Stories Are More Important Than Facts

In History

When thinking about the past, even when recording historical events, we think in narratives.
I've been a fan of Jonathan and Matheau Pageau for years now, and I've adobted their idea that reality unfolds in nested stories, or what Jonathan might call superstructures.

I experienced this firsthand while creating stories about my dad to share with my kids.
I had so many memories, good and bad, but many of the raw facts weren’t relevant or appropriate.
As I started writing what would become a small app, I realized I was framing the facts of who my father was for my kids.
Maybe some facts will be lost to time, but they'll remember their grandpa playing The Legend of Zelda on the NES, or feeding squirrels PB&J sandwiches at the park.

History doesn’t remember what color shirt George Washington wore when he crossed the Delaware.
Not because he went shirtless, but because that detail doesn’t serve the story.
We remember him as brave, heroic, victorious. Not because of granular data, but because of the story.

In Daily Life

Most of our decisions aren't based purely on facts.
Even when presented with raw data, we form stories to interpret it.
That’s literally the job of a data analyst: to take numbers and tell a story about what's happening.

In our daily lives, we say things like:
“Just my luck…” or “I had a feeling that would happen!”
We’re not delusional. We’re pattern recognizers. We find meaning, even if that meaning isn’t factual, and use it to navigate life.
It’s instinctive. Even animals do it.

In Planning

Plans are stories too.
They organize facts, but they aren’t guaranteed outcomes.
When plans fall apart, we rewrite the story.
“It’ll work out next time.” or “Nothing ever goes right.”
Both are narratives.

Some stories are fiction. They’re not based on facts.
Some are fables. They aren’t factual, but they still hold truth.
Take The Three Little Pigs. It’s not real, but it teaches something real: prepare in advance, and you'll be able to weather hardship.
You don’t need to find evidence of three pigs building houses to understand the lesson.

So do facts matter? Of course they do.
But facts serve the story, not the other way around.

My Latest Projects

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with new ways to create and share stories.
After building the “Grandpa Stories” app for my kids, I built a fuller version called Kintales (check it out on my work page).
I learned a lot, but oddly enough, my kids liked the first version better.
It had a personal feel the second version lacked.

My wife, a conversation designer, came up with a new idea: help kids write their own stories using simple prompts.
We’re calling it promptshorty.
Our daughter has already used it to write stories, often inserting herself into existing ones.
Fan fiction.
So far, so good.

The goal is simple: teach kids how to shape a narrative.
The same way we all do.
We arrange facts to make sense of life.

Final Thoughts

Stories are powerful.
More powerful than facts.

People don’t care about raw data. They care about the story.
It’s how reality is structured.
So be careful with the stories you believe, and the ones you tell yourself.
They shape everything you do.