Incorporating real-life events in a story

[Dakota_North]

Shit, I used Sarah Purcell in mine!
Okay, anyone who gets that joke has to be as old as me or likes classic TV shows.

She's Real People! And kind of a 'I wanna be like her' when I grow up figure, at least from back then!

 

[Seadog777]

Do what I do.

I write fictional stories with a few nuggets of truth intertwined, and let the readers try to figure it out.

Person, Place, Situation, Description, etc.

 

[PennameWombat]

Harry Turtledove has made a long and very successful career from taking a real event, with the associated real people, and tweaking it just a bit, and going from there. In How Few Remain, he reimagines a key moment from the US Civil War and through subsequent books lays out an alternate history of the world (the Civil War ends in a stalemate and splits the CSA from the US) from the 1860s through "World War II" (yeah, they happen, sorta). All of the expected historical people are there, but many (such as Lincoln, Grant, Lee, George Custer and George Patton, still president and military men) serve in different ways, but their personalities are in line with known information.

There's even an award for alternate history, the Sidewise Award.

Given the rules here, how much of this you could do, I'm not sure. My Mel's Universe stories are similar from the point of view of starting in our 1960s and throwing in, um, aliens . Well... secret aliens. But given most stories have to be set SOMEWHERE, and most of them are on Earth... well, we can't avoid reality. But besides being less well-written as Turtledove's work, my stories also don't explicitly tie in real-world goings-on from the era in any specific way.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

As long as you don't use real people in your story, I think using a real event should be fine.

I have written several stories about real people in fictitious situations. This situation is different, in that I will be inserting fictional people into real-life events.

Let me try to clarify a bit further:
First, this will be an action/adventure novel, not erotica. My example of the sex on 9/11 probably steered people wrong. A better example might be using a real-life tornado disaster as a means for the MC to disguise him killing someone by making it look like the person had been a victim of the storm. Real people actually did die in the storm, and I am inserting a named, yet fictional character among those. This example is pretty easy since the original real-life victims aren't named, and compares to several other examples given.

Tougher might be another event - a robbery, where a fictional character interacts with the real-life victims, referenced by name before they are all shot by the robbers. It's a real event, unsolved, obscure, which happened more than thirty years ago and all the original victims mentioned are treated with respect during the fictional interaction. I'd like to hear others opinion on this scenario.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

As long as you don't use real people in your story, I think using a real event should be fine.

https://www.literotica.com/s/before-they-were-stars-amy-and-ali
https://www.literotica.com/s/before-they-were-stars-deborah-norville
https://www.literotica.com/s/before-they-were-stars-michelle-pfeiffer
https://www.literotica.com/s/before-they-were-stars-scarlet-red

 

[Bramblethorn]

Tougher might be another event - a robbery, where a fictional character interacts with the real-life victims, referenced by name before they are all shot by the robbers. It's a real event, unsolved, obscure, which happened more than thirty years ago and all the original victims mentioned are treated with respect during the fictional interaction. I'd like to hear others opinion on this scenario.

For something like that, I'd be inclined to fictionalise the event. If most readers won't recognise the real event you're not losing much by doing so and it avoids any potential issues.

Thirty years is a long time, but it's also just about enough time for a kid to have grown up and be searching on the internet for more info about the parent they lost.

https://www.literotica.com/s/before-they-were-stars-amy-and-ali
https://www.literotica.com/s/before-they-were-stars-deborah-norville
https://www.literotica.com/s/before-they-were-stars-michelle-pfeiffer
https://www.literotica.com/s/before-they-were-stars-scarlet-red

Yeah, that's what the "celebrity" half of Celeb/Fanfic is for. But IIRC the law is more lenient about using public figures than private individuals, and C/FF does have restrictions on what sort of stories they'll take about real people - no NC, not sure if there are others.

 

[oggbashan]

In my story Canny Mackenzie, I used the Battle of the Coral Sea as one of the background events. I was criticised because the date of the battle might not fit with my story's timeline. The impact of that battle did affect the story, but possibly I had put the battle a few months earlier than it actually happened. Or not. It depends on your reading.

