Artistic Licence

When writing a novel, how much artistic licence do you think you have over certain things in your story?

For example, over the last couple of days I've been writing the beginnings of a novel which I have titled My Name is my Bond. The main plot was to do with the daughter of James Bond, legendary spy for the British Secret Intelligence Service who is no longer alive. Alexa, his daughter, has lived at Winchester Academy, a boarding school, for as long as she can remember and knows nothing about her family and if she has any relatives. Then one day a lady, known only to Alexa as 'M', comes to the school to reveal that she knew her father (Bond) and that the BSIS are the mystery benefactors to Alexa. M, over the years, has seen a lot of potential in Alexa to become a top spy, like her father, and wants to her join a special program of elite young adults who are training to become world class spies.

Obviously James Bond is a character that has been created by Ian Fleming. Do I have any right in using him, or would this be deemed as fan fiction?

My main concern is time frame and ages. Since in the Bond films we don't actually know how old Bond is, I did some research on the book character, and according to Ian Fleming he was born in the 1920s. Now this doesn't exactly tie in with what I have, because that means when my MC, Alexa, was born (1993), James Bond would be in his late sixties. So do I have the artistic licence to have James Bond being born later, so that he was in his late 30s when Alexa was born?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

I'm pretty sure that with any usage of someone elses characters or specific ideas, you would definitely need to contact them or whoever holds the copyright in order to gain permission to use them. But that's only if you were to publish. If it's just for your own entertainment and satisfaction, it wouldn't matter at all.

You could also consider having Alexa be a descendent of Bond (his granddaughter?) which would fix the age issue, or changing the time frame of the story to fit Bond's age.

This is fanfiction! If you want to publish this, you'll need to talk with those who own this franchise. Otherwise, as long as you don't write for any profit, you'll be okay.