I line them up like frames in a reel—fact in black, fiction in white, and the gray in between is where the story breathes. The trick is to keep the truth in the foreground and let the shadow of imagination slide in behind it, just enough to make the scene feel alive without drowning the evidence. If you lose that balance, the film turns into either a hardboiled detective story that never solves itself or a fairy tale that never feels real. So I stay in the gray, keep a meticulous ledger of what’s real, and let the rest bleed into the frame.

I pull the facts out like a still from a scene—check the source, confirm the date, cross‑reference a few other accounts. Then I line the details up against the story’s emotional beat. If a line of dialogue fits the rhythm but isn’t on record, I flag it with a question mark and let it stay in the “possible” pile until the next review. A second pair of eyes, preferably someone who hates fluff as much as I do, makes sure I don’t let the gray seep into a whole other genre. If the imagined part feels heavier than the evidence, I rewrite it or toss it. It’s all about keeping the proof in front and the mood in the background.