Dare to Write a Story That Matters

Every storyteller eventually asks the same question: Does my story matter?

But what does “matter” actually mean?

Is it popularity? Awards? Cultural influence? A happy ending? A clean story? The right genre?

In this episode of The Storyteller’s Mission, Zena Dell Lowe challenges common assumptions about meaningful storytelling and explores the deeper qualities that make stories endure.

A truly meaningful story does more than entertain. It reveals truth about the human condition, awakens longing, enlarges compassion, strengthens hope, and points us toward something greater than ourselves.

Zena shares 7 tests of a story that matters and invites writers to consider a deeper calling: not simply creating stories people consume, but stories that transform the people who encounter them.

What story changed your life? Share your answer with us.

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📚 About The Storyteller’s Mission
The Storyteller’s Mission helps writers craft stories grounded in truth, meaning, and moral clarity — stories that shape culture rather than merely reflect it. We provide practical tools, writing tips, actionable lessons, and storytelling techniques to help you develop compelling stories, master story structure, build unforgettable characters, and polish your craft for personal and commercial success. Whether you’re writing novels, screenplays, or short stories, our bold, dynamic approach empowers you to execute your ideas with confidence and creativity—and maybe, just maybe, change the world.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Over the last month, I've spent hours talking with writers at various conferences,

and we've discussed a lot of things like character development, story structure, publishing, [00:00:10] marketing, all the usual topics. But beneath every single conversation, I kept hearing a deeper question that was sort of being asked but not articulated.

[00:00:20] And it wasn't, "How do I get published?" Although a lot of people ask that. It wasn't even, "How do I write a better plot?" The real question was,

"Does this story matter?" [00:00:30] It's a question that almost every 

storyteller has to ask eventually, and if we're being honest, it really doesn't have anything to do with the story itself at all.[00:00:40] 

It's a question about significance. We want our work to matter because we want our lives to matter, which raises an interesting [00:00:50] question.

Why do some stories change lives while others are forgotten almost as soon as the credits roll or as soon as someone closes the book? Because [00:01:00] many stories are entertaining, a few of them are actually meaningful, but only a handful become transformative.

So what's the difference? What [00:01:10] makes a story matter?

Hello and welcome to The Storyteller's Mission with Zena Dell Lowe, a podcast for artists and storytellers about changing the [00:01:20] world for the better through story. 

And before I go any further today, I want to clarify

what I mean by matter, because [00:01:30] when writers ask whether their story matters, you're often going to get the answer, "Well, what I mean is will it sell?

Or will it become famous? Or will it impact [00:01:40] culture? Will it win awards? Will people remember it?"

And those are reasonable questions, but that's not what I'm actually exploring today. I'm using the [00:01:50] word matter in a much deeper sense.

What I'm really asking

is, does this story contribute something good, true, [00:02:00] beautiful, or meaningful to the people who encounter it?

Or put another way, does this story help people see reality more clearly [00:02:10] and love what is actually worthy of love?

See, that's a very different thing. That's a very different question. 

Plenty of [00:02:20] stories become wildly popular, and yet they leave almost nothing of value behind.

And conversely, plenty of stories touch only a handful [00:02:30] of people, and yet they change those people forever.

So when I ask whether a story matters, , I'm not actually asking about its commercial success, [00:02:40] cultural reach, or maybe even its historical significance. I'm asking whether it contributes something genuinely good [00:02:50] to the human experience.

Does it help us see reality more clearly? Does it awaken virtue? Does it strengthen hope? Does it cultivate [00:03:00] wisdom? Does it help us love what is worthy of love? That's the kind of meaning that I'm talking about.

So let's start at the beginning, which is to clear [00:03:10] away some misconceptions.

Many Christians assume that stories matter because they have happy endings. I've talked about this a lot.

But that's clearly not the case. Some of the [00:03:20] most powerful stories tell stories that are-- end in tragedy. Romeo and Juliet, right? In fact, I've argued for years that Christian [00:03:30] writers should not feel pressured to write stories with happy endings, because not everyone is actually redeemed in real life.

Sometimes evil wins. Sometimes people [00:03:40] make choices that destroy them. Sometimes tragedy is precisely what reveals the greatest truths, the lessons that [00:03:50] we need to take home as the audience.

