

billz015 said:

But I was worried if I did relatives would find me and ask royalities if I got it published, and what's the reality of it being successful?

Click to expand...

Part one: Don't concern yourself. Totally a non-issue.

Part two: Depends on what you mean by "successful." If you mean can you write a book-length work of prose fiction, you probably can if you're willing to start writing. If you mean will it hit the top of the Times best-seller list? Probably not. Anything in between -- who knows? All you can do is try.

Be careful because most historical figures however 'obsolete' may have something on record about them. If the person is to be your main character, you have to be very careful to be true to what is known or somebody somewhere will know you're lying.

I caught out one VERY famous author in a novel she wrote about Arthur. She happened to mention my home town and her facts were wrong. What she wrote about didn't occur until two hundred years later.

It takes a massive amount of research to be historically accurate, and unless you like history you're in for a tough time. It might be easier to use the famous or infamous person as a secondary or incidental character.

And don't forget to watch for new research being done. My historical has to have a couple of chapters changed because archaelologists uncovered things I will have to include.

Carmy

Oh, yeah, baby, you're gonna have to do the research.

The Middle Ages was a very complicated era (understatement) and lots of readers who are into books set during that period are going to be familiar with much of it. You'll have to be even more familiar.

I'm gearing up for a book set in that period, using historical figures (trust me, you won't be bothered by their families). I've been preparing for the last decade or so, hauling together my research materials. (As in buying/reading just about every non-fiction book I can find on the subject.) It's taking too long, but I'm busy with several other WIP.

The main thing is that despite all this research I will likely use only one half of one percent of the whole.

Some readers are data dump junkies, the more detail the better, but lacking their patience, I tend to trim and only use what's needed for the story.

I focus on what people are doing and saying rather than what they're eating and wearing. Unless the pricy velvet clothing the duke wears has something to do with the immediate plot we don't need to know how that velvet was made.

Hope that makes sense.

Good luck!

But I was worried if I did relatives would find me and ask royalities if I got it published, and what's the reality of it being successful?

Click to expand...

That would be the least of your worries, imo. People are forever trying to make claims to having so-and-so as a long distant ancestor and, unless you're writing about someone from a really famous arostocratic family that's still on the go, no one could prove anything. I'd imagine the research about the times would be much more of a problem. You'd have to have a grasp on the area you were writing about, what it looked like, who was around at the time. It's a big job to make something like that believable. If you can do that, I'd worry about the family much, much later. Even if they could be traced, I don't think they'd have any claim - but they may well be happy about it. But I'd reckon tracing them would be nigh on impossible!

Um--just to add to the nuttiness...

Some months back I stumbled over a self-published historical novel "written" by Richard III, former king of England. (Yeah, the one that Shakespeare shafted.)

The person who actually put fingers to keyboard on the opus claimed that she'd "channeled" the deceased monarch to get the inside story.

It gets better--she *used* to be Anne Boleyn.

I'm thinking that if you're going to be a reincarnated someone, a famous someone is the only way to go!

If all the famous dead people who have been reincarnated were lined up end to end...well...we'd be flat out of Haldol in NO time!