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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36317
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36317
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

You approach a story with a message the same way you approach a story without one: To make it compelling you need a good plot, good twists, and a hero the audience is hoping will succeed despite the odds being stacked against them and a likely failure.

You avoid the traps of a too-perfect-hero, and perhaps a too-evil-villain. Whatever philosophy you are trying to push must be the cause of the hero's success; or in the case of Pay it Forward, also the cause of their demise.

A message is like "profit" in business: If you only focus on how to increase profit, you fail to focus on satisfying customers, and eventually the corner cutting and other abuses done in the name of profit will catch up, and put you out of business. The trick to increasing profits is solving the difficult problem of **pleasing customers for less than it costs to please them.** Thus, profit is a residue. You don't increase it by focusing on it, you increase it by increasing the number of customers, or cutting costs **that won't change the level of customer satisfaction _at all_.** i.e. you can cut true waste, but not at the cost of quality, service, cachet, warranty or _employee_ satisfaction.

A message in a story is the same way; the quality of the plot, description, character development, pacing, dialogue and most importantly the **conflict** on every page must come first. There is still room for a message, but "compelling" is separate from it and applies to any story. If you can write a compelling story, _then_ you can try writing one around an integral message.

Original score: 6