Old Eighties movies are an exercise in magical thinking and main character syndrome – to do better we have to say ‘yes’ to main characters and ‘no’ to main character syndrome. It’s a pitfall we must avoid to practice storytelling stewardship. Storytelling stewardship means acting with intention on what you want readers to take from your stories. Being a steward of storytelling implies you’re following the ‘campground rule‘ when it comes to your readers. They came to you, offered you their minds and their attention. That trust comes with important responsibilities.
I’m not a sociologist, I’m not a psychologist, I’m just a guy who grew up in the United States in the ’80s. Personal work on trauma, and magical thinking made me ask myself: Where does *my* magical thinking come from? I know part of it comes from bad / no parenting – getting attached to the idea that if your life had ‘a great story,’ then everything else would fall into place. If you need more examples, check out the ‘It’s All About Me’ trope on TVTropes. We got hammered with this idea over and over again throug the 80s and 90s – I’m not the only one who fell victim to that flawed logic.
It’s up to me to fix myself and also light the way for others. We must unlearn that type of magical thinking – it’s a maladaptive coping mechanism. How can I – practicing storytelling stewardship – use this knowledge in the stories I tell myself and the stories I tell to others?
How This Harms
We lampoon modern messaging like” doctors hate this one simple trick!” Or” the solution that big companies don’t want you to know about!” And rightly so. That same kind of magical thinking that persisted in ’80s era, ’90s era storytelling but there is a pure and simple truth that you, the magically thinking protagonist, will stumble upon. There’s a great counter-point to that logic and it’s an old quote: “the pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
There’s legitimate danger in enabling magical thinking and main character syndrome. Think about some of the toxic characters we’ve observed in the past 20 years – most of their narcissistic sociopathic behavior comes out of a magical belief in themselves (“It’s all about me!” and “Just trust me!”), an illusory sense of entitlement or superiority to others. Where does that come from? The answer is pretty simple to me – The non-mental health professional/ observer of human behavior that I am. It’s magical thinking and main character syndrome.
Our civilization has become overrun by dangerous idiots, addicted to an illusory sense of superiority. That’s how we get pathocrats, Terrence Howard, Elon Musk, and Elizabeth Holmes. Their illusory sense of competence, an entitlement to power, superiority to others – Musk’s media manipulation and the resultant stock market chaos, Holmes’ healthcare fraud led to life-threatening misdiagnosis, and Howard’s pseudoscience eroding public trust – are still harming us today.
How We Can Help
Again – I’m just one guy – so what can I do? I can’t save the world – so, I tell stories as a kind gesture in a cruel time. STEM-based scifi is important to me, it helps the weird, nerdy kids (as a former weird, nerdy kid) know that it’s okay to be weird.
Further, I can insist that my science fiction contain some ACTUAL science. Remember that? I do. I loved those stories growing up. Kids and young readers deserve access to stories where tinkering, hacking, curiosity and discovery intersected with social-emotional connection. They deserve stories that resonate with those who see the possibilities in technology and innovation. That’s why I focus on STEM and ‘hard scifi’ genre storytelling.
We do a disservice by not setting our readers up for success in the beginning- the real answer will be hard to find, and that’s okay. It’s okay to not know what to do, it’s okay for no one else to know what to do either. It’s okay to try different things and fail and try again. That’s really the only way we’re going to get better as a civilization- if we embrace the hard work of hard work. We can enable our young weird, nerdy friends to embrace the right to be wrong, that failure is not fatal.
