The Writers' Series: Central Takeaway- What is the Point?

    In my opinion, the best story anyone can write is their own. Stories work because they mimic the cause-and-effect relationship of life, and thus we can empathize with it. The more intimately we relate to the message a story attempts to convey and the more accurately (even if symbolically) it is converted, the more intimate the story becomes, and thus the more entertaining. An author's own story is thus the best they can convey, as they cannot tell another's mindset and experiences as intimately as their own, and for what percentage of people relate to the author's sentiment, their connection to the story becomes all the more powerful for it. [1]

    This is all to say that in my opinion, a story is a message and has an objective. A story's objective is to persuade you that continuing to read and support it is worth your time. It does this by making you want to read it. This may sound like common sense but bear with me.

    One of my core beliefs is that every person has six wants: certainty, uncertainty, significance, connection, growth, and contribution. These are constantly being expressed through every action you take: certainty is the need for safety/consistency, uncertainty is uniqueness and fun, significance is feeling or acknowledged by those around you, connection is reliability or intimacy, growth is the need to improve your quality of being, and contribution is giving back. When at least three of these wants are met, obsessions form, and honestly I would struggle to find a single one of these wants fiction doesn't satisfy. When we read we feel safe from what can hurt us, it is a new adventure every time, they appeal to our fantasies with self-inserts that stroke our ego as well as provide a community to flex on now that we read [insert a story], they allow us to experience an author's intimate feelings and original thoughts, some stories have life lessons that change us as people and the existence of a community gets us creative and wanting to express our thoughts to others (on top of supporting the author we love). Authors who are good at their jobs can fulfill and exceed the expectations we have of these wants being fulfilled, thus persuading us that their story is a good use of our time; making us want to read more. 

    Anyone in the workplace can tell you that focus is how you make a message persuasive. People will read and retain more of a two-sentence, direct message with a clear takeaway than a Terms and Conditions page because the more there is, the less anyone is compelled to read, and thus the less likely people will be persuaded to act. Let me reiterate that the point of the story is to convince you that it is worth what limited attention and time you have, and thus has to persuade you. Let me also remind you that a story is a message, and thus focus is the only way to ensure people are persuaded to pay attention. And the way in which focus is conserved is by relating everything in the story to "The Point".

Why "The Point" is Essential to Story Construction

    The point is just my way of thinking about the core takeaway. It is arguably the least essential of the six key elements I'll be discussing but by far the most integral and central to the planning process. In a sense, the point is a few sentences that summarize what readers should take from the story, be it an appeal or a lesson. This relates back to the idea of focus, as no series of disconnected sentences or completely unrelated plot events can form a story. Not to say they can not be art at all, but a story has a life-like sequence of cause and effect and reflects the journey and interactions of characters. The central takeaway provides focus because it is the call to action. If a story's job is to persuade you that it deserves your attention, it needs to provide something of value. That value can be found in the appeal and the lessons of the story, and thus serves as a baseline to form the premise around. This reasoning is a bit circular so allow me to give an example. 

    Mob Psycho 100 is a story written by One (easily one of my personal favorite authors), and later animated by studio Bones. It is a series defined by amazing fights and heartfelt, genuine characters, but what provides these things weight? That would be the lesson, to accept yourself for who you are, no matter what. Every character at first meeting is immensely flawed and cannot accept themselves for who they are. For those who have seen it, it might feel weird to say that that's the only character flaw being emphasized in the series but when you really boil it down that's what every character's takeaway boils down to. 

    [Spoilers on this paragraph] This motive isn't massively apparent at first, as looking at what is being antagonized, the villains in question: Dimple, Teruki, every member of Claw, etc. all seem to be people who become massively entitled due to their psychic abilities and can force others to give them what they want. Mob on the other hand, is the hero for being humble and improving on his weaknesses through dedication and hard work. This is all done with the central takeaway of self-acceptance in mind. Be it Claw, Reigen, Teruki, or Dimple, they all got accustomed to a quality of life built on either their power or lies pertaining to how powerful they are, and thus cannot accept that they are weak. When dramatic, life-altering events happen they experience what philosopher Edmund Burke describes as the Sublime and thus are forced to accept that they are nothing. Their ego shatters, they live life as themselves and stop running away from their weaknesses. The point they make with the villains is that ego stops us from taking up challenges that may cause us to disappoint ourselves, but it is in not taking up challenges that cause us to grow bitter about life. Only by shattering that ego can we accept ourselves and move outside of our comfort zone. This is to say that Mob, as someone who challenges himself every day and builds his ideal self, is the good guy and above this. This helps viewers identify with him, before taking the most violent turn imaginable with the final three episodes. 

