What is the use of stories if they aren't even true?

Question

What is the use of stories if they aren't even true?

Answer 1

are we talking the bible?

Answer 2

To not do the mistakes they had done in the story, even though it may be bizarre but you never know. You could take out the smallest messages and live life fullest!

Answer 3

Some stories are used for motivation. and moral values. Some stories are entertaining to read. Some you could use for vocabulary enhancement. stories are piece of art. and we owe it to those writer who really  done their best for the concept they really want to impart. So be a reader you really might never know what will hit you after.

Answer 4

While the story over all may be fictitious or clearly exaggerated there is still a theme of that story. The theme is what asserts some moral which the author wants to convey to the one watching (in the case of movies) or reading the story. For instance, in Bruce Almighty the theme is that the love of others is more important and better than the love of our self. Also, once could also see a secondary theme that power, if used for personal gain, can corrupt us and even destroy our lives. The question, then, is to ask yourself whether this is true or not. Do you agree with it? Why or why not? Obviously, there is nothing profound about the message in Bruce Almighty. However, some other movies or stories assert a more poignant point. Take for instance "Humpty Dumpty". He fell down, broke his crown and couldn't be put back together. What's the moral? That doing something where there are risks (like sitting on a wall where we know we can fall and become broke) can cost us irreparable damage; that somethings, once we do them, can't be fixed and we have to live with it. Then you ask your self whether or not you agree with it or not. While the over-all story may be fictitious (like a living egg-man--"humpty dumpty" in fantasy world) the moral of that very story may be true. Conveying a message (which will be either true or false) through a series of events through a specific characters life during a specific time is the art of telling a story (movies, poetry, epics, etc.). You can find, in any good story, a theme.

Answer 5

They represent ideas that can help you guide your life. Take Life of Pi for example, at the end we find out Pi's story was all imagined, but it is still significant in that it echoes human life and behavior. Stories can reflect real live and reveal emotions.  

Answer 6

stories are both means to our ends, and ends in themselves. you could learn things about reality from entertaining stories, even if they are works classified as fiction. even fictional stories have much truth in them. and whose to say a work of fiction isn't really a story of something that actually happened in the past. just because no one remembers something that happened, that doesn't mean it never happened in the distant, distant, distant, distant past. The story of the Lord of the Rings may actually have happened in the infinitely distant past.  

Answer 7

Because reality, my friend, is too harsh to talk about.

One can talk about the truth, but can you handle the truth...

Answer 8

entertainment :)

Answer 9

stories tell about what could have happened, what mistakes would have been made, and what the characters built on the mistakes. for without mistakes, there would be no triumph.

Answer 10

so that we can gather round the campfire and sing our campfire song.  

Answer 11

Stories are a window into the mind of the storyteller. They provide a panorama of the thinking going on in there. Their value varies depending upon the psyche they are concocted by.

Answer 12

for entertainment sakes.

Answer 13

for the imaginationn :) for funnnn :)  

Answer 14

many stories reveal details of the human condition.  

Answer 15

to  convey a central theme, usually a moral lesson.  

Answer 16

It allows for one's mind to explore and dream of things that may never well be, but it gives us a sense of creativity and new ideas and the mere sensationalism leaves us with unanswered questions that causes us to explore the 'what if' and 'how' responses.  For example, if someone writes a book that has this idealistic picture-perfect scene and the more in-depth we get, we find out 'how' it got to be that way and our mind begins to question 'well, what if...'.

Regardless of whether a story is true or not, it gives us a basis to get our creativity flowing to create new and different ones for others to continue the cycle (How do you think some of our modern advancements such as flying a plane, and then, someone else dreamed of a super-fast plane and created one that was fast like the Lear Jet, etc.?).

The bottom line is that we don't always know what is true and what isn't and it is up to us to separate the two and decide for ourselves.

Answer 17

the main reason is entertainment

     but stories have been passed down as traditions  to teach life lessons to people

  each story has some moral in it