From Edie: Sarah Sally Hamer shares how to share meaningful themes in fiction without sounding preachy—and trust your story and your readers to discover the message naturally.
How to Share a Message in Fiction Without Sounding Preachy
by Sarah Sally Hamer @SarahSallyHamer
A conversation I had with a writer a while back has stayed with me, partly because we both have experienced a particular type of situation.
She was talking about a manuscript she'd been working on and mentioned that several of her critique partners had used the same word when describing parts of the story. They all felt certain scenes were becoming preachy. She wasn't upset because they were criticizing her work. She was upset because that had never been her intention.
As we talked, it became clear that she cared deeply about the story. The themes mattered to her. The questions mattered to her. She wasn't trying to write a lesson disguised as a novel. She was trying to write a novel that explored things she genuinely cared about and understood.
I think that's why the conversation stuck with me. Most writers don't wake up in the morning determined to lecture readers. If anything, the opposite is usually true. The writers who struggle most with sounding preachy are often the writers who have invested the most heart into what they're creating. They've wrestled with difficult experiences, learned things the hard way, and discovered truths they wish they had known earlier. Naturally, they want readers to see those things too.
That's a pretty understandable desire.
The problem is that readers and writers don't occupy the same place in the story.
The writer has spent months or years living with the characters. They know what the story means. They know why a particular scene is there. They know what question is being explored and what discoveries have been made along the way. The reader, meanwhile, is just arriving. They're opening the book and stepping into a world they've never seen before. They’re trying to wrap their heads around a concept that the writer is fully involved in but may not be clearly expressing.
And I sometimes think writers get nervous during that process. Not all the time, but often enough to notice.
Somewhere along the way there's a moment when the writer realizes a reader just might not understand. Maybe the theme feels subtle. Maybe a character's transformation seems understated. Maybe a particular truth feels too important to risk being overlooked.
So the writer nudges—and explains—a little.
We might add another scene to reinforce the point, for instance. Or get up onto that famous soapbox. What began as trust in the story slowly turns into management of the reader and the subtle, or not so subtle, idea we want to express becomes us beating them over the head. Whether we mean to or not.
The funny thing is that readers are usually far more capable than we give them credit for. Every time I become convinced they won't understand something unless I explain it again, I'm usually wrong.
Think about the stories you've carried with you for years. Not the ones you enjoyed and quickly forgot, but the ones that somehow found a permanent home in your memory. If somebody asked why they mattered, you could probably talk about the themes, the questions, and the lessons you discovered along the way. What you probably wouldn't remember is a scene where the author stopped everything to make sure you understood the message.
There are two very different concerns, delivery and experience.
That's why the distinction between teaching and preaching feels useful to me, especially in fiction. Teaching allows readers to participate in the discovery. Preaching often assumes the discovery has already been made and the reader simply needs to accept it.
Most of us can feel the difference even when we can't quite explain it.
The next time you're revising your manuscript, take a look at the places where you're working hardest to make sure readers understand. Those scenes are often worth a second look. Not because the message is wrong, and not because themes don't belong in fiction, but because stories do some of their best work when they're given room to breathe.
Readers will follow us into difficult questions. They'll walk beside flawed characters. They'll sit with uncertainty longer than we sometimes expect. Sometimes the hardest part of writing isn't finding the truth we want to share.
Sometimes it's trusting the story to share it.
What do you think? Do you find yourself preaching sometimes?
If you would like more information, Sally has created a free video here:
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A teacher of memoir, beginning and advanced creative fiction writing, and screenwriting at Louisiana State University in Shreveport for over twenty years, she also teaches online at both MARGIELAWSON.COM and NOSTRESSWRITING.COM and blogs for WRITERSINTHESTORMBLOG.COM/ as well as her monthly blog for The Write Conversation. Sally is a free-lance editor and book coach at Mind Potential, with many of her students and clients becoming successful, award-winning authors.
You can find her at sally@mindpotential.org
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