History Main / InDefenceOfStoryTelling

* The underlying {{Aesop}} for ''[[Literature/AuntDimity Aunt Dimity and the Lost Prince]]'': an imaginative little girl makes up stories about actual people she meets, and Lori takes her stories seriously enough to investigate, which permits all the happy results of the book [[spoiler: Lady Barbara and Mikhail being reunited after so many decades, Skeaping Manor getting a sponsor and a proper security system, Bree meeting her favourite author and finding a bit of purpose in her new life, Tiffany and her children getting out of the city and discovering joy in life]] among others.

-->-- [[http://home.ccil.org/~cowan/mythopoeia.html "Mythopoeia"]], by Creator/JRRTolkien

* Creator/JRRTolkien was once famously challenged on this issue by his friend Creator/CSLewis. He responded in classic Tolkien fashion by writing a poem, entitled [[http://home.ccil.org/~cowan/mythopoeia.html "Mythopoeia"]]. In it he affirms that story-telling is not merely defensible, but a divine ''right''.

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* In the 1952 Creator/DannyKaye movie ''Hans Christian Andersen'', the title character is run out of town for his story-telling. He goes to Copenhagen, where he makes it big, and is eventually welcomed home with open arms! The movie also provides at least one example of how story-telling can be useful: When Andersen meets a boy who feels insecure about his shaved head, he cheers him up with the story of "The Ugly Duckling".
* Similarly, in the 1962 movie ''The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm'', the brothers are mocked for collecting folk tales. In the end, they are vindicated when the stories they publish become much more popular than the more "serious" work they do.

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* ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'': [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Vic]] (who is acting as the LemonyNarrator) wraps up [[Machinima/RedVsBlueSeason14 Season 14]] (an {{anthology}} season written by a myriad of guest writers) with a speech about the need for stories and encouraging viewers to create their own.

* The Worlds' End story arc of Creator/NeilGaiman's ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' (issues 51-56) is composed of a series of stories told by stranded travelers at an inn positioned between realities, an inverted ''[[Literature/TheCanterburyTales Canterbury Tales]]''. They have a framing story, which is eventually revealed to be one told by its narrator to a bartender. The next-to-last issue of the arc, "Cerements", has a story within a story itself...meaning there's ''five'' layers of storytelling going on at once. One of the characters, the narrator's friend, says she has no stories, and attempts to deconstruct the others told along Freudian lines. She decides to stay at the inn when everyone goes on their respective ways, implicitly abandoning her former life for one that will someday be a story worth telling.
* This is one of the many possible readings of ''Comicbook/LokiAgentOfAsgard'' ("Warning: Your reading of the text affects the text. Use your power wisely." it's very very meta), where Loki successfully changes by retelling their own story and claiming the title of ''God of Stories'' to escape the stigma attached to their original ''God of Lies'' one.

* This is seen in ''Film/SecondhandLions'' with Garth telling young Walter about him and his brother Hub and their adventures in Africa. When Walter asks Hub if it's true, and how his mother tells so many lies he doesn't know what to believe anymore, Hub tells him if he wants to believe in it to believe. Later, when Walter's mother shows up with an FBI agent ([[spoiler: or so he claims]]) telling him Hub and Garth were actually bank robbers, Walter chooses to believe the stories. [[spoiler: Years later, his faith is vindicated when he meets the grandson of the sheik who was the villain of those stories.]]

->''"Though all the crannies of the world we filled''
->''with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build''
->''Gods and their houses out of dark and light,''
->''and sowed the seed of dragons, 'twas our right''
->''(used or misused). The right has not decayed.''
->''We make still by the law in which we're made."''

* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'': Varric is a professional storyteller, as well as TheNarrator of the story, who obviously embellishes many parts of it. In-story, he lampshades how important a well-told story is, stating that "History is just the best stories, the ones that last".

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This trope is about how it's good to ''create'' stories. Compare ReadingIsCoolAesop, which is about how it's good to ''read'' stories.

* The importance of stories and legends to the human condition is a frequent theme in the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' series. ''Discworld/{{Hogfather}}'' is probably the biggest example; the denouement has Death explicitly spell out how concepts like truth and justice are just as made-up as things like [[SantaClaus the Hogfather]] and the Tooth Fairy, but believing in "little lies" like fairy tales and nursery stories trains us to make "big lies" a reality.

* ''Videogame/DragonAgeII'': Varric is a professional storyteller, as well as TheNarrator of the story, who obviously embellishes many parts of it. In-story, he lampshades how important a well-told story is, stating that "History is just the best stories, the ones that last".

* ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'': Vic (who is acting as narrator) wraps up season 14 (an {{anthology}} season written by a myriad of guest writers) with a speech about the need for stories and encouraging viewers to create their own.
-->As long as there's stories, there needs to be storytellers. And ''that'', is where ''you'' come in. Tell your story, dude or dudettes! It could be one in a billion others, but it'll be yours. Make it about the Reds. Make it about the Blues. Heck, make it about some other group of soldiers that no one ever heard about until ''you'' told them. Show us villains that tell themselves they're heroes. Build entire worlds brick by brick! Teach the galaxy about friendship! But whatever you do, ''don't. Stop''. Because a universe without stories... well, that's just empty space, amigo.