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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/45591
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/45591
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

@MatthewDave suggests asking yourself what your story is about. I would go farther: ask yourself **what is the meaning of your story** , what it is you're trying to say.

If you're saying nothing at all, then no, your story doesn't have much depth. And at this point, it's too late to change that - you'd have to start from scratch. "What you're trying to say" is the core around which you're weaving your story. It's what guides you when you need to choose whether events would go this way or that. It's not something you can add after the fact.

If you're saying something, your story has _some_ depth. That's a start. Exploring complex ideas, addressing their multiple facets, perhaps touching on multiple ideas, is what would give your story satisfying depth.

As an example, Ernest Hemingway's _The Sun Also Rises_ is, on the surface of it, about a group of friends who go to see the bullfights in Pamplona. Beneath that surface, Hemingway explores the Lost Generation and how they deal with the war trauma in the post-war years. And it is also a story about a man coming to terms with the fact that the woman he loves will never be with him. It is a story about people who might seem shallow at first, but are not; and about finding strength, day after day, to deal with life, and about so much more. All in a story so short I'm not sure if it qualifies as a novel or a novela. _That_ is depth.

Original score: 9