So a story that honestly portrays the devastation of sin may ultimately do more good than a feel-good [00:04:00] story that offers false hope.

Likewise, stories don't really matter if they're clean. That's not why they matter. There's the strange [00:04:10] tendency in Christian circles to evaluate stories according to what they don't contain, right? No sex, no language, no violence, therefore they are good. [00:04:20] As though goodness is the absence of bad things.

But that's not how goodness works.

In fact, scripture contains things like murder, [00:04:30] adultery, betrayal, war, abuse, suffering, I mean, injustice, all of it Incest. It, it includes all of the bad [00:04:40] things.

And it's not because God delights in those things, it's because truth matters. A story isn't good because of what it lacks, it's good [00:04:50] because of what it offers.

And insofar as it reflects the reality about who we are as human beings and about the world as God [00:05:00] actually created it, it possesses value.

A story doesn't matter because it's popular or successful or culturally [00:05:10] influential.

And by the way, I struggle with this one myself. Like, well, how many people are watching my podcast?

Right? That's a type of story. That's my work. And if [00:05:20] I'm not getting enough views, I'm like, "Ugh, it doesn't even matter."

But from the notes or from the emails I get from people, the people that are watching it are [00:05:30] feeling very transformed and impacted by it. It's actually life-changing.

So we cannot gauge how successful or how much our story matters based on how [00:05:40] popular it actually is.

And by the way, it also doesn't matter what the genre is, right? No genre has a claim on meaning more [00:05:50] than any other genre. I mean, just ask Charlie Chaplin, whose stories I believe gave hope to millions of people during the Great Depression, and yet his films [00:06:00] rarely appear on lists of the most important moral works ever created.

And yet comedy matters. Laughter matters. Because, by the way, comedy is not the [00:06:10] opposite of seriousness, it's the opposite of despair. Where there is laughter, there is hope.

So if popularity, [00:06:20] clean content, genre-specific happy endings aren't the answer, then what is? What actually matters? And I've come up with a [00:06:30] list of seven things, seven qualities, that I think make stories matter.

Because I believe meaningful stories share these [00:06:40] common characteristics.

So first and foremost, as I mentioned,

they help us see reality more truthfully. Not merely factual reality, by the [00:06:50] way. Moral reality, spiritual reality, or even more to the point, human reality. They illuminate something true [00:07:00] about our condition, and about the things that impact the human condition,

like love and sacrifice and evil and suffering and courage and [00:07:10] pride, hope, redemption, despair.

All of those things that we human beings are so desperately trying to understand. [00:07:20] And so good stories ultimately help us understand what it means to be human, and to live with these sorts of things that we [00:07:30] have to contend with in a fallen world

Second of all,

meaningful stories derive significance from meaning, [00:07:40] not from scale.

Now, what do I mean by that? Well, Hollywood often assumes that bigger means better. Bigger means more important. Save the world. [00:07:50] Save the galaxy. Save the multiverse.

But some of the most meaningful stories ever involve ordinary people making ordinary [00:08:00] choices. A father learning to love his child, a lonely man discovering friendship, a broken person learning true [00:08:10] forgiveness and to surrender the burdens of betrayal or whatever has happened to him so that he can actually go on to live a better life.[00:08:20] 

Because what ultimately matters on this earth are souls.

It's always about relationships, virtues, choices, [00:08:30] human beings. My mom used to say, "There are only two things that are eternal, the word of God and people." So good [00:08:40] stories focus on people and make it meaningful for us.

All right. Number three, 

Now, this may be the most important [00:08:50] quality of all, but also may be a little nebulous to try to understand. But the truth is, meaningful stories awaken longing.A great [00:09:00] story will make us desire something bigger than ourselves. It will make us desire justice, for [00:09:10] example, something beautiful, home, forgiveness, meaning, whatever.

It's about transcendence. And by the way, this is a tricky thing because in [00:09:20] modern storytelling, the true thing that we're trying to get people to do today, the, the big transcendent thing, is to become [00:09:30] who you were always called to be. We're seeing this everywhere. That's, that is literally the story arc of almost every single story coming out of Hollywood today.

It's about [00:09:40] stepping into the person you were always meant to be, you know, becoming who you are, embracing your true self as if that's bigger than you, but it isn't. That's just, [00:09:50] that's just you. And a good story always calls us beyond the limits of self into something greater 

 Tolkien called it [00:10:00] joy beyond the walls of the world.

