Finding the Message – Part IV

I was asked recently what I thought was the most important thing about writing. After a moment or two of thinking, the only answer that came to mind was the simplest of all…the story.

Think of the best stories you have read or heard; or even watched in a movie. It is not the great prose, or the finely crafted sentences, but rather the human element; the story that first hooks you and then draws you into its mythos.

Consider the book Raptor Red by Robert T. Bakker. In this story where there are no humans involved—sound familiar—but soulless animals only; nonetheless, Bakker creates a sympathetic character in Red and causes you as the reader to care for her and her struggle for life.

What was the message that Bakker so craftily conveyed? That life has value; and life is worth the struggle, worth the fight for the right simply to be “you.” In addition, what is it that draws the reader across the dusty ages and into the valley of a long Jurassic struggle? It is the message imbedded in a very well written story. Think about it.