Do all stories have to teach a lesson?

[Lensing]

I agree with what you wrote
but there is a difference between a message and a lesson.

Every story, song, poem has a message, some try to teach a lesson

[allisoncandraw]

I don't think so. My comic is a funny slice of life, just meant to be silly and fun. I don't think everything needs a deeper meaning.

[Lensing]

Same here, I write funny / erotic slice of life stories, there is no deeper meaning
and no lesson I want to teach people, I also don´t want people to learn a lesson
from my story. You could say I have a message because I joke about relationship
stuff, but don´t, I just write what I find interesting

[GodbreakerComic]

A lesson for the reader? No it doesn't need that.

A lesson for the characters? Yes, at least for me anyways. Your characters should have learned and changed from beginning to end. You don't want static characters who start and finish the story as the same person. At least I find stories like that boring.

An example I can think of off the dome is The Batman. Batman/Bruce had to learn that it takes more than fear/violence to inspire change, and to not inspire more violence. In the beginning he was just angry punchy man, and(SPOILERS?) by the end he was a first responder and helping citizens, helping Gotham non-violently. Chefs kiss.

An example of a static character is Superman in Man of Steel. A bunch of stuff happens and hes the same as when he started. In the beginning he was morally-just hero... and the end he was a morally-just hero. The events didn't change him at all so I was like... what was the point of all that? Same person, same choices, no growth or change.

[Lensing]

I think that also depends on the kind of story you are reading and writing, just like the lesson / message
thing. A comic story doesn´t need characters who learned and changed, you just need that in some specific
kind of stories

[TheLemmaLlama]

Echoing the sentiments that:

• an actual, prescriptive moral/lesson is not needed so much as just a point in the sense of "why are you telling me this?"
• Nevertheless, everyone has opinions and some of them are going to leak through into their writing no matter what

I do think for a story to keep your attention and not meander around aimlessly, the author does have to have a conscious awareness of "why am I telling them this?" It could be

• a message, like "friendship is important", or
• a theme like "what is the nature of friendship and is it always good? Let's explore from various perspectives", or
• just something like "board games are cool, I'm going to write about characters playing board games because the world is sorely lacking in stories about characters playing board games".

(That is, I think the answer to "why are you telling me this?" needs to be more specific than 'it's cool/silly/fun/cute' - something individual people might find cool/silly/fun/cute/etc like 'board games', or 'baby fantasy animals', or 'enemies-to-lovers romances')

I will dispute the sentiment that "slice-of-life is when no message/point" though. I'd say My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is mostly slice of life sans the season premieres/finales when something big and world-shaking happens, and even without those, there's like a friendship lesson in every episode Unless your definition of 'slice-of-life' means having anything of meaning at all happening pushes the genre into drama or smth ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In fact, I feel like I'm drawn to writing slice-of-life precisely because it lets me explore deep themes without falling into a simplistic narrative of 'X is the solution' because life kind of just goes on for the characters instead of there being one big dramatic confrontation where the protag has an epiphany about X and uses the power of X to solve things forever and everyone lives happily ever after. Even if I'm clearly pro-X leaning, it feels like I'm not being too preachy, like the message isn't 'X is the solution' but rather 'maybe X is good, actually?'

[NickRowler]

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

MLP:FiM messages were so forced especially in the earlier seasons. This was mostly due to it being used to sell toys and products to young children. They were also trying to target a preschool audience and sell stuff like clothes, toothbrushes and toothpaste for toddlers.

[aqua03]

No art is apolitical. It will always reflect your values and what you think is important, worth making art about, worth telling a story about, what you think is worth celebrating and depicting in a positive light, and what you want to vilify, make fun of or pretend doesn't exist.

Honestly, I think a better term for it would be "NBo art isn't influenced by the writer's worldview and/or belief system" given that claiming something is "Political" tends to carry with it a certian feeling that it explcitly commentates on current events happening in the world if that makes sense.

[Inspector]

You probably won't notice it, but so long as you write a story with a strong plot, there will always be some sort of lesson. For example, a story about robots taking over. You may think the main purpose is entertainment and action, but it could also have a lesson of "Don't let technology overcome the world" or even "Don't let technology overcome your life,".
Basically, what I'm saying is you don't have to try to make it have a lesson, but it will probably have one. No matter how small.

[Lensing]

The robot example is a pretty obvious lesson / message but that doesn´t prove that every strong story / plot has a lesson.
I used to read a lot of stories which teach lessons but most of the literature that I read doesn´t teach lessons.
You can say that some of them teach the lesson that life sucks for some people but that´s just an interpretation

[Inspector]

I get that, but I'm not saying the entire story has a lesson. I'm saying that there are probably small, quite unnoticeable lessons. It could even be lessons of survival, especially in adventure stories. If a character does something wrong or messes up, you know not to do that thing, and vice versa.
Also, I'm talking specifically about stories. Not like a funny comic strip (although that could possibly teach a lesson as well)
It really depends on how you interpret it.

[writerhongpao]

I tend to agree with others on this thread who stated stories naturally impart some sort of lesson, perhaps not because of the medium, but rather because of the audience - people will always be able to form some takeaway from what they experienced.

For me it's more of a sliding scale on how much a story teaches you, or rather how much you can learn from the story. It could be very little and still be very entertaining, those have their own merits if only occupying your attention and taking your mind off of "the real world" for a while. Those will always have a place in art.

However, I do find I am more intrigued when a story explores more complex ideas. I am naturally more attracted to those, it's like some people like sports, and to some extent you can gleam some life lessons from it on how people overcome adversity or are dedicated to a craft, but I never was super into it, I usually gravitated towards philosophy.

What makes storytelling different though from say an essay or a treatise, is the focus on the characters. The message/lesson isn't really the focus, those are secondary. I feel what makes stories enjoyable is seeing things from that person's perspective, and in a story there's potential for you to get so close to the characters' emotions that it can really affect you as if you the reader were going through it yourself.

It's why I always liked reading history or watching documentaries, I saw it not as a list of events, but rather learning what people going through significant events were thinking and feeling at the time. And in a fictional story, you can really go into people's motivations and explore relationships in a way you can't with history other than through pure speculation.

[TheLemmaLlama]

What makes storytelling different though from say an essay or a treatise, is the focus on the characters. The message/lesson isn't really the focus, those are secondary.

Broke: Don't put politics in your entertainment
Woke: Use your entertainment to push your political agenda
Bespoke: Use your political agenda to push your entertainment