The best stories remind us that we were made for more than this world can actually provide. And [00:10:10] so we're looking for those things that transcend mere human existence.

We're looking for those things that call us to something bigger than ourselves, that [00:10:20] require us to ultimately see God in the universe, because those are the only things that are truly transcendent.

Okay, [00:10:30] number four, meaningful stories enlarge our moral imagination They allow us to inhabit another person's [00:10:40] experience.

This is where we learn things like compassion and empathy. It's not just about merely trying to understand ideas, it's about [00:10:50] having us as the reader or the viewer experience these things.

So when we see a character going through some great [00:11:00] challenge, maybe a moral challenge, great stories sort of force us to ask ourselves, "Would I be able to [00:11:10] do that?

Would I forgive that sin? Could I respond like that? Would I be able to endure that situation? Would I cut off my arm with [00:11:20] a knife if I were trapped while climbing somewhere? I mean, what would I do? What could I endure? What would I be [00:11:30] willing to sacrifice? What would be worth it? Who am I really and what am I becoming?"

See, stories train the heart, which [00:11:40] means we're always asking those questions that go beyond the surface level, and we're asking our audience and our viewers to actually put [00:11:50] themselves in the shoes of the characters to be able to understand themselves better. That is how we do that.

Okay. [00:12:00] Number five, meaningful stories oppose despair.

Now, notice that I didn't say that they promote [00:12:10] optimism or that they end happily. Those are not the same thing. Optimism, for example, might say that everything will always work out great,  that's not true, [00:12:20] first of all, but it's also not the same thing as hope. See, hope says that it is worth pursuing the good even if it doesn't work out great.[00:12:30] 

Now, we see this represented biblically, right? Like, I think of the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who are put into 

a fiery furnace because they [00:12:40] refused to bow to Nebuchadnezzar. And what they actually say to Nebuchadnezzar is, "You know, our God is able to save us from [00:12:50] your wrath, O king.

But even if He does not, we will still not bow and worship you, because we will only bow and [00:13:00] worship the one true God." So that's hope. That is hope in something bigger than themselves.

Some of the most hopeful stories [00:13:10] ever written are actually tragic. They end badly for the character.

Braveheart, A Man for All Seasons, The Passion of the [00:13:20] Christ.

Hope does not require a happy ending. Hope requires meaning. It requires that you attach your story [00:13:30] to meaning that goes beyond this mere human existence. That's why we must have transcendence. We can't have hope unless [00:13:40] it's attached to something that is bigger than ourselves, something that is transcendent.

 which leads to number six, meaningful stories [00:13:50] point to something beyond themselves. Now, I've already kind of said this, but I'm gonna go even further here. This is again where the modern storytelling efforts [00:14:00] fail or where they struggle, because most contemporary stories today terminate in the self.

What they're doing today is they're [00:14:10] going for things like self-expression, self-discovery, self-fulfillment. It's all about self, self, self, self, self

But the stories [00:14:20] that endure tend to point upward and outward toward truth that is beyond the self, goodness that [00:14:30] is beyond what we can see, what we know, what, what is happening to us, all of those things.

And by the way, this means that they ultimately point to [00:14:40] God, because there's got to be an author for those things. 

See, , meaningful stories help us love what is worthy of love and hate what is [00:14:50] worthy of hate. And again, this is where modern storytelling has gotten it wrong, because today 

We don't tend to see stories that are [00:15:00] condemning anything except for intolerance. The only thing that is anathema in today's storytelling world are people who are [00:15:10] intolerant of certain things that are culturally popular. And if you're intolerant of those things, then you become a Nazi, you [00:15:20] become hateful, you become all these horrible things.

 the irony here is that tolerance means that you're [00:15:30] tolerating things, that you're having patience. God has patience with us when he is tolerant and withholds his [00:15:40] final judgment. But notice in scripturewhere it says, "Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the [00:15:50] kindness of God leads you to repentance?"

Now, I mention the word tolerance here because what does tolerance mean?

It means that He is [00:16:00] foregoing judgment. He's temporarily holding off on judgment, hoping that people will come to repentance. But notice what it [00:16:10] doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that He doesn't believe that we're doing things wrong, right? It doesn't mean that good is bad and bad is good, or [00:16:20] that our sins don't merit judgment.

