The Story Vacuum

At the moment, it seems the storytelling space of the English-speaking world is slowly becoming stripped of its powerful stories. The people doing the stripping, oddly enough, seem to be the people who produce our entertainment - the people who benefit most from creating and maintaining powerful fiction franchises.

Time and time again, even mediocre productions like The Mandalorian and The Witcher prove that an audience is willing to sit through even deeply imperfect works of fiction in pursuit of a few gems of good storytelling. I've seen parts of both of these shows, and while I know plenty of people who sing their praises, they are, by most standards, rather poorly written. The reason they stand out is simple - they are poorly written, sure, but at least they are written by people who don't hate their audience. An attempt to take the viewer seriously, however flawed, was made.

That is a contrast from the backdrop primarily because the entertainment media culture appears to be defined primarily by a deep hatred of the "little people" in the audience and a revulsion toward storytelling quality as such. Time and time again, productions with every chance to demonstrate quality take every opportunity to reject it. At this point, it's clear, at least to me, that the producers of this content seem to be saying that as long as the "little people" don't act and think like these entertainment elites prefer, they don't deserve quality entertainment.

That's discouraging for me as a consumer who wants to read and watch good stories, but for me as a person who hopes to see his work in print in the next few years, I'll admit that it is an encouraging trend. I'm watching the competition for the eyes and ears of the English speaking world willingly reject most of their potential audience.

The assassination of the Star Wars franchise at the hands of malicious Disney executives has been noted by most entertainment commentators, but it is just the tip of this iceberg. While I would not consider myself a member of the Star Wars fandom in any sense, I did once have respect for the way the franchise was managed, such that every new movie, spin-off show, or novel expanded the universe. Authors who went on to have illustrious careers made their name in the Star Wars expanded universe - without it, we might never have gotten the later works of Michael Stackpole or Timothy Zahn, to name two. How many up-and-coming authors, actors, and screenwriters will have their careers snuffed out by the implosion of this media empire?

And more optimistically, how many new creators, universes, and stories will be given a chance by the public because the big franchises are all being murdered one by one? 

I (and you) certainly can increase the chances of being given that sort of chance. All we have to do is learn from the mistakes of the people who are leaving us an audience - have respect for your work and your audience, and don't compromise the quality of your story to prove a point.