This essay pleads for a supplement to protoypical descriptions of narratives by addressing a largely neglected question, namely whether there is a sense of precedence in the reception of narratives. This question, which, since Käte Hamburger (1957), has – if at all – found predominantly negative answers, has recently been answered in the affirmative by H. Porter Abbott (2005). Drawing upon, defending, and to some extent modifying Abbott’s argument, this essay discusses narrative pastness with a focus on the transmedial relevance of the impression that a storyworld “is already there” for aesthetic illusion as well as for rendering narrative one of the most important tools of human meaning production.