Adapting Real History Without Exploitation

D. Vincent Delorenzo

If I can't verify it twice, I write the silence and let the reader feel the gap.

Clara Wren

That sets the bar, doesn't it? Welcome back to The Writer’s Lantern, craft you can use today. I’m Clara Wren.

D. Vincent Delorenzo

And I’m D. Vincent DeLorenzo. We’re digging into adapting real events without, well, trampling on the people who actually lived them. Not always easy in the heat of a good story.

Clara Wren

Yeah, we’ll pull examples from your novel, Unyielding. Let’s keep this practical—not just vibes, right?

D. Vincent Delorenzo

Right, so we should start with the ground rules. Five pillars for ethical adaptation—the things that keep you honest through the mess. First: Purpose. One clear sentence—what does this book promise, really? Who is it meant for, and honestly, who could it hurt if you’re careless? I keep my version of this literally taped above my desk. If I stray, it’s staring me down.

Clara Wren

That’s pretty... literal. Pillar two: Sources.

D. Vincent Delorenzo

I get a bit obsessive here. You gotta keep a live source log. Every claim—big or small—I slap it with a code: A if I’ve got two solid independent sources, B for a single primary you really trust, C if it’s wobbly or contested or, you know, just one odd letter in the back of an archive somewhere. And I always mark where I found it, page number, archive, timestamp, the whole kit.

Clara Wren

And then boundaries. This is where it gets sticky.

D. Vincent Delorenzo

Yup, what you keep, what you cut. As a rule—privacy for anyone still living, just as a default. And then, before letting any graphic detail through, I really stop and ask: does this show something important about the stakes or the system, or is it... just spectacle? If it’s the latter, out it goes. If it stays, I make myself say why, aloud. That’s not easy, honestly. Sometimes you realize, yeah, this isn’t helping anyone but my own sense of drama.

Clara Wren

Compression versus composite, next. I always mix this one up. Is compression—shrinking time, and composite—merging people?

D. Vincent Delorenzo

You got it. Compression, like, two weeks shrink into one chapter, but I’ll add a note so readers aren’t led astray. Composite is when you blur two or more real people into a single character. If you go that route—and I don’t do it all that often—be straight about it in your notes, and only if you’re sure you’re not harming anyone by flattening them into an archetype.

Clara Wren

Last one: Voice and Distance.

D. Vincent Delorenzo

Let the real stuff do the heavy lifting. I’ll try to put objects first—ropes, logbooks, the heavy brass of a lantern, or the scraping of an oar. Keep adjectives at arm’s length, and for godsake, don’t add a modern moral. No hindsight sermons from the narrator. Let the reader do their own reckoning.

Clara Wren

You mentioned that promise taped to your desk—what did that actually say for Unyielding?

D. Vincent Delorenzo

Oh, yeah—it just read: “Remember who gets hurt.” One line. No names, just a reminder that someone, somewhere, might be alive to see themselves in this book. Honestly, it’s easy to forget those tiny, private intentions once the plot heats up.

Clara Wren

Sort of like the silent things guiding the story. Readers never see them, but they shape everything else... That intention—it’s integrity under the hood, isn’t it?

Clara Wren

Alright, practical time. What’s... in the kit? I mean, if you had to give someone five tools for writing real history without stepping on toes, what would you pick?

D. Vincent Delorenzo

First is Silence on the Page. If evidence is missing or sources fight each other—just say so. Don’t patch over it or invent a fix. I’ll literally write, “No record survives for this night,” or, “Reports differ, and the logbooks are lost.” That silence isn’t just a gap. It’s honest. It signals the reader, and—sometimes—that’s where they do their own thinking.

Clara Wren

So you don’t, like, varnish reality to look tidy. You let the mess sit there a bit?

D. Vincent Delorenzo

Exactly. Second—Fact Cards. One claim, one card. I color code—A, B, C, just like the source log. Sometimes I’ll tack them up on a corkboard, scene by scene, to track what’s rock-solid and what’s foggy as hell.

Clara Wren

Kind of like sequencing with index cards, like we talked about last time for poetry, except the stakes are facts now, not feelings.

D. Vincent Delorenzo

Yep! Third, the Harm Heat Map. Every scene, I score on a one-to-five scale—how likely am I to cause real harm if it’s read by someone who lived it or their people? If any scene comes in at a four or five, that’s my signal: pause, run a “dignity check,” and put it in front of a second, trusted reader before it ever sees print.

Clara Wren

What’s a dignity check actually look like?

Clara Wren

Let’s put this in the field. Give us a real example—the messiest research knot you hit for Unyielding.

D. Vincent Delorenzo

Alright—weather, of all things. For a key scene late in the book, different reports argued about which way the wind actually blew during the evacuation. Logbooks said one thing, eyewitness letters another. I spent way too many hours—felt like entire nights—flipping through old river charts and newspapers, just hoping for that perfect answer. Never got it. My gut said: silence was safer than speculation. In the final draft, I just showed what could be proved. The lamp covers clattered, the mooring lines snapped, flares went up at a certain time. But I never pinned down the wind’s direction—just wrote the uncertainty into the end notes for the reader to see.

Clara Wren

So you trusted the objects again, yeah? The action lives through what you could actually confirm, and then you left a signpost in the end matter for anyone who wants to peek behind the curtain.

D. Vincent Delorenzo

Exactly. I think that’s the best deal you can offer: you’re honest about the gaps. Readers don’t need you to play God; they want you to walk the tightrope with them. I mean, I learned that the hard way. I remember one night—three cups of coffee in, desk covered in old logbooks—when I finally let myself admit: not knowing is sometimes the most honest thing you can write.

Clara Wren

There's a weird trust in ambiguity, isn’t there? The reader senses it when you don’t overpromise. And—I guess, just like we talked about in our “Ashes in the Rain” episode, restraint can sometimes be its own kind of mercy.

D. Vincent Delorenzo

Yeah, mercy for the story, the history, and yourself. Quiet on the page isn’t a cop out—it’s an invitation. And hey—if any of you listening try these ideas out, or get stuck in the gray zones, let us know. We’re still learning too.