There’s something rather wonderful about disappearing into a good story.
One moment you’re sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea going cold beside you; the next, you’re crossing a windswept moor, wandering through a country house several centuries ago or following a character into a world that couldn’t be further from your own.
Books and films have always offered us an escape. But the best stories do rather more than help us forget about the washing-up for a few hours. They introduce us to unfamiliar people and places, encourage us to look at the world differently and, every now and then, change something in us too.
Stepping into another world
Stories can take us almost anywhere.
A novel can conjure a landscape with a handful of carefully chosen words, while a film can transport us there in seconds. We can find ourselves in imaginary kingdoms, distant countries or another period in history without leaving home.
And while escapism is certainly part of the pleasure, exploring new worlds through books and films can also broaden our horizons.
By following characters whose lives are very different from our own, we’re invited to see events through another pair of eyes. We share their hopes and disappointments, understand what matters to them and sometimes find ourselves sympathising with someone we never expected to.
That ability to experience another person’s world – even an imaginary one – is one of storytelling’s quiet strengths.
Finding courage in other people’s stories
Some characters stay with us long after the final page has been turned or the credits have rolled.
They might be courageous, stubborn, unconventional or simply determined to carry on when circumstances suggest otherwise. They make mistakes. They doubt themselves. Occasionally, they make decisions that have us muttering, ‘Oh, don’t do that,’ at a book.
But that is precisely why they can be so compelling.
Stories about people overcoming adversity, questioning expectations or choosing an unconventional path can help us imagine different possibilities for ourselves. Their circumstances may be entirely unlike our own, but the courage behind their choices can feel surprisingly familiar.
A fictional character won’t solve our problems for us, of course. But sometimes seeing somebody else take the first step – even somebody who exists only on a page – makes our own next step seem a little less daunting.
Seeing ourselves more clearly
Stories don’t only introduce us to other people. Sometimes they introduce us to ourselves.
A character’s dilemma may feel uncomfortably familiar. A line in a novel can put into words something we’ve struggled to articulate. A film made decades ago can suddenly illuminate something happening in our lives today.
These moments can prompt us to think about what matters to us: the relationships we value, the choices we’ve made and the ambitions we may have quietly put to one side.
This is one reason the same book can mean something entirely different when we return to it years later. The words haven’t changed, but we have.
A story loved at 18 may feel like another story altogether at 40. We notice different characters, understand old decisions differently and occasionally discover that the person we once considered terribly dull was, in fact, the only sensible one in the room.
Stories that make us think differently
Throughout history, stories have also helped people explore difficult subjects.
Books and films can bring questions about inequality, prejudice, conservation, identity, mental health and social change into our homes. Rather than presenting these subjects as abstract ideas, storytelling gives them faces, relationships and consequences.
That doesn’t mean every story needs to teach us a lesson. Sometimes a detective novel is allowed simply to contain a suspicious vicar and an improbably high number of murders in a picturesque village.
But powerful storytelling can encourage us to question assumptions we hadn’t realised we were making. It can start conversations, introduce overlooked histories and inspire people to learn more about subjects they previously knew little about.
Sometimes change begins not with a grand declaration, but with curiosity.
Bringing people together
Stories can be deeply personal experiences, but they’re also wonderfully social.
Few things generate conversation quite like a book with a controversial ending or a film featuring a character everyone except you appears to adore. We recommend favourites to friends, lend books with strict instructions that they must come back, join book groups and spend far longer than intended discussing what the ending really meant.
These conversations matter.
Talking about books and films exposes us to interpretations we might never have considered. Two people can read exactly the same novel and come away with entirely different ideas about it – neither necessarily wrong.
Stories give us common ground while leaving plenty of room for disagreement, discovery and the occasional spirited debate over tea and cake.
Why stories stay with us
Perhaps the greatest power of books and films is that their influence isn’t always obvious.
We may forget much of the plot, yet remember how a story made us feel. A particular character may surface in our thoughts years later. A landscape first encountered in a novel might inspire a journey of our own. An old film might suddenly make sense at a particular moment in our lives.
Stories entertain us, certainly. But they can also make unfamiliar worlds feel closer, help us understand experiences beyond our own and encourage us to look again at places, people and ideas we thought we knew.
And occasionally, the right story finds us at exactly the right time.
That’s quite a lot to ask of a collection of words on a page – or a couple of hours in front of a screen. Yet somehow, the best stories manage it.
Further Reading: Dream Big and Live Fully with a Bucket List
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