This paragraph hit hard this morning. I found this in an essay titled “Why Story Matters” in the Late Summer 2026 edition of The Classical Teacher, a homeschooling magazine that showed up in our mailbox recently.
Every good story must have a conflict. If yours does not have a conflict, if you are not fighting for something (or against it), if you are not risking something of yourself to bring about some good, if you’re not on any kind of quest - it’s probably because you didn’t fight back when you should have. It could be that you let the dragon get away with it.
- Martin Cothran
