Why entertainment deserves the status we give it
I get asked a lot whether stories should be “meaningful” or “politically correct” or whether entertainment is somehow secondary to message. I will be blunt: entertainment is not a fluff label. It is the thing that makes story work. Look at the word itself. Etymologically, entertainment comes from inter tenere — to hold between, to carry. That simple idea nails the craft: to entertain is to carry someone’s attention, from one moment to the next.
Holding attention is not trivial. To hold a person’s attention is to connect to their mind. Two separate bodies become one conversation, mediated by art. That connection is the most difficult thing any artist attempts. If you can carry attention honestly and fiercely, you have done the hard work. Everything else — metaphor, politics, moral argument — only matters insofar as it rides on that connection.
Entertainment as bridge-building
Think of story as a bridge. The artist builds half the bridge and invites the reader or viewer to build the other half. When both halves meet, a crossing happens. That crossing is entertainment in the truest sense: the shared journey. If you bore people, you fail to build the bridge. If you spoon-feed them everything with no invitation to co-create, you have only built a trampling plank that will not satisfy the soul’s need to find meaning.
What entertainment is not
Entertainment is not a cheap excuse for shallow work. Saying “it was entertaining” does not absolve a story of craft concerns; it should be praise. Dismissing entertainment as mere popcorn implies a lack of respect for what it takes to carry attention. To keep people engaged is to honor them. That is sacred.
Where entertainment sits relative to metaphor and politics
There is a growing tendency in culture to push metaphor to the surface as if clarity equals power. But surface-level metaphor turns characters into effigies. When characters stand in for political positions or ideological checkboxes, they stop behaving like people. The plot becomes an intellectual exercise: a parade of positions colliding to make a point.
When that happens, the drama dies. People stop asking what happens next. They stop worrying about the fate of those characters. The audience becomes an analyst instead of a participant. If your story’s primary function is to preach, it risks becoming a piece of propaganda — rhetorically useful but dramatically dead.
Examples worth studying
There are many films and books that show how this can go right or wrong. Two polar examples: one that embraces entertainment while carrying themes beneath the surface, and one that places metaphor on the stage so clearly the people watching are forced to look past the characters to the idea.
When entertainment and care coexist
Take a film that hums with energy and gorgeous craft but still invites us to feel the stakes: an example of a director who treats actors with deep affection so the audience can invest. The characters are loved, not mocked; their small arcs feel intimate. You can see the filmmaker had projection and sympathy for those people, and because of that, even when politics swirl around the picture, you feel the human center. The story drags you through moments because you care.
When metaphor lives on the surface
Contrast that with works that wear allegory like a mask. The allegory is so obvious that the characters are readable from twenty paces: this one stands for that idea, that one stands for that ideology. The writer’s contempt for the characters can become palpable — not because the characters are punished by conflict, but because the author seems to enjoy punishing them as a demonstration of rightness.
That kind of scolding tone alienates. People will ask, why spend time here? It turns audiences into spectators of a moral exhibition instead of participants in a living world. If a filmmaker or writer reduces their people to props in a lecture, entertainment evaporates and the moral victory means little.
On character contempt, punishment, and empathy
Punishing characters is not inherently wrong. Conflict, suffering, failure, humiliation — those are the mechanics of drama. But punishment has to come with context and empathy. The audience needs to sense that the author respects the character as a person, even if they are flawed or awful. The writer’s job is not to correct but to explore. Punishment works when the audience understands what’s at stake and why the character’s struggle matters.
When an author writes with contempt, it reads as laziness: a shortcut to moral righteousness. When an author writes with compassion, even the worst characters become fascinating. That compassion allows us to feel danger, shame, longing, and the possibility of transformation.
The sublime, the monster, and the material for myth
There is another axis where stories operate: the sublime. The sublime is not merely big or scary; it is awe that mixes terror and reverence. It is the feeling you get when you stand before something vast enough to make your body remember its smallness. That sensation feeds great drama.
I once found myself face to face with a bull. It was not a monster because someone had written it as such; it was a presence. The bull could shred me. It expressed raw power that was neither malicious nor friendly. It was indifferent to my judgments, but in that indifference there was sanctity. The experience was formative because it reset proportions and fears. That is precisely the material great metaphors are made from: phenomena we cannot reconcile easily, things that demand stories as a way to process and live with them.
