How to Make Our Story Feel Meaningful

We’ve talked before about how story is different from plot. As I mentioned in that post, a story’s plot—the obstacles encountered—is just a tool to reveal a character or a struggle.

The real key to a story is seeing a character change (or potentially, choose not to change, like in some literary fiction) or seeing their struggle to overcome the obstacles (whether they succeed or not).

But sometimes we can have lots of plot ideas, and we might not be sure if—or how—we can pull those together i...