All the hard questions about human action

are about what to include in a story, what can be left out, and how to characterize what gets included.

A narrative selects from all the world's motions which ones are part of or relevant to an act, and so narratives give us what narratives have already shaped: the relation is circular.

Many narratives can be told of an act, not all consistent.

Some features of human action:

- events "off-stage" determine what's happening "on-stage";

- many actions pass through motions in view;

- an act can be changed after the fact;

- action presupposes language;

- what an act is can be highly ambiguous;

- we judge acts (and narratives) because we have a stake in them.