What is your story's message?

[Darth_Biomech]

I've heard somebody say that a great story must have an underlying message that it wants to convey to the reader and that everything - from the story to the character's designs - needs to work to better present that idea. Like, philosophical stuff.

So did your comic start with a message, or was it just a story about cool characters you wanted to write? If it was the latter, have you tried to add some deeper meaning to it over time, or did it just remain a cool story without trying to say anything in particular?

[CommissarTarkin]

Crimson Stars: Chains of Command, as a concept, began simply as a side story about two particular characters who were initially drawn for a pitch document of an animated series. But the overall plot is going to have a message, if you can call it that. Whether we all survive long enough to deliver it by making three whole volumes is another matter entirely.

[NickRowler]

Crow's Worth comes off as very silly and almost random on the surface. But one of the reasons I wanted to make it was I was extremely depressed and I wanted a way to funnel my emotions into something. The comic is about depression, the struggles with mental health, and finding one's self-worth.

I plan to try to tackle more mental health stuff with my newer series Frostpeak West.

[Lensing]

That somebody is wrong. You don´t need an underlying message to have a great story.
You also don´t need an underlying message to have a great song or any other art form

[Darth_Biomech]

But any story or song has a message behind them, especially the great ones. I can't think of any good movie without a message, for instance.

[kyupol]

I'm a libertarian center left politically and Spiritual Christian in my religious beliefs.

So that is always bound to bleed through in my comics no matter how hard I try not to.

[UrMom]

Eeeh I didn't really make my comic with a message in mind, I'm sure there could be one in there, but I just wanted to tell a story. If it feels good for some people to read, and they get something out of it, then that's all that matters.

[Lensing]

I think there are movies, stories, songs, comics with a message and without. But the message doesn´t make something
great, maybe it can make something more meaningful for some people because of that message. Everything I love doesn´t
have an underlying message

[Simplegray_OWO]

The story i'm currently creating is a spinoff. The universe of my spinoff story has a key theme of emotions as emotions are literally the power system. So in the spinoff I needed to find out what each of the characters main emotion/power. So I came up with trust and frustration. Trust is the main character's power so thus I made her whole character arc around learning to trust people again. Thus trust in the lost ones was born.

[R.n.P]

I do not think mine has a sort of message it is trying to convey, rather it is exploring the notion of life goals and the meaning of life

[ccmatta]

Saudade started as a story of a couple where one of the boys suffers a lot and the other struggles to help. It'd be a story about how mental illness looks like (at least in my personal experience) and based on how my best friend dealt with it, dealt with me. And then obviously it'd have all the BL shenanigans that BL stories have.

And I think the core message still is to show the real struggle with mental ilness, the chaotic aspects of it, the instability, the good days, the bad days, the ugly of it, as it's normally really romanticized out there. And the importance of friendships and relationships when you're sick, how they can be our safe port. But I want to tell how you can live with all of it, how you can live even when you're sick, because there's much more then you sickness in your world. That you can overcome your traumas and live with them in harmony. I wanna tell that you're not broken because of it all;

Idk, I think that's it. hahahaha that's not a woooow message neither is my comic something woooow but yeah, I try.

[powerplantanimations]

That Stick Figure Isekai is about redemption and finding ways to connect with other people.

[JaveCraze]

my story started 5 years ago as a copy of a popular comic, but with my own characters. then, it became an animation project, then went through a few iterations.. now it's where it is, and.. it has a message, but i completely forgot what it is. oh well

[allenT]

I don't think my story have a clear message or moral of the story, and I agreed with @Lensing.

My focus is telling a story where readers can feel for the characters (while keeping integrity of my storytelling) and giving them a story they can enjoy or even remember.

[Bearkorps]

I think @Lensing has a good point, and I think there needs to be a distinction between a message you as reader/viewer project onto a work and a message that an artist is intending to express.

Since you brought up movies, I want to bring up the movie STALKER by Andrei Tarkovsky, a film in which the director himself has brought up multiple times is meaningless in regard to the idea that Tarkovsky likely never placed a 1:1 meaning onto anything in his films and often preferred if the audience found their own meaning. Yet, it is a deeply moving movie for those who connect to it that spawns continual debate over its overarching message - whether the importance of faith, freedom or a myriad of other things. Often, it simply boils down to whichever of the four characters in the movie a person happens to connect with. It's undeniable that Tarkovsky is a highly intentional filmmaker, possibly due to his background as a photographer. So, something must be going on here.
It is possible for a film like STALKER to still have a message that wasn't intended or expressed if it was simply evoked. It has been claimed that STALKER is nothing more than an exploration of humanity that neither affirms nor condemns any of its characters' philosophies. Yet, by the deliberately long, hypnotizing takes of the film, the movie becomes a mirror. The viewer loses themselves in the movie and see themselves reflected back.

