Story vs. Fact

Sometimes I try to tell a story to somebody of something that happened in real life, but forget some of the details. The story pauses and the room gets silent as I try to recall some detail, like whether an exchange occurred on Tuesday or Wednesday. I lose all of my momentum and all of my audience's interest.

In general, I will never strain over a fact like that; they just aren't worth the trouble. The point is in the story: the concept of the time and place, and the actions and interactions of people. Although details certainly help to paint the picture, mundane information is not critical (that's pretty much what makes it mundane). If you don't remember it, leave it be.

The other side to that coin, though, is that sometimes details are not mundane. Sometimes they are thoroughly vital to a story. In that case, then leaving out those minute details will make your story equally ineffective because the lack of crucial information will leave people confused.

When telling stories, weigh out how important it is to get your facts thoroughly flawless and how important it is to be entertaining continuously from start to finish. It is quite rare to be 100% on either side of the spectrum. Facts are always important, as is a good stream of story-telling.

Writing as a form of storytelling generally allows us to get the best of both worlds. This is more about any form of spontaneous storytelling. But, it is not by any means an uncommon situation, so it is definitely worth being aware of such things.