Take a look at the categories of
movies in the video store, or the categories of fiction in the book
store, and you'll discover that the vast majority of stories in our
culture are about struggle, about conflict between 'good' and 'evil',
and ultimately about heroes overcoming adversity. Dramas, biographies,
sports stories, war stories, mysteries, action & adventure stories,
even horror stories and most romances and fantasy stories fit into this
category. Most video games are the same. The only exceptions seem to be
pure comedies, some children's stories, and stories from other
cultures. Why is this? Isn't there enough struggle in our daily lives
already?
Is it schadenfreude -- the secret pleasure we get from witnessing others' misfortune and knowing it is worse than our own?
I remember as a child asking why the Lassie stories "were always about
bad things happening", Once we get past the very earliest stories of
infancy, most of the stories we are told involve struggle -- Grimm's
fairy tales, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Grinch etc.
Or is it about adrenaline? Do we need stories to excite us, to
vicariously involve us in danger? Or do we need stories to provide us
with escape, a way to get away from our own unhappiness, boredom,
misfortune?
The other day I picked up an award-winning children's book called The Salamander Room
written by Anne Mazer and beautifully illustrated by Steve Johnson.
It's the simple, wonderful story of a boy who brings a salamander home,
and wants to keep it in his room, and then in response to questions
from his mother, imagines converting his room into a wilderness
paradise where he and the salamander can both be at home. There is no
struggle, no conflict, no hit-you-over-the-head moral.
Why do adults find such stories so unsatisfying? I have been told that
in many tribal cultures the stories rarely involve struggle, and are
instead about discovery, exploration, learning from others, but when
Westerners read them, they assume they are "just children's stories".
And when I outlined my idea for my novel on one of the environmental
discussion boards several people said I should place it in an
apocalyptic future, not an idyllic one, if I wanted anyone to buy it.
Why can we not be engaged by stories that don't involve conflict and
suffering?
What's wrong with us, anyway?
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