Metaphor as living conflict, not as a lab experiment
Metaphor should never feel like a coat put on a stick figure. Treat metaphors like living conflicts. If your story uses a city of trailer windows as a metaphor for social media alienation, let the metaphor inhabit character choices, day-to-day stakes, and sensory detail. Keep it embodied. Let the metaphor be something people struggle with, not just a label stuck on a plot point.
When metaphors live in the lived experience of characters, they invite the audience to build their half of the bridge. When metaphors are announced and pointed to, they throw up a glass wall between the audience and the emotional life of the story.
Audience as arbiter: respect but do not serve
The audience is the arbiter of their own experience. This is not patronizing — it is a pragmatic truth. Viewers and readers bring their own history, baggage, and windows to every piece of art. They will interpret, wrestle, and sometimes reject. The artist’s job is not to change minds per se. The worst stories are those written with the explicit mission of changing an audience’s mind. As soon as you set out to “fix” an audience, you build straw men and reduce real human complexity to targets of persuasion.
Instead, an artist should present the metaphors that fascinate them most, explore them sincerely, and trust the audience to take what they will. If a piece lights a flame in someone, that is the closest thing to the communal bonfire artists can hope for. If it fails to ignite anyone, the problem is rarely the audience; it is usually the bridge.
How to build better bridges as a writer or filmmaker
Here are practical takeaways for creators who want their work to entertain and resonate.
- Make entertainment your first obligation. If no one is transported, your ideas fall flat. Start with the question: how do I carry attention from scene to scene?
- Embed metaphor, don’t flaunt it. Let themes grow from character choices and sensory worldbuilding. Keep allegory under the skin, not on the sleeve.
- Respect the audience’s agency. Invite them to co-create meaning. Do not lecture.
- Love your characters even as you punish them. Empathy magnifies stakes and makes suffering meaningful.
- Use the sublime as a tool. Scenes or images that trigger awe or terror can give metaphors real weight.
- Test for drama, not for cleverness. If you find yourself writing for intellectual argument, ask whether there is an emotional heartbeat underneath the idea.
- Build the bridge halfway. Give the audience room to cross with you. Avoid spoon-feeding every conclusion.
Story as ritual: arc, rite, and transformation
When I talk about ritual elements of story, I mean the deep structures that change people. Good stories are rites of passage: characters confront forces that force them into a new shape. These forces can be political, social, personal, or natural. What matters is that the audience witnesses and participates emotionally in that passage.
When metaphors are treated as rites — as real conflicts rather than lecture devices — the transformational power of story comes through. The audience is not told what to think; they travel. Their imaginations are engaged. Their beliefs adjust as part of a lived experience, not a debate.
Common pitfalls and how to avoid them
Writers and directors fall into a few predictable traps. Knowing them helps you avoid reheating old mistakes.
- Surface allegory: When characters represent only ideas, stripping them of complexity. Solution: give each character private desires, contradictions, and a sensory life.
- Didacticism: When a plot is staged to prove a single point. Solution: complicate the argument. Let consequences surprise you. Let the character fail in ways the thesis did not predict.
- Spectacle without weight: Eye candy without emotional relevance. Solution: link spectacle to inner stakes. Make the big moment matter to the protagonist’s core need.
- Contempt disguised as critique: When the creator’s scorn for characters is palpable. Solution: write with curiosity. Ask why someone acts the way they do before judging them on the page.
Practical exercises to sharpen your entertainment muscle
Entertaining is a craft muscle you can exercise. Try these small practices to strengthen attention-carrying skill.
- Strip a scene to its beat. Take a five-minute scene and mark every moment of emotional movement. Does each beat carry the audience forward? If not, tighten.
- Reverse-engineer audience attention. Read a favorite scene and write why it entrains attention. Is it pacing, tactile detail, rising stakes, or character surprise? Copy the mechanics, then invert them in your own work.
- Hide the theme, dramatize the conflict. Take a theme and ask: what conflict would make this theme unavoidable for a person in this world?
