The convergence in the 1980s between postmodern epistemology, cognitive
psychology and narratology forcefully reoriented the idea of storytelling.
From a fictional device for representing reality, storytelling was recast as a cognitive
tool underlying all mental processes. On this view, our sense of reality was seen as
an effect produced by individual narrativising. This idea has many implications. The
aim of this essay is not to try to survey the literature on this complex topic but to
characterise two issues that the narrative view of reality obscures. One is the role of
a shared reality and the other is political inertia. This argument seeks to create space
for thinking about the idea of a common reality which has been traduced in theoretical
discussion in favour of fractured reality. It concludes with a discussion of
what can be gained by seeing narrative as a vehicle for approaching reality and not
reality itself.

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• Based on a true story