I think the book the movie was based on, Roadside Picnic, is another great example of this. A capstone novel on the life work of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky it's arguable that the book was largely exploring the feeling of the soviet people about the collapse of the Soviet Union and what happens next. I think many readers are surprised by the ending because the brothers don't give an answer. In the only way I can describe the end without spoiling it, the book simply ends with a man desperately wishing for answers. Leaving, at least for me, a feeling of everything and nothing having happened over the course of the book.

I've never liked the philosophy that art of any sort 'needs' to mean something. Often, I find it leads to situations where the artists get so wrapped up in their own 'big ideas' that they forget their art. Why do we expect art to make sense when life seldomly does? I think a better philosophy is to intend your work to evoke something, whether a feeling, a message, whatever.

I've been very surprised about the things people take from my own work in my collection of shorts 'Letters from the Sleepless', but in the end, even if it wasn't quite what I may have originally intended - it still means I did my job.

[EncryptedWriting]

For Thief of Bones, the message is that it is okay to feel different, to think differently. Your past doesn't dictate your future.

[officialgenesis]

That somebody is wrong. You don´t need an underlying message to have a great story.You also don´t need an underlying message to have a great song or any other art form

Thanks for this!

When I read fiction, or consume any form of art, I am not looking to "learn a lesson" or expect it to have some underlying message, or try to figure out the mind of the writer/creator or what they're trying to convey. I just consume for the fun of it.
Neither do I try to make a statement or push any kind of message through my work. Granted, readers may make their own meaning of your work but the premise that you need to have an underlying message to have a great story, I think is false.

[thel3tterm]

Redux started in 2012 as something I made up as I went for fun.

Now that I'm older and revisiting the characters and themes, it's a story about breaking cycles and dealing with "personal demons" so to speak. I want to explore the ideas of rejecting roles that someone might be expected to inhabit, and breaking away from cycles of violence, inherited trauma, or learned behaviors that a person picks up over time. The title is even a bit of a play on that idea. Putting an end to one, seemingly unsurmountable thing and starting fresh with a new, hopefully better one.

Even if an author or artist doesn't intentionally write with a theme or message in mind, their values, fixations, and lived experiences color what the work becomes. There might not be an obligation upon the reader or the writer to understand or convey a message, but to say that a book doesn't have one doesn't seem right to me. A book about a hero killing a dragon and saving a princess doesn't have to be intentionally written with a message in mind, but the biases and values of the writer will still be present. For example, if it's a traditional hero's journey it might become a story with a message of overcoming obstacles and personal growth, even if the author didn't intend for the reader to come away with anything beyond that. If it's a story about reclaiming the land from the dragon who stole it from the rightful king and it's the hero's job to take it back for the "good guys", it might reflect different values of the author and convey a different message. That's not to say that writing without a message is WRONG or that everything has to be analyzed, but I think something gets lost when we go into a work thinking the only value it provides is entertainment. There are always more layers, and it makes reading and watching things a lot more fulfilling to me to consider them.

It's been fun to see what my characters have to say and realize what ideas and values get reflected in my work, even if not intentionally.

[Kuma]

There are many themes being explored in Centris

• The effects of historical discrimination.
• How fucked a society when political power is in the hands of a few who inherit it.
• The pitfalls of mistrust and isolation.

But if I had to pick the one that could be a centerpiece for the story.

• Don't allow society crush your ideals. The world can be whatever you make it if you work hard enough.

Read Centris | Tapas Web Novels

[stiatent]

I'm ̶n̶o̶t̶ a Sick Boy started as a videogame idea so it was purely fun coming up with game mechanics honestly but as it shifted into a comic, the concept of a family setting and dynamic of the two MC siblings had expanded, so I guess it was the latter.
Prefer not to push messages on people but left it so people interpret things in their own way based on the struggles/positive outcomes for the Mc Brothers, amidst the horrors of the outbreak they face and mastery of their superpowers. Themes explored however are brotherhood between a gay and straight siblings, they were once close but drifted because of age difference and interests, the situation of the story revives their close kinship. Also the father and big brother have an argument in the beginning, gain experience dealing with the outbreak and when they cross paths again in the 3rd act they rethink and forgive each other. The brother MCs are carriers of a virus that mutate others into monsters, they make a decision to slay said monsters and avoid further spread which feeds to a themes of selflessness & responsibility.