I’ve long held that any story should first and foremost be entertaining. It Alexander Burnsdoesn’t matter what the story is trying to get across, what great comment on the human condition, or political figure is being skewered or whatever, if the story isn’t a joy to read. Ulysses may require eight PhDs to understand, but that doesn’t make it worth reading.

To that end, I’ve determined that a writer has learned most of what they need to know about storytelling by the age of 10 or so. After that, all that’s left is to learn how to make it good.

By my measure, the following items are awesome:

  • Dinosaurs
  • Robots
  • Spies
  • Detectives
  • Cowboys
  • Knights
  • Guitars (drums are acceptable, but barely)
  • Spaceships (really, anything that flies)
  • Monsters (or other strange creatures)
  • Super-powers (I suppose you could just say the metaphysical – this could be anything from telepathy to time travel to concussive eyebeams)

Your mileage may vary, and obviously there are other things that could be put on here, but basically these are my ingredients for fun. And what do they all have in common? They are all found in stories for children. Whether it’s Labyrinth, Where the Wild Things Are, Transformers, Batman, or My Little Pony, any given person will likely encounter all of these items well before they start getting distracted by the only thing that gets added to the list later in life: Sex.

We put them into stories for kids because there are certain urges, dreams, and concepts that are universal, that pretty much everyone can enjoy at a young age. This is all before social pressures force some of us to give up on the fantastic. Maybe that stuffy professor refuses to acknowledge it now, but when he was young he laughed at Plastic Man as much as the next kid, or she rocked out to Jem.

Ignoring all of this is folly. A good writer can take items from childhood and weave them into stories that are perfectly entertaining for adults (see, for example, every Pixar film ever made). Doing so taps into emotions that have existed in people for years, possibly long forgotten, and allows the writer to introduce new layers of meaning to those feelings. These items have built-in significance and metaphor, so really half the work is already done (my own story, “The Overdue Protocols,” is a good example of that).

It’s not lazy or hackery to build on what’s been done already. Just make sure that something new and fresh is added (after all, even Ulysses was based on the Odyssey). And, for all our sake, make it fun.

Alexander Burns’s most current story “With the Band” is currently available at Every Day Fiction.  He lives in Fort Worth, Texas. He writes because he doesn’t have a basement in which to build robots or time machines, and because he is terrible at math. His work has appeared at Every Day Fiction, A Thousand Faces, 10Flash, The Future Fire, and Big Pulp.