Do I really need to have a message in a novel to appeal to readers?

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I am in the process of the writing a book. It is not my first attempt.

My goals for the book are:

• Naturally, appeal to my target audience and with work and luck, sell well.
• Invoke the same emotions, that I enjoy having while reading a good book, within my readers.
• Invite them into my custom world etc. etc.

So far, so simple (in concept :) )

But now I am a bit worried:
I have, of course, read a ton of advice and "how-to-write-better-books" (next to many articles on the internet and so on). They all offer at least a small morsel of value to me, so thats not the problem. I generally apply a mix-match-collect attitude.

But most of the theories and guides to writing and story structure seem to agree that a story without a theme will fail to entertain readers.

All of them agree that a novel should have a climax as well, a point which I strongly agree with. Is the theme as universal as the climax for a story?

What do you guys think? By the way, English is not my mother tongue.

CLARIFICATION: Since there seems to be a problem with the exact definition of theme I will try to clarify:

This SE defines its as follows: "Theme' refers to a message being conveyed to the reader by the author, through a piece of creative writing, usually a novel"

So I am referring to a single clear (but might be subtly woven into the plot) piece of advice from author to reader like "This is the way you should behave if caught in a similar situation" or "This is the way to behave morally right".

This is not about a question if I should have a blatant message within the book, but rather if I need to have the aforementioned theme, sort of an suggestion how to behave.

manpreet 2 years ago