historical fiction places imaginary characters into real historical events. in the early historical novel "waverley", sir walter scott's fictional character edward waverley meets a figure from history, bonnie prince charlie, and takes part in the battle of prestonpans. some works of fiction are slightly or greatly re-imagined based on some originally true story, or a reconstructed biography. often, even when the fictional story is based on fact, there may be additions and subtractions from the true story to make it more interesting. an example is tim o'brien's "the things they carried", a series of short stories about the vietnam war.