The Moral of the Story

So, everyone knows your story needs to have a theme, or moral.  A novel has to have a point, some idea you want to get across to your reader.  Well, as it turns out, good writing isn't really about that.

I always assumed that for a book to be worth its binding, it had to teach you something.  And it should, but it shouldn't be so obvious that it's screaming in your ear and kicking you in the gut.  Jerome Stern says in his book, Making Shapely Fiction, that in a good story "the experience is primary, not the message" (68).  I was a little shocked when I read that.  I'd always believed that everything should revolve around one idea, which is the theme.  When I was in High School and wrote book reports, I had to say, in a single sentence, what the book was about, and it was always in the form of a thesis.  "Stealing is bad," "We should share," "If you do good things, good things will come back to you."  Apparently, that's not how it should be.

Ah Hamlet.  So conflicted.
(Photo by Phil Kalina for Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens)

Take Shakespeare.  Hamlet has been called the greatest thing ever written, but what is the theme of that play?  Can you boil it down to just one idea?  That's why it's so amazing: it's about lots of things.  And if it answers any questions, it raises just as many.  According to Jerome Stern, that's what good writing does, especially the older your audience is.  If you write for little kids, yes, you should have a pretty obvious moral.  As you move up through Middle Grade, Young Adult, and Adult literature, the central theme becomes less and less apparent, and there are more uncertainties.

But, if you're not trying to say something in your novel or short story, there isn't much reason to write it, or for anyone to read it.  So there's a balance; you need to be exploring issues and bringing up arguments for and against certain solutions, but also not sermonizing.  How do you do that?

Part of the answer is exactly what Jerome Stern said.  Experience is primary.  Your character is going to face some problem.  They're going to do something about it.  That's going to lead to other problems, more choices to make, and eventually a final consequence, good or bad.  The reader, then, experiences this character's life and decides for herself what she would have done in the same situation based on the outcomes of the character's decisions.

If you haven't seen it, go watch or read Hamlet.  What would you have done if your father's ghost appeared to you and asked you to avenge him by killing your uncle?  Look at what happened to Hamlet.  Would you have done as he did after seeing the consequences of his actions?  What might you have done instead?  Or did he do it right, even though his actions lead to his death?  The answer will be different for everyone.

Basically, you need to teach your reader something, but that's not what your story is about.  Your novel should be about a lot of things, but most of all it's about your characters living and choosing and acting and experiencing.  It's about something happening.  Tell a story, not a sermon, and your readers will come up with their own conclusions (perhaps they'll even agree with you).  They might have more questions at the end, but that's a good thing, too.