    [Spoilers on this paragraph] Mob, as someone who has a chronic fear of hurting others and is praised as a nice and genuine person by those around him, villainized the parts of himself who would ever want to hurt others. He associates his emotions with something that hurts those around him, so he cannot accept them. Throughout the series when he has outbursts it is when those repressed emotions flow through, but since he effectively blacks out he simply takes this as an unavoidable reality of life. As the dark portrayals of the 100% form show, Mob does not praise those outbursts and does everything in his power to stop himself from expressing himself. This is in and of itself a rejection of himself, this emotional side of him is a "different Mob" inside of Mob that Mob does not acknowledge as his own actions. With the combined weight of every person Mob has ever helped doing their absolute best to return the favor of helping him to accept himself, Mob finally accepted that that emotional, anxiety-riddled, even downright irresponsible side to himself is himself. He accepts himself enough to be deliberately vulnerable for the first time in his life and to the one person he feared rejection of that vulnerability from the most. When his greatest fears became a reality he was vulnerable enough to cry about it, and months later, he could comfortably laugh with his friends. 

    The reason Mob Psycho hit as hard as it does is because it all had a point. Every character's actions, even if symbolically or metaphorically, reflect life in its cause-and-effect structure. The most impactful moment in our life as people is when we confront flaws, address them, and move past them, and Mob Psycho handled that with such a high level of vulnerability and maturity that it appealed to our wants of connection and growth. It also targeted our wanting to live a humble, certain life and the significance we get by acting nice to others and dissected why our execution is toxic to both ourselves and those around us. It related to our own emotional journeys, gave us new information to think about, and every choice was deliberate in the greater goal of getting us as watchers to accept ourselves. It had focus, thus giving us a reason to continue watching.

    The premise of the show, from the outbursts, to the characters, to the setting, to everything was made with the central takeaway as the core consideration, and even when less apparent this is true of close to every great story out there. This is why this is central to story construction. 

    Another consideration is that when the central takeaway is the first thing you plan, and thus everything is built off of that takeaway, you can take steps to prime the reader's mind to this theme. This is called the Theme Stated beat (will be discussed in detail in a future post) where there is a moment/are moments in the opening tenth of the story where the main character's flaw(s) get either hinted at or actively brought up. This is the end of a thread that attuned readers can follow to see the thematic progression of the story. If the themes and journey is not considered from before page 1, then it becomes impossible to create a comprehensive emotional or thematic journey, and thus the story has failed. 

    This is also true when you have a Slice of Life story without an intended character arc, there is always either an appeal or a lesson. Some stories simply show that life is nice and we shouldn't overthink it, in which case the lifestyle of the person watching (assuming they are stressed or have tunnel vision with life) becomes the theme stated beat. Although if you pay attention, those stories often have either a main character or a character that appears that is busy or stressed in some way, thus more actively connecting the show to your own life. If not that then it is a self-insert story where you feel like a part of their daily routine along with them. There is no limit to how creative you can get with a Theme Stated moment, but it is nonetheless true that every good story has it to some capacity.

[1] Refers to connection, one of the six wants. Authors, just like with connection, use their pen to appeal to any one of these six inherent wants, which is what makes stories inherently fun.

• Simplicity vs Complexity in the "point" of a story
• How an unclear takeaway or too many points ruin a story
• The Central Takeaway is What People Remember
• The CT Is What Affects Them the Most
• Thematically centered vs secondary stories and where both can work.
• Apparent theme exploration vs action-focused stories.
• Conclusion