I don't mean “true” in the sense of verifiably correct – that's bureaucracy. I mean “true” as in something inside me nods quietly as I read.
A nod that doesn't always know why it nods. It just does.
An inner “yes,” sometimes tentative, sometimes with a fist on the table.
Not because it's “true” in a verifiable sense. But because it feels real.
Alive.
It's not objective.
It's not logical.
It's... well, true.
Of course, stories can be checked for their truthfulness—there are experts for that. Historians. Fact checkers. Mothers-in-law.
But what makes a story true for you—and for me?
Maybe that's the difference between “true” and “truth.”
Sounds confusing? Great. Then you've come to the right place. 😉
We can sense when a story is “true.”
Because it tells us something we can't explain, but understand immediately. A story is true when it moves something inside us that was already there before we read the words.
Where does this knowledge come from—this sense of when something feels “real”?
I think it's because of the way we think—or rather, the nature of our thinking.
Terry Pratchett called it the narrativium – an element that doesn't appear on any periodic table, but is at work in every story and memory.
We are narrative beings. Stories aren't just something we make up – they are the medium through which we understand the world in the first place.
An example: memory artists.
People who can remember hundreds of details don't do so by “just” storing them – they make connections. They invent images, scenes, little stories.
And suddenly, what seems complex is much simpler than the bare facts.
Why?
Because our minds are not built for raw information. They want context. Meaning. Connection.
My wife's father called it “photos with context.”
He never photographed landscapes on their own – there always had to be at least one person in the picture.
Not for aesthetic reasons. But for the sake of memory.
And that's it.
A story without context is like a photo of some beach. Pretty.
But arbitrary.
As soon as someone is in it—someone we know, want to get to know—or something we feel a connection to—then it becomes meaningful. And with that, true.
Not in the sense of measurable. But in the sense of tangible.
Even when it comes to purple spongy creatures on a distant planet.
If I just write that they exist – okay. Shrug.
But if I say that one of these creatures, let's call it Aio, comes from a colony deep down in a crater...
And that it has fallen in love with another creature, Loi, who lives at the very top of the rim – in the light...
Then suddenly there's something there.
Something I recognize. Something that speaks to me.
A desire. A boundary. A journey.
And damn, now I want to know if Aio manages to leave the crater.
If Loi even knows that Aio exists.
And if spongy creatures perhaps also write love letters.
Because what did Archimedes say?
Give me a fixed point and a lever, and I will move the world.
Because if a story is to be true for us, it must have both:
A point of reference—and a sentence that is long enough.
Give me a character I can feel with—
and a story that gives them a background—
and I can lift your universe off its hinges.
Metaphorically speaking. Archimedes approved.
Then we don't just read the story.
Then we actually experience it.
Then it becomes true—while we read it.
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