documentary fiction

Documentary fiction blends factual material—real events, people, documents—with invented elements and narrative techniques typically associated with fiction.

Unlike pure documentary, it openly employs imagination to fill gaps or heighten drama; unlike historical fiction, it foregrounds its basis in verifiable reality.

The genre includes works like Truman Capote's *In Cold Blood* and films that dramatize actual events with composite characters or imagined dialogue: The movie takes a documentary fiction approach to the scandal.