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Q&A What is the difference between a novel and a documentary [non-fiction]?

Sometimes it may be difficult to tell if a book is based on real events, but often the book makes this explicit. "Documentary" is a term generally applied to films, not books. But there are books...

posted 10y ago by Neil‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T03:52:13Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/14412
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T03:52:13Z (almost 5 years ago)
Sometimes it may be difficult to tell if a book is based on real events, but often the book makes this explicit.

"Documentary" is a term generally applied to films, not books. But there are books based on true events, and they're generally just called "non-fiction". There may be references to "novelistic form" or "literary non-fiction" to describe a book in novel form--i.e., with description and dialog, treating the story and people as plot and characters.

"Novel" is generally used to describe a fictional book. Novels may be based on real events to varying degrees. They may even be extremely thinly disguised.

The only way to know the difference is how the book is described: It may be shelved as fiction or non-fiction. There may be clue in the introduction. But how closely a novel is based on real events isn't always known.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2014-11-12T21:01:42Z (about 10 years ago)
Original score: 2