In The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien explains to the reader the importance of making one's stomach believe when telling a story; a story that is true, but may have never even happened. This is story truth, and what does it mean exactly? The way I see it is every story has truth to it, even the most fabricated of tales. How though, can a made up story be true? It goes back to making the stomach believe. What's true about a fictional story is when your mind is focused on what happens, and your heart begins to race, and you just have to know what happens next. The events are fake, but the feeling and emotional response is as real as can be. I think that's the whole point of telling a story really. What's known as "happening truth" is indeed a story, but more of a retelling of an event. There's no moral, no message, possibly an emotional response, but overall just the simple relaying of an event that's happened. I don't mean to downplay stories of happening truth, it just simply plays a different purpose as to story truth. Happening truth is all about, obviously, what happened, whereas story truth is all about the story, not just what happened. There's a meaning and a purpose perceived by the mind of the storyteller, who may add details and events that never happened to make one's stomach believe. Even though there are fictional areas in a true story, the feeling in the story truth will always be more true than the happening truth, which serves better in the art and function of storytelling.