Documentary non-fiction interiority is secondhand testimony, not authorial invention.

Evidence

The thoughts and feelings of the characters as described in the narrative are based on what they told me they thought and felt, or what they described as their thoughts and feelings in transcribed court proceedings. I attempted whenever possible to verify one person’s recollection of an event with another’s, and where memories diverged I chose what I believed to be the most plausible and trustworthy account. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action, 3170

Categorization

• DEFINE: Names the ethical line between reconstructing reported feeling and fabricating it — the constraint that distinguishes narrative non-fiction from the novel.
• XREF: Connects to A Midwife’s Tale, where Laurel Thatcher Ulrich similarly builds a life from a diary and must weigh one account against another.