I have frequently come across a hybrid beast in the historical fiction woods that calls itself a biographical novel. That is, it is essentially the story of a real person’s life, but it has been, to one extent or another, fictionalized. Permit me—not as a history professional but as a reader — to scream aloud in pain.
So what’s the problem? Is it historicity?
My problem is not the reality-vs-fiction line. Very few authors openly deform a person’s known life. The fictional element generally lies in putting thoughts in the protagonist’s head, words in their mouth. The author creates dialog where we cannot know what was said. This is legitimate. A good example of doing this successfully is any of Jeff Shaara’s books about the Civil War. They are so accurate and full of well-documented detail that a reader comes away having learned an enormous amount about the War. Yet they are fiction.
But they are not biographies. They chronicle a protagonist responding to a particular moment in his life.
Obviously, the writer of a biography wants her book to be just as compelling, as humanizing as fiction. In fact, that may be the reason authors use the format “fictional biography” rather than simply “biography.” It makes more interesting reading. And if we think of the result as creative nonfiction, perhaps it can be justified. But historians won’t let that sort of work call itself nonfiction. So we have created a new category.
Or is it structure?
The more serious objection to biographical novels is that these authors have not chosen to take an episode from the historical person’s life and fictionalize it.
A famous person’s life is often inspiring, always interesting… in places. It may have character arc; it may have a theme or moral. There is inevitably conflict. It’s a story, no question. But a person’s life doesn’t have a plot. No. No plot. Just write a biography and call it a biography.
A novel, unless it is experimental in format, does have a plot. It also has a character arc for the protagonist; it usually has a theme. It has conflict. But above all, the novel has a plot. Everything else about it is focused on that. Its cast of characters is generally limited, and it concentrates on one or a few events that are tied to together at the end in a satisfying conclusion.
In short, while the novel and the story of a life are overlapping genres, they are not the same.
No equation
A biography—fictional or historical—is not a novel. Now, we all know that a really, really skillful writer can pull off anything, so I won’t pretend that this mythical beast can never appear. But it’s the exception that proves the rule. A life has no plot, and hence it is not a novel, even if fictionalized. I have read several of these “biographical novels” recently, one in English and one in another language, and in both cases there was a moment of intense interest up front, while the character was involved in a gripping moment of their life. The prince fights for his throne. The court lady struggles to maintain the king’s interest. But soon, it all fell away into the flabby, episodic rest-of-their-life. Warring and whoring for the prince. Wandering and intriguing for the lady. A whole new cast of characters for every episode. No tying anything together. No lesson learned.
No novel.
