Fiction Is As Essential As Nonfiction

At that moment Jack reached an insight, one he never forgot: a bee in a story could tickle worse than a real bee. He realized, too, that a story peach could be sweeter than a real peach, a story flower more fragrant than a real flower, a story song more melodious than a real song. What existed in a story could be more real than what existed in the world. And by reaching this insight, Jack understood the true power of his art.

Storyteller by Edward Myers

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This isn't about what is . . . it's about what people think is. It's all imaginary anyway. That's why it's important. People only fight over imaginary things.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

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If they think it's the truth, then they believe it, and if they believe it long enough, then it becomes the truth.

The Facttracker by Jason Carter Eaton

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There is another kind of language, no less mysterious: It is called story. . . .

When human beings tell themselves as a story, they do so by arranging recalled events into some sort of plot. Designing a plot is an act of interpretation and, therefore, involves a particular reading of meanings, values, causalities, and so forth. Of course, the material selected (or omitted), the significance accorded particular happenings, and the "genre" of the story may well be determined by immediate self-assessment, for example, "I am a secret unsung genius," "I am a chronic impotent," "I am a healthy all-American winner." Human beings do tell themselves (and others) life stories and, through such stories, search personal meaning.

Now all the stories we are told come together and, along with our own mnemonic story line, become in consciousness "Our Story." Stories arrange past to present (although they may be entered at different points or be rearranged in recall), and end up with us where we are. Thus stories conjoin in consciousness to tell us who we are and where we are in the world: Stories give identity. . . . Words may name the world, but narrative consciousness tells us who we are and where in the world. Story confers identity. . . .

Storytelling is much more than an innocent diversion, because stories join together to tell us who we are and where. All of us have storied identity. . . .

Christian preaching tells a story and names a name. If narrative consciousness confers identity, then preaching transforms identity, converts in the truest sense of the word, by rewriting our stories into a God-with-us story. . . . What preaching may do is to build in consciousness a new "faith-world" in which we may live and love!

Homiletic: Moves and Structures by David Buttrick

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We live our narratives. The lived story is at the center of modern personality theory. The theory of neural computation, as we shall see later, shows how our brains not only permit this, but favor it. The typical roles played in narratives include Hero, Victim, and Helper. A doctor may not just be a doctor, but a Hero-doctor, saving people's lives. A housewife may see herself as a Victim-housewife, victimized by society's sexism. A nurse may see herself as the Helper to the Hero-doctor. Or as a Victim of Sexism in medicine. A president may see himself as a Hero rescuing a Victim-nation from a Villain-dictator. Or as leading a Battle of Good Against Evil. The roles in narratives that you understand yourself fitting give meanings to your life, including the emotional color that is inherent in narrative structures.

The very fact that we recognize these cultural narratives and frames means that they are instantiated physically in our brains. We are not born with them, but we start growing them soon, and as we acquire the deep narratives, our synapses change and become fixed. A large number of deep narratives can be activated together. We cannot understand other people without such cultural narratives. But more important, we cannot understand ourselves--who we are, who we have been, and where we want to go--without recognizing and seeing how we fit into cultural narratives.

We understand public figures by fitting them into such narrative complexes. That goes for politicians as well as celebrities. Indeed, we often understand the people we know that way as well. Who is that man or woman you met at the party last week? He or she is, for you, the complex of narratives or frames you (mostly unconsciously, as a matter of reflex) ascribe to him or her--sort of like a cartoon character. Those narratives are not unique to that person. You use the same simple ones over and over in different combinations for different people.

We know from cognitive science and neuroscience that such narratives are fixed in the neural circuits of our brains. We know that they can be activated and function unconsciously, automatically, as a matter of reflex. And just as we--automatically, without conscious control--see Anna Nicole and Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush in terms of such narratives, so we see ourselves as having only the choices defined by our brain's frames and cultural narratives. And we live out narrative choices made for us by our brains without our conscious awareness. . . .

The same part of the brain we use in seeing is also used in imagining that we are seeing, in remembering seeing, in dreaming that we are seeing, and in understanding language about seeing. The same is true of moving. The same parts of the brain used in really moving are used in imagining that we are moving, remembering moving, dreaming about moving, and in understanding language about moving. Mental "simulation" is the technical term for using brain areas for moving or perceiving, imagining, remembering, dreaming, or understanding language. It is mental simulation that links imaginative stories to lived narratives. . . .

In short, some of the same neural structure in the brain that is used when we live out a narrative is also used when we see someone else living out that narrative, in real life or on TV, or if we imagine it as when we are reading a novel. This is what makes literature and art meaningful. It is also what makes crossovers between reality, TV, and the Internet work. It is why Second Life can flourish on the Internet, with thousands of people finding real meaning in their second life that is not in their first. . . .

Language does not merely express identity; it can change identity. Narratives and melodramas are not mere words and images; they can enter our brains and provide models that we not merely live by, but that define who we are.

Language is an instrument of creativity and power, a means of connecting with people or alienating them, and a force for social cohesion or separation.

Language is sensual and aesthetic, with the power to woo or to repulse, to be beautiful or ugly, to be meaningful or banal.

Language has moral force; it can bring out the best in people and the worst. Memories are never just "stored"; they are always created anew. Language does not just evoke memories; it can change them and shape them, and thereby change history--the story of the past.

The Political Mind by George Lakoff

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But something magical happened to me when I went to Reardan.

Overnight I became a good player.

I suppose it had something to do with confidence. I mean, I'd always been the lowest Indian on the reservation totem pole - I wasn't expected to be good so I wasn't. But in Reardan, my coach and the other players wanted me to be good. They needed me to be good. They expected me to be good. And so I became good.

I wanted to live up to the expectations.

I guess that's what it comes down to.

The power of expectations.

And as they expected more of me, I expected more of myself, and it just grew and grew.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

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Girls have all the same parts, basically, and so much of how they look depends on the attitude, expectations, and obsessions of those who are looking at them.

King Dork by Frank Portman

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"Once upon a time," seven-year-old Jack told his sister Gwynne as she lay ill one autumn, "a girl named Gwynne caught a quail in a trap she'd set. But the quail cried out, 'Please! Set me free and I'll protect you for the rest of your days. You'll never be sick, for my magic feathers will heal you.' and the quail plucked a feather from his wing and gave it to Gwynne."

"Once upon a time," eight-year-old Jack told his brother Alfred, when Alfred fell into the well and floated, cold and frightened, far below in the water while Gwynne ran off to get help--"Once upon a time, Alfred fell into a well and waited for someone to come and pull him out. And while he was down there, Alfred heard a voice say, 'You! What are you doing in my well?' Terrified, Alfred stammered, 'W-w-who's there?' 'I am,' said the voice. 'I am Samantha, the water sprite who lives in this well.' 'Are you a good sprite?' Alfred asked nervously. 'Or an evil one?' Samantha replied, 'Oh, very good, and I'm here to help you. I'll teach you a song that will keep you warm until your rescuers arrive.'"

"Once upon a time," nine-year-old Jack told Father following Grandmother Hilda's death, "a woman named Hilda got sick, died, and left her son, Edmund, lonely and sad. So after the burial Edmund planted an oak tree over Hilda's grave. And the roots grew downward and hugged Hilda. And the tree pulled Hilda into itself and grew big and strong, so that Hilda was the tree and the tree was Hilda, with great limbs reaching outward toward everyone and everything. And Edmund often climbed the tree and rested among the branches, and in that way he never lacked for an embrace."

"Once upon a time . . . "

Storyteller by Edward Myers