Satisfying Stories (1)

This is the first in a long trail of crumbs. I will post one per day until I run out of bread. Hopefully some mice will come along and eat them.

 

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It is very hard to tell a satisfying story in the contemporary world. Maybe it is impossible.

 

This is why television is the medium of our time: because its basic form is continuity not conclusion. A satisfying ending is not what it promises—or at any rate, not what it is obliged to deliver. Its tantalizing ellipses lead us ever onward. It does not tell stories so much as paint a world.

 

This is also why so many stories have specialized settings—the past, ghettoized communities, fantasy worlds—settings where, the audience imagines, stories are still possible.