Story Over Message

I’ve been reading Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. It’s an easy read for a book published in 1719, but many passages are mini-sermons. That may have been the fashion in the 18^th Century but bores today’s readers—or at least this one. Fortunately for me (and unfortunately for Defoe), those sections are easy to identify and skip.

Many authors—including me—want their books to convey a message. My first two middle-grade historicals have protagonists who come from different cultures than I do. I wanted my readers to understand two seemingly contradictory but very real truths: (1) that we are all the same under the skin and (2) our cultural heritage is an important part of who we are and should be celebrated rather than suppressed. But if I had stressed that, my readers would have decided the books were dull and put them down before the message sunk in. Or they would have skipped over the lectures. Either way, the message would be lost.

So what’s a writer to do? I try to make the story primary and the message secondary. Think of Aesop’s Fables and fairy tales. The tortoise beat the rabbit because he worked steadily and didn’t slack off. That’s a message, but we remember it because of the story. “Beauty and the Beast” teaches us that it is what is inside that matters but, again, we remember the message because of the story.

I’m not saying you can’t have a message in mind when you write your book. I do. But without a compelling story the message will never get heard.

The same is true for other lessons. One reason I write middle-grade historicals is because I believe it is important for today’s children know about their history. But my readers want a story, not a lecture. When I wrote Desert Jewels, I wanted to show everything that the Japanese Americans went through during World War II when they were forced to leave their homes and move to internment camps. Unfortunately, that goal was unrealistic. There were some events and circumstances that I couldn’t weave into the story without bogging it down, so I had to leave them out. I probably still left in a few things I shouldn’t have, but hopefully the story is strong enough that my readers will forgive me for those slips.

By the time I sent Creating Esther to my middle-grade beta readers, I was doing better. However, I still wanted to show everything about how my Ojibwe protagonist lived before she went to a white-run boarding school, and that goal was unrealistic, too. This time I had the sense to ask my beta readers to point out those passages that sounded like lessons, and they did. The final version either reworked those parts or left them out.

Fiction isn’t a textbook or a sermon. If it is written that way, readers will put it down. And they should.

So if you want your readers to learn something new, put story over message.