We have gotten away from this double aspect of either putting the character back into historical events or of making a historical event of his very life.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When writing about historical characters I try to be as accurate as possible, and in particular not to misrepresent the view they held. With a real historical figure you have to be fair, and this is not an obligation you have in dealing with your own creations, so it is quite different.
I think that if you get too close to the character, if you do too much historical research, you may find yourself defending your view of a character against the author's view, and I think that's terribly dangerous.
As a writer of historical fiction, I believe you don't want to fictionalize gratuitously; you want the fictional aspects to prod and pressure the history into new and exciting reactions.
As much as I love historical fiction, my problem with historical fiction is that you always know what's going to happen.
Although this is a fictitious story the history is real. You don't want to re-write history but you certainly want to portray events and characters as realistically as you can.
The historical novelist has to consider what has actually happened, while the SF writer is dealing in possibilities, but they are both in the business of imagining a world unlike our own and yet connected to it.
It's much easier to come back as a recurring character. Because you already know his traits and who he is and what he's about.
I have a rule: I will not alter the basic history of a real-life character to suit our fictional needs in a big way.
There is an odd sense of responsibility attached to appearing in a drama about a real piece of history. A work of fiction is fun.
Plot makes the character just as history makes the man.