 

[PennameWombat]

I have written several stories about real people in fictitious situations. This situation is different, in that I will be inserting fictional people into real-life events.

Let me try to clarify a bit further:
First, this will be an action/adventure novel, not erotica. My example of the sex on 9/11 probably steered people wrong. A better example might be using a real-life tornado disaster as a means for the MC to disguise him killing someone by making it look like the person had been a victim of the storm. Real people actually did die in the storm, and I am inserting a named, yet fictional character among those. This example is pretty easy since the original real-life victims aren't named, and compares to several other examples given.

Tougher might be another event - a robbery, where a fictional character interacts with the real-life victims, referenced by name before they are all shot by the robbers. It's a real event, unsolved, obscure, which happened more than thirty years ago and all the original victims mentioned are treated with respect during the fictional interaction. I'd like to hear others opinion on this scenario.

Yeah, that's what the "celebrity" half of Celeb/Fanfic is for. But IIRC the law is more lenient about using public figures than private individuals, and C/FF does have restrictions on what sort of stories they'll take about real people - no NC, not sure if there are others.

This varies by country. It’s true in the US, celebrities/politicians/‘public figures’, have a lower expectation of privacy than the ‘general public.’ The line is blurrier now, with things like Tik Tok and Instragram, where putatively private citizens can easily post more about themselves than many supposed celebrities would’ve seen put out in the old days. But I still think it differs a bit on who puts it out, but if you have a history of posting your activities online, you’d have more trouble proving harm. But, IANAL.

But this right to privacy expires after death, even for private citizens. Mostly. HIPAA continues to protect the deceased’s medical information. In addition, certain laws (such as FOIA, Freedom of Information Act) offers some allowance for maintaining confidentiality due to surviving family member concerns. It’s also generally held that you cannot defame a dead person, although there’s the odd state statute around this.

To my knowledge, the UK doesn’t differentiate between public/private citizens, all are offered the same supposed level of ‘protection’. And, it seems odd to me, but Australia seems to not have a specific right to privacy. Although there are lots of laws around different aspects of a person’s data (e.g., health data), but not about a general right to privacy.

 

[SimonDoom]

Tougher might be another event - a robbery, where a fictional character interacts with the real-life victims, referenced by name before they are all shot by the robbers. It's a real event, unsolved, obscure, which happened more than thirty years ago and all the original victims mentioned are treated with respect during the fictional interaction. I'd like to hear others opinion on this scenario.

If I were you I would not use real names out of respect for the deceased. I suppose I'd ask, if they're not celebrities, then why write about real people being killed? Probably 99% of readers won't know about the event and it won't mean anything to them, so you might as well just come up with different names.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Bramblethorn,
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is perhaps not the best example then. I will confess that I haven't seen it, picked it off the list based on its reputation. From what I seen, the main criticism of the film is that it was unrealistic, not that it was set in a time and place of horror. Perhaps that is part of the lesson. Thanks for catching it.

 

[gunhilltrain]

In my story Canny Mackenzie, I used the Battle of the Coral Sea as one of the background events. I was criticised because the date of the battle might not fit with my story's timeline. The impact of that battle did affect the story, but possibly I had put the battle a few months earlier than it actually happened. Or not. It depends on your reading.

Naval military history is a very interesting but probably underappreciated topic. In World WarII, the United States was able to project power across not just one but two oceans, likely something no other country had previously done before, especially at that scale.

To digress a bit, I wonder how many Americans now have even heard of the Battle of the Coral Sea. Jay Leno inspired many imitators of his person-in-the-street interviews, and the lack of historical knowledge (among that things) that they often find is amazing.

It actually seems worse than when Leno was doing it a while back. He did find much the same thing, however. He asked similar questions about the Civil War, "who is the vice-president now?" and so forth.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Bramblethorn,
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is perhaps not the best example then. I will confess that I haven't seen it, picked it off the list based on its reputation. From what I seen, the main criticism of the film is that it was unrealistic, not that it was set in a time and place of horror. Perhaps that is part of the lesson. Thanks for catching it.

