Why does facts vs opinions fail?

The most common reason facts vs opinions fails: Disguising stories as facts by using factual-sounding language. 'He was being passive-aggressive' feels like an observation but it's an interpretation. 'She doesn't care about quality' sounds like a conclusion drawn from evidence but it's a story about someone's internal state. The subtlest failure is when you genuinely cannot tell which column a statement belongs in — that's the signal you need more practice, not less.

The fix: Pick one situation from the past 24 hours that bothered you. Write two columns on a page. Left column: 'What a camera would record' — only observable, verifiable data (words said, actions taken, timestamps, measurable outcomes). Right column: 'The story I told about it' — every interpretation, assumption, motive you assigned, and conclusion you drew. Notice the ratio. Most people find the story column is three to five times longer than the fact column.

The underlying principle is straightforward: Facts are observable events — stories are the narratives you construct around them.