Novels About Real People

Any thoughts about this as a genre? I can't even think of any examples. The best one that comes to mind is The Girls being about the Manson family, but even then names and some details were changed.

I've only been musing about it because I've been toying with expanding Grace into a longer work.

Obviously there are tons of narrative films about real people, it's curious that there isn't quite the same crossover with books. And if I wanted to expand my short story into a longer work, do you think I could be successful? Or should I reframe how I've thinking about the story?

I did a quick google search for 'books based on true stories' and came up with a fair few results, but they're based on other people, rather than being about them.

I guess maybe the issue with this genre is that if you're writing about some currently living then you'd have a whole bunch of legal issues to get around (which is usually why writers change so many details.) Usually they come in the form of biographies or memoirs.

There are probably more stories of that kind in historical fiction since writing about historical figures doesn't really come with the same consequences. Phillipa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl (and her other works,) Tracy Chevalier's Girl with the Pearl Earing, and Shan Sa's Empress are a few that come to mind. Arthor Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha is another one, but I heard somewhere that it was based on several people written as a single account.

As for Grace, the concept of it is great, I think it would be quite easy to turn that into something longer. At the moment it's very short so there's a lot you can do with it.

I was pretty sure that a lot of movies are based on books that are based on true stories- like the Hunger Games for instance. (LOL did you think I was crazy for a minute there? ) HG aside, I thought that's what it was like a lot?

Wasn't Mary Poppins based on a book that was based around a real person? (Obviously not the magic stuff) I mean, there's lots of memoirs, and things like that that are technically kinda novels. And there's those other ones- biographies that are written about people's lives. There's books about famous people- like Anne Frank, which they turned into a novel from doing lots of research (I hope).

I mean, just look up "writing contests" and you'll see that most of the ones around are either looking specifically for non-fiction (which can really only be about real people I'd assume), or have non-fiction as an option.

I don't like writing non-fiction myself, but it can be very interesting, if the person you're writing about had something interesting happen to them. Fir instance I think Steven King is writing in the wrong genre- I love his non-fiction, and am not a huge fan of his fiction.

There's actually a YA novel coming out next year called Blood Sweat Paint by Joy McCullough and it's a fictional story about a real painter (Artemisia Gentileschi). I'm sure I could find more YA examples if I dug a little more. I think it works and can be really cool if it's about a real, historical person.

I think it gets a little more grey if it's about a person you know personally. For example, Crank by Ellen Hopkins, the main character struggles with a meth addiction and Hopkins has said that the character is based off of her own daughter. I personally love the Crank series and I think the fact that Hopkins used her daughter's story as inspiration for the books makes them more powerful. But as the writer, you would have to make sure the person was comfortable with you using their story and that it wouldn't damage your relationship in some way, you know? And I think no matter if it's a person you know or a historical person, great care would have to be taken to make sure you're portraying the person as authentically as possible and being true to their story and experience, which would be tough to do well!

Well, in my case, I'd be writing about Grace Kelly, who is long dead, but she's stil someone I respect and admire and is important to a lot of people, so I definitely would want it to be as authentic as possible. Thanks for the advice!