{"id":13959,"date":"2025-08-14T06:54:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T13:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?p=13959"},"modified":"2025-08-14T07:17:42","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T14:17:42","slug":"stories-help-us-understand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/stories-help-us-understand\/","title":{"rendered":"Stories Help Us Understand"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"543\" height=\"786\" src=\"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Haw.FollowMe.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13968\" style=\"width:150px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Haw.FollowMe.jpg 543w, https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Haw.FollowMe-207x300.jpg 207w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 543px) 100vw, 543px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Excerpt from \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/click.convertkit-mail4.com\/k0uk88040ec6h58vg5eflhoqxe577i8h64708\/g3hnh5hmze3qektr\/aHR0cHM6Ly9qYW5lZnJpZWRtYW4uY29tL3JlYWRlcnMtYXJlLWZhc2NpbmF0ZWQtYnktdHJ1dGgtaW4tZmljdGlvbi1hbmQtaXQtbWF0dGVycy8=\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Readers Are Fascinated by Truth in Fiction\u2014and It Matters<\/a>,\u201d by <a href=\"https:\/\/pennyhaw.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Penny Haw<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt doesn&#8217;t matter who we are, we all want stories. They help us make sense of our experiences and a complicated world. Because we&#8217;re inquisitive, social animals, stories help us understand and connect with one another. When we recognize and relate to characters and events in stories\u2014particularly those we believe to be true\u2014it strengthens our social bonds and confirms we belong. There&#8217;s a kinship that inspires, informs and comforts us and, though we might not always be conscious of it or understand why, we&#8217;re all searching for truths in the world.<br><br>Stories also evoke emotions and help us understand what it might be like to be different. We want to see the truth in those stories to help us understand people who are different and have different experiences of life.&#8221; \u2014 Posted on <a href=\"https:\/\/janefriedman.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Jane Friedman<\/a>\u2019s Blog, July 31, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Excerpt from \u201cReaders Are Fascinated by Truth in Fiction\u2014and It Matters,\u201d by Penny Haw \u201cIt doesn&#8217;t matter who we are, we all want stories. They help us make sense of our experiences and a complicated world. Because we&#8217;re inquisitive, social animals, stories help us understand and connect with one another. When we recognize and relate [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[104],"tags":[614,2079,2080],"class_list":["post-13959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-bloggers","tag-jane-friedman","tag-penny-haw","tag-stories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43Dj8-3D9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13959"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13970,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13959\/revisions\/13970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}