In a post on Writer Unboxed, Kathryn Craft discusses the challenges of tackling important issues in your writing, while avoiding preachiness. Instead, Craft urges you to focus on the emotional aspect of your story. “Story is first and foremost an emotional experience,” she says. “It does not work through talking ‘at’ the reader ‘about’ anything; that kind of direct address creates a fissure between speaker and listener as wide an orchestra pit between an onstage lectern and an audience.” Instead, a successful story closes the gap between the reader and narrator/protagonist.
“Years down the road, long after readers have forgotten the clever twists and turns of your plot, they will still remember how your novel made them feel,” Craft writs. “And if you made them feel more deeply about protecting the gorillas or ridding the world of nuclear weapons or any other issue that looms large in your heart, then that novel you wrote was a pretty darn good use of your time.”
