5 Precise Ways to Reach Your Audience - The Modern Story

Modern Stories Activate

The Modern pattern is not a Kind, but a pattern that can be overlaid onto any other Kind or Type of story. It cuts off the ending and eradicates the Hero function. There is no real hero or ending and the story just goes on. Doubt, Marriage Story, The Social Network, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Mo are some examples. These stories are darker, more akin to real life, more conflicted and paradoxical, but don’t think they don’t have a heart. These stories are on a mission and they usually have something important to say.

Whether we realize it or not, our brains keep churning over the unfinished story and try to make meaning out of it. We’ll keep mulling it over for days. The author of a Modern Story wants the audience to step in and make some personal conclusions or at least give the addressed issues some thought. If your goal as a writer is to have your audience widen out their perspectives and wrestle with paradox, the Modern Story may be a good choice.

Use a Modern Story to activate your audience—
to promote thought about complex issues.

"There are people who go after your humanity, Sister, that tell you that the light in your heart is a weakness. Don't believe it. It's an old tactic of cruel people to kill kindness in the name of virtue."
~Father Flynn, Doubt

“There is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one.
Most people are somewhere in between.”
~The Monster, A Monster Calls

“Hate never solved nothing, but calm did. And thought did. Try it. Try it just for a change.”
~Willoughby, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri