A question we are frequently asked is what makes a story true. To some that might mean that all the facts are lined up but to Tim O'Brien, the exact opposite may be true. In The Things They Carried, O'Brien gives the criteria for a true war story but many of those points are parallel to any true story in daily life.
According to O'Brien there are many necessary components to a true story. One is that there are no moral lessons in war stories. The same goes for daily life. Most of the time things don't happen because there is a lesson to be learned or karma to be received. He means that events occur simply because that's life and everything that happens to us is not part of a master plan created by some higher power. The good guy almost never gets his victory and the bad guy isn't caught and put to justice
A true war story, in O'Brien's eyes, is a story of how you experienced an event, how it made you feel, and what thoughts it generated. A true story in life is told from your perspective and blanks are filled in with your own imagination. If a story that you are telling is true to yourself and your perspective, what makes it false? You cannot present evidence to prove the story teller incorrect if they experienced an event that wasn't parallel to anyone else's experience and reaction to the same situation. A story can be completely incorrect in a factual sense but at the same time speak directly to the emotional truths that resinate within. If you tell a story based on how something made you feel then that story speaks on a deeper level than what can actually be proven accurate or inaccurate.
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