True-crime storytelling: Crafting reality through fictional narrative devices

This article examines how long-form true crime storytelling operates at the intersection of documentary and drama through a comparative analysis of the Netflix docuseries The Staircase (2018) and its HBO dramatized adaptation The Staircase (2022). Situating both series within the contemporary streaming environment, the study explores how serial formats reshape narrative organisation, audience engagement and representational strategies across factual and fictional modes. Focusing on the structuring effects of long-form seriality, the analysis considers how narrative uncertainty, character-centred storytelling and sustained tension function across both texts, challenging established distinctions between documentary and drama. The article also addresses the ethical and representational consequences of adapting a documentary into scripted drama, particularly where the production process itself becomes part of the narrative. By examining these dynamics, the article contributes to debates on media hybridity and demonstrates how streaming-era true crime destabilizes genre boundaries and reshapes audience relationships to fact, fiction and the representation of real events.