- Practice compassion for characters. Write a page from the antagonist’s point of view, not to justify them, but to understand them. Complexity creates interest.
- Introduce the sublime. Create a moment of scale or eeriness in your scene that makes a character feel small. Use sensory detail to anchor awe or terror.
How to know when a metaphor is working
A metaphor is working when it does three things simultaneously:
- It deepens empathetic investment in characters rather than replacing them.
- It sustains dramatic tension across scenes, not just in a single clever image.
- It invites the audience to feel and think rather than telling them what to feel and think.
If your metaphor fails any of these tests, either refine it or bury it beneath character-driven conflict until it becomes inseparable from lived action.
Examples of living metaphors to emulate
Look for works where metaphor is felt rather than announced. Scenes where the environment itself becomes an antagonist or ally, where a community’s rituals shape decisions, and where technology or landscape is treated as a character in its own right. These are the places where metaphor and human stakes fuse.
On rhetoric, persuasion, and storytelling
Story is a rhetorical art. Stories persuade. But persuasion through storytelling works best when it arises from emotional truth rather than theory. Rhetoric that feels like storytelling invites the audience into a problem. Rhetoric that feels like dogma positions the audience outside the speaker’s reach.
Rhetoric and story should not be enemies. The trick is to make your persuasive case the consequence of your characters trying to survive their world, not the premise you hand them as homework. When persuasion emerges organically from action, it is durable and human.
When you should be provocative
Being provocative is not inherently bad. Provocation can jar the audience out of complacency and make them notice something uncomfortable. But provocation that lacks human care is simply noise. If you want to provoke, do it by opening a wound and inviting the audience to hold it with you, not by brandishing a slogan and demanding assent.
Final words on craft and responsibility
Entertain first. Treat metaphors as living things worth honoring. Build bridges that invite co-creation rather than lecturing across a chasm. Love your characters enough to punish them honestly and to allow their failures to teach rather than merely justify an argument. Respect the audience’s intelligence and agency. The rest will follow.
Is entertainment the same as superficial fun?
Entertainment is not the same as superficial fun. Superficial fun focuses on momentary thrills; true entertainment carries attention and creates a journey. It invites emotional investment and sustained curiosity. When entertainment is done well, it becomes the vehicle through which themes, metaphors, and moral questions land in the audience’s body and imagination.
Does it matter if a writer detests a character?
Yes, it matters in how that detestation shows up on the page. An author can write a character they dislike and still create powerful drama if they treat that person as real — with motives, contradictions, and needs. The danger is writing contempt into the texture of the story so the audience senses it and disengages. If contempt replaces curiosity, the work loses emotional gravity.
Who defines whether a character is a monster?
The audience ultimately participates in defining what a character is because each person brings a unique window of experience to the story. However, the writer can shape that definition through how they portray consequences, context, and interior life. The most interesting characters are ambiguous: they force the audience to reckon with complexity rather than to tick a moral box.
How do you prevent metaphor from killing drama?
Prevent this by embedding metaphor in emotional stakes. Make the metaphor a force that affects a character’s wants and fears in real terms. Give the metaphor costs, opportunities, and contradictions. Keep scenes grounded in sensory detail and personal consequence so the audience experiences the metaphor through action rather than through exposition.
Should writers set out to change readers’ minds?
Not as a first goal. Setting out to change minds often creates straw men and reduces complexity. Better to explore the metaphors and conflicts that fascinate you and to trust that sincere exploration will affect some people. Stories change minds more effectively when they alter the way people feel about a subject rather than when they attempt to force intellectual conversion.
What is the single most important habit for maintaining entertainment in writing?
Watch for attention leaks. After each draft pass, ask which moments would make someone stop and put the work down. Fix those by increasing stakes, clarifying choices, or tightening pacing. Entertaining writing is disciplined writing: every scene must have an emotional hook and forward motion.
Closing invitation
If you treat entertainment as sacred, your work will ask more of itself and, by extension, of its audience. That reciprocity is the alchemy of storytelling. Build bridges with care, invite people to meet you halfway, and trust that when your metaphors are earned and your characters are loved, the bewildering, sublime parts of life will find the right language to breathe in.
