On Writing : How do you fit your story into real historical events? by Olga Burkova

Hello everyone.

I’m currently working on my screenplay “The Diary and the Watch”. It’s a historical drama about a British industrialist, with the story unfolding against the backdrop of the Titanic disaster and the First World War. My aim is to build a fictional narrative on top of real historical events, and along the way I’ve often run into moments where an idea simply couldn’t be executed because it didn’t fit the logic or the actual history. I’ve had to rethink situations, adjust the plot and find solutions to those narrative challenges — especially anything connected to the war and the front. As a result, the early draft is very different from what the story is becoming now. That didn’t upset me — quite the opposite. It’s genuinely fascinating to revisit certain characters and their actions: at first you judge one of them, and then you realise he couldn’t have acted any other way.

Alongside this, you end up exploring the inner life of your protagonist and the way various historical events shape him — the sinking of the Titanic and the war. How all of this affects his life and the choices he must make between personal feelings and duty. Who he was at the beginning and who he becomes by the end. It’s almost like writing two different versions of the same man. An important part of the research for me has also been understanding public attitudes towards homosexuality in early 20th-century Britain, and how those social norms restricted the protagonist’s personal life and the choices available to him.

I’d be really interested to hear whether you’ve written books or screenplays based on real historical events, especially wartime stories. How did you shape your idea to fit the actual history? Have you ever had to change plot points or adjust the chronology so you wouldn’t break historical logic? And how did real events transform your characters? And how did you experience those moments with your characters?