What are you trying to tell with your story?

[Endymion]

Okay, that may sound a little clumsy but my point is do you have a point that you are trying to make when you are writing a book. Like, for example, that the society is being destroyed because people are afraid to act or that they don't care (okay, that was lame, but do you get the point?).
Are you writing a story just for fun or because you have something important that you want to tell (or the two at the same time)?

 

[The Dark One]

Why was it lame?

My greatest hero, Orwell, said that if you're not somehow addressing the issues of your time then you're merely footling. I aim to entertain, but I always have some sort of perspective I want people to think about while being entertained.

All writers ought to be stretching and bending The Rules, but speculative fiction writers, in particular, ought to have this as the first maxim of their storytelling manifesto.

IMHO

 

[Feo Takahari]

I don't typically provide one right question to ask about a story, let alone one right answer to it--after all, I've read far too many stories in which the one right answer I was supposed to come to was something I found highly offensive. With that said, there was one project, Dulling the Pain, in which I tried to make a point about the concept of "good guys" and "bad guys." I alternated focus between a protagonist in the style of early Orson Scott Card, and a protagonist in the style of late Anne McCaffrey, with each serving as the other's antagonist. Neither was a "bad guy" in the conventional sense, but by the end, both were guilty of awful crimes--and each still liked and respected the other, despite knowing there was no good end to their conflict.

If I'd written it well, it would have been nice to see what responses people had to it--who thought the ruthless Card-type was the hero even after he attempted mass murder, who thought the idealistic McCaffrey-type was the heroine even after she committed physical and psychological rape, and who actually got what I was trying to do. Unfortunately, the responses indicated that I wrote it badly, and the story hemorrhaged readers within two chapters of its start. Every once in a while, I think of rewriting it, but there's always something else to do instead.

 

[gavintonks]

I want people entertained and good value for their time//money if they get anything else that's great but first prize is good entertainment value, good ahha moments and good emotional responses as I have planned them to have

 

[Aravelle]

With my story -in both our society and theirs- this is what I'm trying to say:
Question authority. Why does it do this or that? Do not rebel without reason, but be skeptical. The winners write history, after all.

 

[The Din]

I guess I try and explore the idea that evil is only a point of view. You could relate that to world politics and the like, but I prefer to use decidedly grey characters to challenge society's perceptions and what is acceptable. Can we still root for the guy after he slaughters a whole tribe of halflings(think hobbits)? What could possibly justify such an act? Is leading dosens to their deaths because of heroic ideals any better?

Course, this leads to the realization that what I really might be 'trying to tell' is that the protagonist doesn't always have to be the naive farmboy nor pillar of propriety. That anti-heroes need someone to cheer for them too. Course, I could just be talking out my arse too...

 

[Christopher Wright]

I want to tell a story. If Orwell has a problem with that he can tell me in person. Of course, I'll be spending a great deal of time and effort trying to shoot his shambling corpse in the head if he does, so it may not be a productive conversation.

 

[ScipioSmith]

I started writing Spirit of the Sword when I was coming out of a deep depression, so I had two aims in mind: first to tell a fun, entertaining story with emotional uplift and balls to the wall awesome of the sort I'd gorged myself on to make mysel feel better, but also to tell a story about self image, seeing ourselves as others see us, and feeling like you're backed into a corner with no way out and how you do, in fact, find a way to carry on.

Of course, the trouble is you can't say whether you've succeeded or not; only the readers can.

 

[Chilari]

I don't tend to think about what message I'm trying to convey when I write. I write for the fun of it, and because I've got a story to tell. But I guess there often is a message I have in the back of my mind. Or at least a sort of premise. For one previous (abandoned) story, the premise was "We are the architects of our own downfall" (it was a tragedy). I suppose for the story I'm starting work on at the moment, the message, if there is one, is that there's no going back to how things used to be, only forward to what things might be.

Christopher: That made me laugh aloud. It is a sight I would quite like to see. From a safe distance.

Scipio: Would you recommend that method as a means to put depression behind you, or would you say that you were able to write it because you were already well on the road to recovery? Also is it published? Because I know someone who could really do with that kind of uplift.

 

[Ankari]

I think every story conveys a message, whether you want it to or not. I mean 99% of all stories are "Good will always triumph over evil." It takes a disciplined author to write a story that doesn't have a moral to it. Even then, it may not be a good story because of the intentional lack of morality.

