Approaches to biography (degree of authenticity):
- Authentic biography -- attempts to convey the factual information of a person’s life ; does not include any unsupported facts, facts unsupported by reliable research; rarely includes dialogue--unless taken from letters or diaries or reliable personal recollections.
- Fictionalized biography -- dramatizes events; creates dialogue and scenes to make the story more interesting; good fictionalized biography will not creates scenes that did not happen.
- Biographical fiction -- pure fanciful invention with only passing regard to the historical facts.