Ranulfism Tee

Term to describe irritating practice where writers of historical novels invent characters and place them at the very centre of real events....they know all the important characters, "just happen" to be in the right place at the right time so that we can see key events through their eyes.... Basically the Ranulfistic character is an indulgence on the part of the writer, allowing them to "play God" and insert a made-up individual into the heart of real events. This partly excuses them from the real work of historical fiction i.e. breathing life into REAL historical characters and dramatising the facts of their lives by weaving said facts with "best guesses" / imaginations of what their lives must have been like, why they did the things they did etc. In many cases historical fact is far more interesting than fiction. Ranulfism is a cop-out if you are writing about interesting characters and events.