 

[Ophiucha]

I don't know if most of my stories necessarily have a moral or message to convey, but as a human being, I undoubtedly and occasionally consciously work to include things that are important to me. Even when I have predominantly male casts, I work hard to make my female characters well developed and engaging characters who have lives outside of their relationship with the protagonist. I've never written a book without at least one major POC. The project I've been writing on the side of my main project, White Moon, takes place with specific medieval European people - Pope Urban V and John Hawkwood, specifically - but I still gave John Hawkwood a close advisor and warrior who I made a Berber (well, he's always just called a Moor in the story, given the setting, but I see him as Berber). LGBT+, if I can. Couldn't really find a place for it in a story set in medieval Europe when the two main characters are a Pope and someone who historically had two wives and likely a few bastards, but certainly in my original worlds, I like to play with how society views sexuality and gender.

As I said, I rarely make it the focus of my stories. I like revenge plots and political intrigue and, oddly enough, high stakes crossing-the-desert stories (seriously, I've written a full first draft of three different fantasy novels about someone/s crossing the desert). Never much of a message in those ones. But when I am choosing who is crossing my desert, who is going on a roaring rampage of revenge, and who is making their way to the top, I do consciously choose not to always make it a white, heterosexual male because it's an issue that's important to me.

And, on a similar note, my worldbuilding is very much dictated by my beliefs. I hate creating religions and I hate writing religious characters because I find religion to be morally reprehensible. When I do create a religion, I never have the gods as an undeniable force in the world (just because unicorns exist, doesn't mean gods do), or else I make their status as "gods" questionable, like they may just be immortal beings of some sort. That's not really to say my stories are about the evils of religion or are anti-religious - hell, even my story where Pope Urban V is the villain isn't anti-religious - but you don't have to be an English teacher to pick up on the fact that I'm an atheist while you're reading them.

So... yeah, incidental messages, but I don't tend to write them in. I guess you can say by the nature of being a story with a conclusion of some sort, I'm conveying some viewpoint. Good triumphs over evil, or more likely, life sucks and then you die. Or all good things come with a cost, or the ends justify the means, or whatever. I don't really abide by the line of thinking that says "if the story ends in X way, then the writer must believe in Y philosophy", but I guess most of my high school English teachers would disagree.

 

[Telcontar]

I rarely - if ever - try to make a point with my stories. First last and always I just want to tell a good story and entertain my readers. My opinion is that the best stories have deep characters and hard choices, and in any story with those elements, 'themes' will pop up on their own.

Naturally, as my opinions inform and affect my writing, some topics come up more often than others. The subjectivity of morality is a common one, as is religion and its effects on people. Dealing with destructive (whether to the self or others) urges is another.

 

[Ghost]

I don't set out to write fiction with a message. My concepts run the gamot from stories of triumph to tragedies. Any messages–given my content, they're sure to sneak in–are incidental and specific to my characters' situations. The emotions of individuals involved are the core of the my stories, and I want to highlight problems without patching a universal solution or judgement onto them.

In the stories I've actually written (rather than conceptualized), my characters seem to be pathetic people in static worlds who surrender to apathy. They, or people around them, are often disconnected from society physically or on an interpersonal level. There could be social commentary in it, but I'm certain it has more to do with my own psychological state. I also explore why people do abhorrant things, which seems to be an attempt to explain how people can harm others or stand by when others are harmed. I'll never find a satisfactory answer, but the subject keeps returning.

 

[Penpilot]

I don't usually set out to write something with a particular message, but once I finish a first draft, themes will pop out. All stories have themes whether you want them to or not. I usually take the themes I like most that come out and write the second draft with those in mind so I can deliberately accentuate them.

 

[Aravelle]

I completely agree. Even if a message isn't intended to be in a story, someone will find one. It's just the way people are.

 

[gavintonks]

I am posting this in a few threads as I have become to notice that many people consider a "travelogue through their imagination" is a story. It is not the imagination is purely the substitute for characters within a well crafted and entertaining story. This is not creating a game it is writing and entertaining and gripping story that may or may not exist somewhere but it it the story that must be real first.,

 

[TWErvin2]

I completely agree. Even if a message isn't intended to be in a story, someone will find one. It's just the way people are.

Yes, readers bring different life experiences and even expectations when they read a story or novel. What they come away with may not be what the writer originally intended or hoped for (if that was a writer's goal or objective).

My works, I mainly write to entertain, but there is generally a theme that emerges. I don't set out to write with a specific theme, but it often is reflected or revealed through the conflict contained within the story.

 

[Cassia]

I'm ten years old and I dont write to make a point...Of course that could be my age...