Whether it is going for a walk, reading a book or taking a bubble bath at the end of the day everyone looks for some form of escape. Soap operas with their fantastical plots and incredible settings fulfill that need for many people. People are able to connect with soaps on an emotional level, with relevance to love and familial situations, but these shows are also made addictive with writers utilizing cliffhangers and other plot devices to keep the audience not only interested but eagerly awaiting more.

Soap opera characters are developed with their intended audience in mind, with consideration to setting and plot. With a high female target audience, teens and adults, the situations usually revolve around love and family. Every episode of a soap opera pulls at the heart strings in some fashion whether it is about a jilted lover, family crisis, loss and illness or even work and a brow beating boss. Once an emotional connection is established with the audience, there is a sense of attachment to the characters.

After the audience is undeniably emotionally involved, the episode will come to an open ended conclusion, or stop, right before a critical point in the story. This is what writers refer to as a cliffhanger. There are events revolving around a particular situation that can be read into and the climax typically foreseen by the audience, however with an abrupt end the audience is left unsure as to what really will occur to the characters. This style of writing helps add more tension to the plot of a story and inevitably most will tune in the next week or next day to see what will actually happen. It usually takes several episodes but finally the audience is given the happy ending it had anticipated and of course now there are other subplots taking place along the storyline to pull the audience right back in.

The American public loves the sense of being 'a fly on the wall' or in other words anonymously witnessing everything that happens in someone else's life. Each day everyone from school kids, soccer moms and co-workers talk about what's happening in the world around them. Most of these conversations are about fashion and drama or the 'who is doing what where with whom' gossip. Soap opera characters not only willingly set themselves up to be criticized and scrutinized by their audience, they aid in fulfilling the fantasies of the audience by being trapped on a desert island with a beautiful partner or storming out of the family mansion in a fit of jealousy. The characters experience everything the audience does emotionally, just in a corvette instead of a minivan.

A soap opera is the perfect escape for most people. While the audience is pulled inexorably along the multiple plots and story lines, they enjoy the experience of exotic settings and fabulous surroundings. The audience is allowed to fully embrace its voyeuristic tendencies and also be entertained with the complex story lines. Soap operas are one of the best examples of successful storytelling that anyone can find.

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