Post History
+1 Galastel; I would say one way to approach an answer to her question, "What is the meaning of your story", is to ask yourself What do my characters learn? Deep stories, at least by my definition...
Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/45594 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/45594 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
+1 Galastel; I would say one way to approach an answer to her question, _"What is the meaning of your story"_, is to ask yourself _What do my characters learn?_ Deep stories, at least by my definition, have characters learning something about the world (our real world, not their fantasy world), how it works, what is important in life, what is not that important. I certainly don't want to slap readers in the face with life lessons; but my characters always learn something I personally think is important about life. For me, the definition of "shallow" is characters that prevail but haven't changed by becoming any better. That might be a fun read, an adventure with imagination and clever plot twists, and I'm willing to have a shallow good time. But those stories are not deep. I'm not going to read them a second time. I don't fall in love with the characters, or feel like they are real people. I don't feel compelled to keep the book, it is something I'll donate to a school.