From what I can see, it was the combination of the two things that people found objectionable. (I haven't read it or seen the film either; I'm going off other people's commentary here.) The criticism I read from a Holocaust education centre was to the effect of: it's important that people understand how the Holocaust happened in order to avoid such things happening again, and the story misrepresents relevant parts of "how the Holocaust happened", e.g. giving the impression that ordinary Germans didn't know the Holocaust was happening, and that the Jews were passive victims.

 

[BiscuitHammer]

I do that a lot. Or at least I reference such things as happening or that they have happened. I referenced the Toronto Bath House Raids in 1983 that was such a big motivator in galvanizing the Pride movement here. One of my gay characters was directly affected by it.

In at least the Alexaverse, I've decided Covid doesn't exist, because it would bungle the pace of the story. It might show in other stories, don't know yet.

I have no problem with referencing current events, even if my characters don't live them out directly. I'm not sure I've tackled a significant event in modern times that they are part of.

In Time Rider, it happens constantly, of course, but it's a comedy about time travel, so the references kinda necessary. Generally, though, I tend to avoid heavy subjects because the story is a comedy. That, and historically significant events are very hard to reach. You can sit on a hill with a picnic and watch the Battle of Tannenburg/Grunwald/Zalgris, but you're very unlikely to be able to attend the meeting of Henry Morton and Dr. David Livingstone. Likewise, I'm not sending my characters to Auschwitz in 1943. Not apropos to a comedy.

But since my stories take place in a reality based at least very closely on the real world and its events, I'm very inclined to tackle or at least reference said events.

 

[PennameWombat]

Naval military history is a very interesting but probably underappreciated topic. In World WarII, the United States was able to project power across not just one but two oceans, likely something no other country had previously done before, especially at that scale.

The US Fifth/Third Fleet (main US Pacific fleets after 1943 in the Pacific) is held to be the largest single fleet in naval history. It had over 500 warships at its peak, including almost 20 fleet (largest) carriers (as a note, the US has 11 fleet carriers today, and close to max 30 in all fleets in WWII), escort and other 'baby' carriers, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, etc. That didn't count all of the oil tankers and supply ships that maintained supply lines to and from the mainland United States, Australia and other sources of men and supplies. When under command of Adm. Raymond Spruance, it was the Fifth Fleet; under Adm. William Halsey it was Third Fleet. They alternated approximately every six months. At the same time, Seventh Fleet under Adm. Thomas Kincaid, was supporting Gen. Douglas MacArthur's push toward the Philippines. Halsey's recklessness during the Battle of Leyte Gulf almost led to disaster for the US when he left Kincaid's baby carriers exposed. Extraordinary destroyer attacks against Japanese capital ships and a premature withdrawal by Adm. Kurita saved Seventh Fleet and the invasion force.

AND, at the same time, the D-Day landings in June, 1944, had over one thousand ships, many of them allied forces and not US forces. At the same time, US Fifth Fleet in the Pacific was engaged in the Marianas Islands campaign.

To digress a bit, I wonder how many Americans now have even heard of the Battle of the Coral Sea. Jay Leno inspired many imitators of his person-in-the-street interviews, and the lack of historical knowledge (among that things) that they often find is amazing.

It actually seems worse than when Leno was doing it a while back. He did find much the same thing, however. He asked similar questions about the Civil War, "who is the vice-president now?" and so forth.

What I've never been able to discover is how many people they (Leno or this dude) talk to before finding these, uh, shining examples of the modern education system. Or, more likely, examples of people who just don't look outside their immediate view. I'd like to know that ratio.

