Why Fiction Matters to Us

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i think we care about stories because they're teaching us how to behave in the world, you know, what works and what doesn't. A woman named malony green found out that it made no difference whatever whether people were told the story was true or false. The only thing that mattered, in terms of the story changing their ishow imersed they werein the story. You know, i think that aat that's, that's a really k understanding, i thinkof why fiction matters to us in this day and age.

Once it was The Shadow radio show; now it's the podcast Serial. Is every old storytelling medium new again? Frank Rose, author of The Sea We Swim In, concedes that some things remain sacred--from the power of a great hook to the hope that great stories never end. But he also thinks the Internet has led to new kinds of stories, ones that are not just entertaining, but immersive, and whose worlds are more richly imaginative than ever--even as they leave increasingly little to our imagination.