I have always been moved by stories. Since I was little, I remember being inspired by and empowered by stories of people doing incredible things and overcoming what seemed like impossible odds. My favorite stories were the ones of hope – of people coming together and making a stand when nobody else would or could. My favorite stories were the ones when things seemed dark, but faith in other people remained the beacon that saved the day. I believe in people, and am inspired by stories that affirm that belief.

This belief in hope and people doesn’t seem to be mainstream in our current society. I have been saying to my friends for quite some time that we live in a dark age of storytelling. Even our stories of heroes are dark and dismal. Consumers have become jaded to the idea of the altruistic hero, the ragtag team of hopeful nobodies, or the opinions of society overall saving the day. Everything must be “gritty” and “real.” If characters aren’t dying or suffering somehow, it’s not “realistic.” Every story needs to be completely logical – and things need to “make sense” in the rules of realism. If a story doesn’t fit this litmus test, it gets lambasted.

But that isn’t what stories are about. The best stories – the ones that stick with us – do not stick with us because of logical consistency. I want to go back to elementary school English for a moment. There is a concept that this current lens of story consumption tends to bastardize and destroy. It is the concept of suspension of disbelief. Suspension of disbelief refers to the state in which a media consumer ignored the fact that what they are watching is completely made up and not based on reality. This simple concept explains why people are so moved by made up stories. They believe the rules of the world – even if they differ from our own.

This is where the issue comes. People, particularly moviegoers, head into the theater expecting to see something that could happen in real life. They come in expecting the story to follow the perceived rules and laws of their own lives. However, this is an intellectually dishonest way of looking at a story. In fact, the purpose of the story is the exact opposite – it is to give perspective and to make people realize that there are other perspectives and other ways of viewing the world.

Modern viewers are not interested in the suspension of disbelief. They are not interested in thoughtful symbolism, metaphor, theme, and all the core elements of good stories. They lambaste basic literary tropes like McGuffins and criticize when the hero’s journey ends with the hero overcoming the challenges they have faced and growing along the way (which is the point of the hero’s journey). They take any sort of satisfying story as immature and idyllic – leaving creators trying to create darker, “realer” stories that leave viewers feeling listless and unsatisfied. True substance has been replaced with realism. Thoughtful symbolism and metaphor are discarded as “illogical” or “disjointed.”

Viewers are now coming in to movies, and even reading stories, expecting too much. Nobody will jump into a story for the stories sake. They must read reviews and look at scores online before deciding to take a chance on a story. They need others to tell them if the story is relevant to them. It’s objective. Does the story meet the proper criteria: The generic, socially agreed upon standards of a “good” story?

This over-obsession with logic and “reason” and undervaluing of true story elements and styles has infected the movie community. It has given rise to shallow, plot-driven narratives with easy to meet expectations and cookie cutter characters. Its thrown imagery, symbolism, metaphor, foreshadowing, and the other story elements away for direct, in your face and forced moments of character development. If the audience isn’t given it exactly and specifically, they reject it outright.

So what do we do? Where do we go from here? As creators, it is our duty to respect this ancient tradition – perhaps the most ancient of traditions – from being boiled down to nothing but residue. We need to create. We need to create things not for mass appeal, but for purpose. We need to tell stories that mean something and not just stories that say something. We need to make people relate to the stories, we need to talk about stories in a real way. We need to bring back the suspension of disbelief that makes out stories so powerful in the first place. Keep telling stories.