Tim O'Brien identifies story truth and happening truth in his novel "The Things They Carried". He also provides many stories that are examples of these terms. The most important one he uses to demonstrate story truth is is the story "Ambush". This is the story where he kills another soldier from their enemy's side. In reality no one knows who killed him, there were many soldiers firing at the enemy at once. He also provides another example which is his story about the soldier jumping on the grenade to save the other soldier he is with. Happening truth is in his story when he is at the river debating on what he should do. And he chooses to stay and go to war. Another story is when the young boy goes over hopping to them on the one leg he has left to ask for chocolate. He mentions that a true war story is not a true war story is it has no story truth in it.

There is a big difference between story truth and happening truth. Even though story truth may not always be real, I would definitely prefer it over happening truth. That is because story truth puts you in the story. You get a gut feeling. I really enjoy being able to experience what I am reading so that I can better understand it. I think without story truth many stories wouldn't be the same or as interesting because if there's no emotion then it's boring. Happening truth is just the simple truth of what happened. Most of the times that's not enough to grab our attention. We need some action or some kind of hook to keep us reading.  That's exactly what story truth does; it adds the hook to pull us into the story and feel what the writer wants us to feel.