It just means He's temporarily holding back judgment in the hopes that [00:16:30] we will repent. That is what His kindness and patience is for.

So why do I say that? Well, because today we've lost track of [00:16:40] that, and we don't tend to condemn things that are actually worthy of condemnation

I'm actually writing an article right now on [00:16:50] this in Substack where in, for example, in aTV series that everybody loves, everybody lauds it as the most wonderful TV series [00:17:00] ever,it's so wholesome and good, Ted Lasso, 

But there's something very sinister happening in Ted Lasso because the truth is you're not [00:17:10] allowed to condemn anything in Ted Lasso. The worst sin is intolerance, and therefore, you have to accept everything about people, [00:17:20] even when those things are wrong and destructive. And you can't even analyze it by that standard.

And that's what's happening today. We're not allowed to say that these [00:17:30] things are bad. This is why some of the news is being suppressed because, oh, it doesn't fit the narrative, right? It doesn't matter what side you're on, we see this happening. And so we're [00:17:40] suppressing the truth because we're supporting a narrative, we're into propaganda.

We basically are not allowed to condemn certain things. We're supposed to be following this [00:17:50] narrative.

Now, Augustine argued that sin is fundamentally disordered love. perhaps our greatest stories are [00:18:00] what help us reorder our loves because they teach us what truly deserves admiration.

They teach us what truly [00:18:10] deserves devotion and sacrifice. And if we're not doing that, if our stories aren't showing what is truly worthy of our [00:18:20] devotion, and they're giving us false things to worship, created things to worship, then ultimately our story should be burned in the fire because it's [00:18:30] meaningless

Okay.

So the question that every storyteller must answer, Does your [00:18:40] story matter? And here's the thing, maybe that's the wrong place to start. Maybe the better place to start, the better question is to ask [00:18:50] yourself what truths ultimately matter. Because stories matter only insofar as they reveal reality about the [00:19:00] human condition and about the world as God actually created it.

So the stories that change lives are rarely the ones with the [00:19:10] biggest budgets, and they're not necessarily the ones with the happiest endings. They're certainly not the ones with the cleanest content. They're the stories that [00:19:20] tell the truth about what it really means to be human, about what it really looks like to contend with the suffering of the human [00:19:30] condition.

They help us see reality more clearly and mankind more clearly in terms of both [00:19:40] our dignity and our depravity, what we're capable of, both in terms of our good things and our bad things. They awaken a longing in us for [00:19:50] something greater, to be better than we are. They ultimately strengthen our hope and enlarge our ability for compassion because they [00:20:00] point beyond themselves.

This is what makes stories great.

They teach us to love what is truly worthy of love because [00:20:10] they're revealing things that are actually true.

Long after people forget your plot twists, long after they forget your clever [00:20:20] dialogue, long after they forget the details of your story, your story will endure if you have revealed [00:20:30] something true, long-lasting, something true that resonates with people, something true about characters, about human, [00:20:40] about humanity, and about this world.

That is what makes a story matter.

Before I go, I would love to hear from you. [00:20:50] I wanna know what changed your life. What story did you watch or read that changed your life?

Not necessarily [00:21:00] just a, a favorite story, although maybe it is a favorite story, but something that changed you, where after you read it or after you watched it, you [00:21:10] really went away and weren't the same.

And I'm betting that whatever story you name is something that revealed something true, for me, it was Les [00:21:20] Miserables. When I read that story in college, I wanted to be like Jean Valjean. I wept and wept and wept, and I [00:21:30] wanted to be like him. I had a longing, a longing to be good like him, to give back like him, to sacrifice like him, to not have [00:21:40] a knee-jerk defensiveness and be retaliatory with people, but to always do the right thing.

I wanted that. I didn't necessarily live up to that. In fact, [00:21:50] I didn't live up to that. But nevertheless It resonated with me. It stuck with me. I wanted that forever. So what [00:22:00] story helped you see reality differently? What story awakened some sort of longing like that? Please [00:22:10] leave a comment below.  tell me what story it was and what truth it revealed.

I would love to know these things. Be so much fun to hear from you.

In the [00:22:20] meantime, 

[00:22:30]