Write a short play that focuses on a key event in the subject of your "docu-novella." Model it after a medieval saints' play, such as The Conversion of St. Paul (Digby), or a secularized, modern equivalent, such as Stanley Booth's one-act play on bluesman Robert Johnson, "Standing at the Crossroads."
In Medieval Drama, David Bevington describes the variety of individuals honored by saints' plays.
At first glance, the saint's play or conversion play would appear to be a clearly definable genre. Karl Young speaks of it simply as "the dramatization of a legend setting forth the life or martyrdom or miracles of a saint" (Drama of the Medieval Church, II, 307). One difficulty, however, is that the term "saint" can refer to very different sorts of persons: prophets, disciples, members of the Holy Family, eminent philosophers or scholars, martyrs, and the like. Some are legendary figures while some are biblical and historical personages. . . . Many saints' plays of the sensationally romantic variety have survived from the Continent, especially from France. (See Grace Frank, The Medieval French Drama.) In England as well, records indicate the existence at one time of plays honoring Saints Catherine, John the Baptist, Clara, Feliciana, Margaret, Lucy, Tewdricus, Thomas a Becket, and others. (1975: 661-62)In a word, then, the saints' play serves our purposes in two ways. First, it shows us how to combine invented and historical material to produce an entertaining drama. Second, it grants us the freedom to build drama from collective "memories" about a person. Stanley Booth's drama clearly illustrates how a dramatist can work off the mythologies that collect around a legendary figure.