Catechisms for the Imagination
What are stories for? Ask an average group of young American narrative consumers this question and they most likely won’t know what you mean. What you’ll likely get are blank faces, shrugs.
So, let’s get more specific. What are movies, TV shows, comic books, and novels for? What’s the point? Why watch? Why read? Why do we as a culture bother to spend billions of dollars (and hours) creating and consuming stories?
The consensus answer—regardless of whether the kids asked are active and aggressive readers or merely passive imbibers of whatever happens to be on—will almost always come down to one word and one word only: fun. Why do we watch? For fun. Why do we read? For fun.