 

[gunhilltrain]

The US Fifth/Third Fleet (main US Pacific fleets after 1943 in the Pacific) is held to be the largest single fleet in naval history. It had over 500 warships at its peak, including almost 20 fleet (largest) carriers (as a note, the US has 11 fleet carriers today, and close to max 30 in all fleets in WWII), escort and other 'baby' carriers, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, etc. That didn't count all of the oil tankers and supply ships that maintained supply lines to and from the mainland United States, Australia and other sources of men and supplies. When under command of Adm. Raymond Spruance, it was the Fifth Fleet; under Adm. William Halsey it was Third Fleet. They alternated approximately every six months. At the same time, Seventh Fleet under Adm. Thomas Kincaid, was supporting Gen. Douglas MacArthur's push toward the Philippines. Halsey's recklessness during the Battle of Leyte Gulf almost led to disaster for the US when he left Kincaid's baby carriers exposed. Extraordinary destroyer attacks against Japanese capital ships and a premature withdrawal by Adm. Kurita saved Seventh Fleet and the invasion force.

AND, at the same time, the D-Day landings in June, 1944, had over one thousand ships, many of them allied forces and not US forces. At the same time, US Fifth Fleet in the Pacific was engaged in the Marianas Islands campaign.

What I've never been able to discover is how many people they (Leno or this dude) talk to before finding these, uh, shining examples of the modern education system. Or, more likely, examples of people who just don't look outside their immediate view. I'd like to know that ratio.

Yes, the United States had so many ships after the war that it didn't know what to do with them all. Quite a few were mothballed, some permanently I think.

There were, what, three Montana-class battleships that were not finished? Well, everybody knew the battleship was becoming obsolete by then. Two of the older battleships, I think it was the Nevada and the Pennsylvania (both veterans of Pearl Harbor) were used during the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. There is a video on YouTube about that. I suppose it must have been, well, fun to assemble a fleet of ships and then blow them up - twice, no less. Actually, most of the ships survived better than had been expected.

Leno et al. of course edit their videos, but they go out so often that they must know that they'll get the results they're looking for. I'm not sure there ever was a "golden age" of education, although some claim there was. It's possible that human beings in general are not interested in anything outside of their own view.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Harry Turtledove has made a long and very successful career from taking a real event, with the associated real people, and tweaking it just a bit, and going from there. In How Few Remain, he reimagines a key moment from the US Civil War and through subsequent books lays out an alternate history of the world (the Civil War ends in a stalemate and splits the CSA from the US) from the 1860s through "World War II" (yeah, they happen, sorta). All of the expected historical people are there, but many (such as Lincoln, Grant, Lee, George Custer and George Patton, still president and military men) serve in different ways, but their personalities are in line with known information.

There's even an award for alternate history, the Sidewise Award.

Given the rules here, how much of this you could do, I'm not sure. My Mel's Universe stories are similar from the point of view of starting in our 1960s and throwing in, um, aliens . Well... secret aliens. But given most stories have to be set SOMEWHERE, and most of them are on Earth... well, we can't avoid reality. But besides being less well-written as Turtledove's work, my stories also don't explicitly tie in real-world goings-on from the era in any specific way.

Turtledove has the South win the Civil War twice, one by having time travelers bringing them AK-47s, I think (it's all in one volume). The other version I think starts in 1914 and the series ends (finally) in 1945. I couldn't finish all of that. Turtledove may be a good historian (I believe he has a doctorate in Byzantine history) but he is a mediocre writer. He tends to repeat the attributes of his characters constantly - like the naval guy who gets sunburned easily. Also, his books may be long but most of his scenes are too short. They often end just when things are getting interesting.

 

[PennameWombat]

Turtledove has the South win the Civil War twice, one by having time travelers bringing them AK-47s, I think (it's all in one volume).

That's "Guns of the South," time-travelling South Africans deliver AK47s to Robert E. Lee. Yes, single volume.

The other version I think starts in 1914 and the series ends (finally) in 1945. I couldn't finish all of that. Turtledove may be a good historian (I believe he has a doctorate in Byzantine history) but he is a mediocre writer. He tends to repeat the attributes of his characters constantly - like the naval guy who gets sunburned easily. Also, his books may be long but most of his scenes are too short. They often end just when things are getting interesting.

