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People incorporate stories into a wide array of practices, using narrative as a problem-solving strategy in many contexts. In this sense, narrative functions as a powerful and basic tool for thinking; enabling users of stories to produce and interpret literary texts, carry out spontaneous conversations, make sense of news reports in a variety of media, create and assess medical case histories, and provide testimony in court. The interdisciplinary research tradition that has grown up around the study of'cognitive artifacts'--that is, material as well as mental objects that enable or enhance cognition---can help account for the problem-solving abilities supported by narrative. My essay draws on this work to address the following question: What is it about narrative (viewed as a cognitive artifact) that explains its multi-situational serviceability, the richness and longlastingness of its processes and products, its power to organize …