IBM Research: Knowledge Socialization: Ideas: Perceptions of Stories

The last depends on set and setting so that the experience of a critic reading a story is quite different from the experience of someone "openly" listening. So too, a story within "Alice in Wonderland" is certainly experienced differently depending on age. A consultant in their office hurriedly "reading through" a bunch of stories to find the one that is most relevant will certainly have a different experience than someone lounging in a bar hearing the same story.

It also seems clear that a story "exists" or can be analysed and defined on various levels. At one (superficial) level, a story is a sequence of interrelated sentences, words, and phrases. In another sense, a story can be thought of as a (pre-computer) simulation or virtual realty device. It essentially allows someone who was not present at an event to "live through it" at least in schematic form -- seeing, hearing, thinking and feeling what the teller saw, heard, thought, and felt. A story is a way to express general (universal?) truth through the use of specific instances. You can write a story about anything.... the letter "P" on your keyboard or an International Terrorist Attack, because if it's a good story, it will "really" be about what it is like to be human in either case.