Fact and fiction. As a writer of historical novels, I find it endlessly intriguing to play with how to entwine the two. History has always fascinated me—I find the grand tapestry of the past is woven with so many richly colorful and textured threads that help us understand the present. And so, I’ve always enjoyed adding real historical events and real historical figures to my stories, though, for the most part, they play the role of “secondary characters,” adding depth and nuance to a plot conceived entirely in my imagination.
However, I recently took on a book project—a fictional biography inspired by the extraordinary life of Lady Hester Stanhope, a larger-than-life woman from the Regency era—that demanded I change both my mindset and my writing process. And one of the reasons I did so was because I thought the challenge of looking at the craft of writing from a different perspective would be a really good learning experience and help me grow as a writer.
Truth and imagination. I’ve always been happy scribbling away at the stories that simply pop into my head. Part of the fun and creative energy for me is starting with an initial rough concept and then seeing each day how the characters and plot lines spin themselves into a finished book. (Full disclosure here, I am a total pantser, and I often surprise myself with the twists that the story takes.) So, I did some real soul-searching before I said yes to Lady Hester, wanting to be sure that I was willing to commit to what I knew would be a very different framework.
Different framework, different decisions
Unlike in my fiction, my main protagonist was already fully formed, and I immediately decided that I was going to stay as true as possible to Lady Hester’s actual life—a life which gave teeth to the old saw that truth is often stranger than fiction! Not only was she a remarkably strong-willed and independent-minded individual, with very modern ideas about what women could and couldn’t do, but her experiences intertwined with the lives of many of the leading luminaries of the era.
First a bit of backstory: She was born into one of Britain’s most illustrious and powerful family lines—the Pitts, the Stanhopes, and the Grenvilles intermarried over several generations, producing a dazzling array of brilliant political leaders, swashbuckling war heroes, and scientific geniuses. Eccentricity also ran in their blood.
What fascinated me about Lady Hester was the fact she considered herself as smart—or smarter—than the men in her family and was hell-bent to have the same opportunities as they did to prove it. A Sisyphean task in that era, if ever there was one, and yet she didn’t let the challenge crush her.
So, right away, the story arc had a very tightly defined structure, with the scenes all neatly spelled out, something my feeble pantser brain is incapable of doing when I write fiction. I simply had to choose a beginning and an end. And for me that was easy because there was a 10-year period in her life—ending with her leaving Britain, never to return—that for me defined how Lady Hester became Lady Hester.
Bringing the characters to life
More decisions! Now that I had a plot and an outline, I had to give my characters voice. In my fiction, that always feels like a given: third-person narrative, switching POVs between the two main protagonists to give the added advantage of interior thoughts/emotions in order to create layers of complexities. But Lady Hester had such a strong and unique voice for her time that she seemed to cry out for first person. And so, though it scared me (fear is good, right?), that’s the decision I made.
Luckily, given her famous family, a great many of her letters were preserved and are easily accessible as research resources. I was able to get a real sense of her character—her fierce opinions, her pithy sense of humor, her sense of loyalty to family, her passions and heartaches—from reading her own words.
That dealt with one can of worms, but opened up another: Lady Hester interacted with other real people, so I also had to bring them to life. And like with Lady Hester, I wished to do so with a modicum of accuracy. The history nerd in me finds research fun. I acquired a stack of scholarly biographies and more collections of letters, polished my reading glasses, and set to work.
Many of the secondary characters would serve as “pops of color” and so didn’t require extensive research. However, Lady Hester was incredibly passionate, both in her personal aspirations and in her longing for love, and so I felt that I really needed to understand the five central men in her life to do her story justice. Given that they were all famous, and their lives well-documented, I had plenty of material to help me paint a portrait of them in my mind’s eye.
I have an art background, so part of my research was looking at actual paintings of the main characters in the book, which I found illuminating. Sir Thomas Lawrence, the most famous portrait painter of the Regency era, has always been a great favorite of mine. He’s known for capturing both a physical and psychological likeness of his subjects, and I found it interesting to study the likenesses he created of Lady Hester’s two most important lovers. (It confirmed my feelings that one was a cad, and one was a knight in shining armor.)
Choices, choices
Even with a well-defined story arc and scenes, there were a lot of choices to make concerning plotting and pacing. In fiction, it feels easy to tweak, twist, cut, or jiggle whatever is necessary to keep readers engaged in the story. With a set narrative, I had to look through a different lens to see how to change certain rhythms without affecting relationships that couldn’t be altered. Again, a creative challenge that called for an unfamiliar approach.
The end game
And then there was the ending . . .
I’ve always tended to write happily ever afters. In my historical mysteries, Good triumphs over Evil. Yes, there are dark and angsty moments, but basically I like to leave readers feeling satisfied that Light has overpowered Darkness. This project was far more ambiguous.
As I said earlier, Lady Hester had taken on a Sisyphean task. Every aspect of her world was aligned against her dreams and aspirations. Society was never going to let her push that rock to the top. Time and again, it came rolling back down to flatten her. And yet, time and again she rose, phoenix-like, from the ashes of defeat and reformed herself to try anew. I was in awe of her courage, resilience, and steadfast refusal to give up on herself and her dreams. Though, a part of me thought that she would have been wise to learn more lessons from her uncle—one of Britain’s most legendary prime ministers—in the fine art of diplomacy.
That said, I found Lady Hester’s story inspiring, even though she didn’t get a happy ending. I thought about using artistic license to create a rosier picture than I ultimately did. But having made the decision to write an accurate account of her life when I began the project, I stuck with it, even though I know readers are more comfortable with a “satisfying” ending—a definition that is very personal, but usually has positive connotations.
I read a very interesting observation on this point by Ilyon Woo in the back matter/author notes of her book, Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey From Slavery to Freedom, winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Biography. It’s a mesmerizing narrative of Ellen and William Craft, an enslaved couple who made a daring escape from bondage in 1848 and went on to become famous abolitionists. Woo writes:
The absence of a happy ending may partly explain why the Crafts are not better known. Their story eludes easy celebration, resists closure. Yet it is precisely this complexity that remains the source of their enduring power—and why their story needs to be studied and celebrated. Through their audacious escape and daring lives, their restless improvisation, persistent innovation, inventive narration, for themselves and for others, the Crafts continually wrote and revised their own American love story.
I felt the same way about my protagonist, who refused to let her own story be defined by the naysayers.
In stepping outside my comfort zone, I learned a lot about my writing process and how I might make improvements. I’m trying to apply a more disciplined approach to my fiction, plotting from the lessons I learned in this fact/fiction hybrid project.
However, it’s still … um, a work-in-progress.
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