Correct about his PhD. The whole series is called 'Southern Victory,' consists of eleven (yup, 11) books, and covered the period from 1862 through 1945. It's beyond a door stopper. It's classified as a stand-alone (the first book), then two trilogies followed by a tetralogy. The man is nothing if not prolific.

No, I haven't read the whole thing... Not that dedicated.

I enjoyed reading his 'Worldwar' series back in the late 1990s, (alien invaders arrive in the middle of WWII), but I definitely didn't read seven books... They're all long gone (I dumped most of my library when I moved across an ocean) so I don't even remember now what I read.

 

[lilshymynx]

. Halsey's recklessness during the Battle of Leyte Gulf almost led to disaster for the US when he left Kincaid's baby carriers exposed. Extraordinary destroyer attacks against Japanese capital ships and a premature withdrawal by Adm. Kurita saved Seventh Fleet and the invasion force.

I know this book!

Your conclusions were all wrong, Ryan,..Halsey acted stupidly.

Sorry, couldn't resist...Ramius is bae.

 

[gunhilltrain]

That's "Guns of the South," time-travelling South Africans deliver AK47s to Robert E. Lee. Yes, single volume.

Correct about his PhD. The whole series is called 'Southern Victory,' consists of eleven (yup, 11) books, and covered the period from 1862 through 1945. It's beyond a door stopper. It's classified as a stand-alone (the first book), then two trilogies followed by a tetralogy. The man is nothing if not prolific.

No, I haven't read the whole thing... Not that dedicated.

I enjoyed reading his 'Worldwar' series back in the late 1990s, (alien invaders arrive in the middle of WWII), but I definitely didn't read seven books... They're all long gone (I dumped most of my library when I moved across an ocean) so I don't even remember now what I read.

"Guns of the South" is actually pretty good because he reined himself in and maintained a relatively compact timeline. (It all takes place in less than a year?) So that allows him to develop scenes properly and not jump around so much (one of his worst writing faults). My favorite part is when the Confederates first use their new guns at the Battle of the Wilderness and win decisively. Turtledove obviously had studied the real battle, and thus was able to write a believable alternative history version of it.

But that other, thing - why was it called "Southern Victory" when the South loses in that version of World War I but they maintain their independence? Then in the World War II part (only read a few of the more interesting scenes by that point) they lose again and are finally absorbed back into the Union. I know, they win the "Civil War" back in the 1860s, which is quite a bit shorter than the real war. At least he didn't try to make it longer.

 

[PennameWombat]

I know this book!

Your conclusions were all wrong, Ryan,..Halsey acted stupidly.

Sorry, couldn't resist...Ramius is bae.

Bingo!

The whole series of decisions and incidents around the Battle of Samar and the broader Battle of Leyte Gulf (late October, 1944) and Halsey’s decisions have been subjects of vigorous debate even during the battle. In short, Halsey dismissed that a significant Japanese force was approaching Samar (VAdm. Kurita’s Center Force) and dismissed one Task Group (four fleet carriers + support warships) to sail for repairs and took the other three Task Groups (Task Force Thirty Four) north in pursuit of the Japanese ‘Northern Force,’ superficially powerful, with four aircraft carriers, but severely short of planes and pilots, although the US commanders didn’t know that at the time. Northern Force was meant to be sacrificed to draw Halsey away from Leyte Gulf and protecting Adm. Kincaid’s weaker Seventh Fleet and MacArthur’s invasion force on the Philippines.

It worked. Halsey took all of his fleet carriers (11) and all of his battleships (6) north…

I’ve always wondered how many people who read the book or saw the movie you quote[1] knew what Ryan and Ramius were discussing. The wildest bit was that during the heat of the Battle of Samar, Kincaid’s calls for help were received in Pearl Harbor, and Adm. Chester Nimitz, CiC, US Pacific Fleet (so Halsey’s boss, but not Kincaid’s, as the latter was under the command of Gen. Douglas MacArthur), sent a message asking Halsey, in essence, ”where are you?”

