Yes, that's a good point. I think where the debate came from was when the authors DO take it beyond the "actual life" aspect, to the truly fictional story, but take it too far to be entertaining, because it's far too obscure. They do make the "unbelievable believable", as you so eloquently put it, but then they take it a step further into making the "believable unbelievable". This is where the actual topic originated.