On the topic of historical 'fiction'- not real fiction, but fictionalization (via dramatization) of actual people and events is another category to discuss. When does it cross the line to become real fiction? Will we ever know? Laura Ingalls Wilder's books, though based on real people and events in her own life, are listed in the library as fiction, probably because it wasn't totally accurate and some things were added or subtracted to make it more interesting. The show of course took far greater liberties with the characters and their lives until Rodger MacBride, who was given the rights to Laura's stories, refused to be associated with it anymore. The same thing with the Waltons, they were real, but most of the episodes were not fact based. The creator who was 'John Boy' in real life didn't even write most of the episodes, and as years went by it became less and less what happened to the real family. These, of course, were for the benefit of the network.
What about Alex Haley's Roots? Haley spent years researching his family and writing the book and it was, like Laura's, based on real people and events. However, most of the people were dead, and all Alex really had to go on were a few names, records and old family stories. Does this make a whole thick book and two long miniseries, or were they, like "Little House" and "Waltons", dramatized and exaggerated to make them more interesting? How much of what he wrote was real, and how much was 'fill in the blanks?' I heard once years ago that some people wanted Haley's book moved to nonfiction for this reason. He really didn't know everything that happened, so surely most of what we read and saw in the show was only assumed and written more like a novel. Do we really know that Dr. Reynolds' wife slept with his brother, or was this made up? Some of the details he even tried to make accurate turned out to be wrong. Much is made of Kunta Kinte being a Muslim, praying to Allah and refusing to eat 'pig meat', yet in reality, the Mandinka tribe was not converted to Islam until the 1850's, and Kunta was taken to America in the 1760's. So he would have been a member of a tribal religion instead. Could this influence have come from Haley's own experience with Malcolm X, whose bio he penned? The fact remains, it was inaccurate yet presented as truth. The list could go on and on, but my question is, when does a true story become historical fiction based on the amount of 'added info' along the way?
*for the record, I am a HUGE fan of Roots, Little House, and the Waltons so I am NOT bashing!