Of course, it was in code, and the practice was to lead and follow the actual message with somewhat random but readable phrases, to confuse enemy code breakers. But in this case, the snippet that followed the message was delivered to Halsey as part of the message and has become part of the historical record and an infamous example of communication errors. It thus read,

Turkey Trots to Water GG From Cincpac Action Com Third Fleet Info Cominch CTF Seventy-Seven X Where is, repeat, where is Task Force Thirty Four? RR The World Wonders.

The radio officer on Halsey’s flagship missed the ‘RR’ flagging the end of the actual message and kept the trailing phrase, “The World Wonders.” He did remove the front matter (“Turkey Trots to Water”). To say that the postscript sent Halsey into a mixture of screaming rage and sulking depression would be an understatement. But it did cause him to turn part of his force around, but he arrived too late to help off Samar. He also took it as direct criticism from Nimitz, who hadn’t intended it that way. Nimitz didn’t micro-manage his underlings.

In the immediate aftermath there was some feeling to dismiss Halsey. But, an issue. Who would replace him? Nimitz used the platoon (Spruance+Mincher and Halsey+McCain) because it’d proven too much for a single commander and his staff, and the invasions of Iwo Jima, Okinawa and the (assumed) landings on the home islands of Japan were still ahead (this last planned for November, 1945.) The only other likely candidates seemed to be Adms. Mincher or McCain, but the former was too important commanding the air wings and the latter was too new.

It’s not that Halsey was a poor commander, well, actually… he did sail his fleet into a typhoon. No, not a typhoon. Two different typhoons.

But mostly his aggression meshed well with Spruance’s deliberateness, but current analysis holds Spruance as the superior commander. Ironically, it was Halsey who sailed into Tokyo Bay and he received his fifth star (like US army generals, admirals normally have one to four stars, the fifth star was a wartime expediency) while Spruance didn’t. Halsey was also massively popular with the press, generally held in high regard by many common sailors (while Spruance was seen as more aloof) and Halsey was therefore well-known and popular with the American people. Dismissing him would’ve caused a significant brouhaha, in addition to the leadership vacuum. And many of the details, such as how close it’d come to disaster for the US, around the Battle of Samar weren’t immediately publicized.

P.S. A popular story about Adm. Halsey, that I’ve never been able to truly confirm, concerns ice cream. US sailors were allowed ice cream, and great effort was made to keep them supplied. Quite the effort in the tropics. One evening, there was a long line of sailors waiting for ice cream when two newly-arrived Ensigns fresh out Annapolis (US Naval Academy) tried to push to the front of the line, calling “make way for officers.” The story is that Halsey was patiently waiting in line with the sailors and told the Ensigns to “go to the back of the line.” Although, depending on the source, his language was colorful or very colorful. And, unlike most of the sailors in the line, there was little doubt Halsey outranked the Ensigns, considering he outranked everyone else in the Pacific theatre except MacArthur and Nimitz. The story is unclear if the Ensigns went to the back of the line or just decided they had better places to be at that moment. But it was emblematic of the way Halsey’s relationship with the sailors under his command was portrayed.

I know Ogg mentioned above using the Battle of the Coral Sea, so… here’s another one.

[1] “Hunt for Red October,” by Tom Clancy, of course. Book and movie (Alec Baldwin as Ryan and Sean Connery as Captain Marko Ramius).

 

[gunhilltrain]

That is an amazing amount of information. I perhaps knew ten-percent of it, at most.

I wonder if that ice-cream scene in Mister Roberts was somehow inspired by that incident. Actually, it was strawberries, but they were in a fridge, right? I looked up Thomas Heggen's bio and, although I was already pretty sure, of course he was in the Navy in the Pacific theater.

The USS Reluctant. That was quite funny.

 

[lilshymynx]

I’ve always wondered how many people who read the book or saw the movie you quote[1] knew what Ryan and Ramius were discussing.

I know it only because my dad told me while we were watching the movie one time. He was in the Navy and I'd watched enough war movies with him, especially Midway which was a favorite of his, to know WHO Halsey was, but not the why or how of his acting stupidly.