Story purpose

After one has found a story which is not trivial, not hackneyed, not polemic, but is of genuine interest, one has yet to settle upon one’s purpose. To have a purpose in writing a story is not the same as to point a moral. Only when theme and purpose merge so that the one is merely the expression of the other is the resulting story really didactic. For instance, in The Outcasts of Poker Flat, if Bret Harte had taken as his purpose to show that the acceptance of chance as a controlling motive is sure to bring disastrous results, he would have made theme and purpose identical; his story would have been didactic. Fortunately, however, he did not do this. His theme and purpose are distinct, and a just balance is kept between them. A story may, indeed, allow several purposes, and as the purpose varies, so also will the story. Does one care simply to give a humorous presentation of life? Does the story lend itself to such treatment? Does one wish to show a contrast or to portray vividly the characteristics of one locality or business? Or, does one have a more serious purpose, to show the nobility of human nature or the baseness to which sin may lead? Of course, purpose may be determined absolutely by the nature of the story itself. If so, the writer might as well accept it, or hunt for a new story-idea.