A reliable account can be less dramatic because it refuses to pretend all the gaps are filled.

Careful accounts sound less exciting than confident ones. Someone who marks what they do not know, names the guesswork and leaves the gaps visible will always be less gripping than someone telling a seamless story. The seamlessness is usually the invention. What you are hearing when a report seems a little flat is often the sound of accuracy.

Notice how a person handles the part of a story they could not possibly know. When you are the one reporting, say plainly where the record stops instead of smoothing it over.