The Story and the Truth

In his introduction to the book Blood Memory, which he and frequent collaborator Dayton Duncan wrote about the North American bison, filmmaker Ken Burns provides a glimpse of the room where his editing takes place, specifically a little sign with a brief, but profound message: “it’s complicated.”

These two words are worth remembering, not just for filmmakers, writers, and others who set out to tell the truth, but also for anyone interested in knowing the truth.

A Sibling Rivalry

Many years ago, after I finished my Ph.D. and went to work as a professor, I had an idea for a book. Before grad school, I had been a journalist, and I noticed in my study of literature that a remarkable number of America’s leading authors had also worked as journalists. (The list includes many familiar names, from Mark Twain and Stephen Crane to Willa Cather and Ernest Hemingway.) I considered writing a book about these authors, but then discovered a topic that proved even more interesting—and fresher. Even those American writers who had not worked extensively as journalists were responding to journalism, which had become a kind of 800-pound-gorilla after the advent of the penny press in the 1830s. Poe, Thoreau, Stowe, and others were engaged in what I called a kind of “sibling rivalry” with their newspaper counterparts. (For more on one aspect of this rivalry, see my column on Rebecca Harding Davis in the March 29, 2025, issue of Mind Travel.)

In the course of reflecting on the storytelling in journalism and literature, I came to a phrase that encapsulates a dilemma that bedevils journalists and authors alike: “the story and the truth.” We writers like to tell good stories—that is, narratives with dramatic plots and intriguing characters, ideally seasoned with bits of both familiar features and ironic twists. Many of us carry in our heads a vast collection of details we have encountered in our own reading (and watching and listening), and these details shape—often unconsciously—our notions of what makes a good story.

You know them, too: the impulsive desire of the “star-crossed lovers,” a mother’s unshakable love for her child, the heart-warming soft spot of the crusty curmudgeon.

Both journalists and authors of literature will tell you that they also want to tell the “truth,” even if the writers in the latter group sometimes employ fiction to say something that is, in a higher sense, “true.”

The problem, alas, is that good stories are not always entirely true, and the truth doesn’t always make a good story, at least in the sense of appealing to our conventional expectations. (That’s why makers of so-called historical films may leave out distracting or detracting details, use composite characters, and simplify scenes and dialogue.)

In short, as Burns wrote, the truth is “complicated.”

Stories in our Own Lives

As a kind of storyteller himself, Burns certainly understands this tension. He writes:

When a scene is working, there isn't a filmmaker on Earth who willingly wants to change it, even as new and sometimes conflicting and confounding information inevitably comes to light. But we have learned (and are still learning) to embrace that perpetual disruption and chaos, and to refashion our narratives into something more representative of what actually took place, even if that sacrifices what was supposedly “working.”

I know most of you are probably not filmmakers or writers, but all of you watch films and read books or articles. You also may run departments or whole organizations and thus have to process information about budgets, markets, and more. In all of these roles as consumers of information, you run a risk. Because you’re human, you like good stories, whether they are told with words, images, or data. You unconsciously gravitate toward familiar “stories”—standard accounts of how things work—and appreciate the occasional ironic twist. When what you see or hear conflicts with what you expect or want, you run the very serious risk of preferring the story over the truth.

Here’s just one scenario: you have hired an intern for the summer, and she offers a fresh idea for marketing your service. You really want this idea to be successful. After all, it makes a great story: newbie out-thinks the veterans and takes sales to new heights. Besides, she’s an appealing character: she’s humble and thoughtful, and, ooh, this is the best part, she’s a little quirky. You love this heartwarming story with its ironic twists, and you really want it to be true, so you might carry her idea farther than you would an idea from one of your other employees. Indeed, you might be so enchanted by the story that you unconsciously sacrifice the success of your business, temporarily anyway, as you hope for the story to come true.

Story-colored Glasses

This attraction to stories can have broader, more dangerous consequences.

One of the most common stories we carry around in our heads is that of good vs. evil. Even in a world relatively free of mustachioed villains tying damsels to railroad tracks, we often, when faced with a violent crime or a war or a corporate scandal, yearn to sort the actors into good guys and bad guys (especially bad guys).

Relax. I’m not about to launch into a defense of ethical relativism. I do believe, strongly in fact, that some behaviors are “better”—in terms of overall value to humans and the world at large—than others. I also believe, however, that there’s a lot more to a person’s behavior than a simplistic core of virtue or depravity.

I’m reminded of one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite plays, Shakespeare’s Othello. After finally discovering that the conniving Iago has been plotting to destroy him, Othello says, “I look down towards his feet; but that’s a fable . . . .” It would be easy, familiar, satisfying to peg his enemy as a demon (with hooves), but Othello doesn’t go there.

Neither should we.

Finding the Truth

The truth is always more complicated. It may involve self-deception, justifications, trauma, biological or psychological disorders, financial pressures, and any number of other factors. Crime is still crime, and criminals—both individuals and corporations—still need to be held accountable. Still, when we strive to understand the entire truth of any phenomenon—and especially when we seek to prevent future destructive behavior—we need to consider all the factors at play. If we do not, if we allow a familiar, simple, or attractive story to stand in for the strange, messy, or even offensive truth, we risk designing solutions or preventions that will miss the mark.

It can be difficult to find the truth. The temptations and pressures of simplistic conflicts, conventional characters, and familiar frameworks are strong and insidious. The first step is to recognize them, to catch ourselves looking for the hooves (or the heart of gold) and challenge the impulse. Next, we can remind ourselves, as Burns does, that “it’s complicated” and look at the various factors, including hidden and counterintuitive ones, that could be at play. We can consult the people closest to the incident or phenomenon, as well as experts well-versed in its context and background (people who ideally are well-versed in complexity and nuance). Finally, we can synthesize all of this information, think about it critically, and formulate an explanation, a complicated explanation.

Ultimately, we can strive to see the truth for what it is—the actual, probably messy, and perhaps ugly truth and not just a lovely story.