Up: [[Story]] Created: 2022-07-30 When telling a true story, we roughly divide that story up by 20-25% prologue, 40-60% critical event, 25-35% aftermath. When we’re lying, stories are maybe 95% prologue and 5% event, or 10% event and 90% aftermath. When lying, our stories are padded with false or meaningless information. The deceptive sentences are fewer than 10 words (too short) or more than 15 words (too long). The lede is buried under insignificant details and the important events are rushed through. > [!user] Erika Krause in *Tell Me Everything: The story of a private organization* > apparently originally from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners Why did this interest me enough to type it out and keep it? I had to really think about that for a bit. I think it’s because I have long had a fascination with storytelling and this little piece echoes the fact that we are all driven to tell stories. It also reminds me of parents using the expression “Are you telling me a story?,” when they ask a young child about a lie. Although I suspect they got their knowledge of the lie through evidence, such as the cookie in hand, rather than through recognizing that there was too much prologue or aftermath.