: Re: Is it bad idea to directly state the message/moral of a story? I realized I tend to state directly the message/moral of the story in my stories (as dialogue in most of the cases). My plots

@Jessie137

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I see message and moral as two very different things. The latter can come to be when the author (usually through the narrator) tells the reader 'you should not do this, you should do that'. In my opinion, the right place of a stated moral is in fables, everywhere else turns the text into a more or less subtle preaching.
Another way of using moral is when the consequence clearly shows how an action is bad and the reader should avoid it (eg. a teenager starts using drugs and ends up dying from that habit). This is (again IMO) the only good way to present a moral outside a fable.
Then we've got the message. Now, it's true that a moral is a message, but a message doesn't have to be a moral. For me, a message isn't saying 'you should or shouldn't X', it's making a statement about the world through the events in the story. The reader may or may not agree with you, but it's still a likely statement.
Again, there are two ways of going about it, the good and the bad. The way I see it, having a narrator state it clearly is the bad one. The good one is threefold:

The event can speak for itself. This, obviously, is the best approach. Let the readers draw conclusions for themselves.

(part I) A character can mention it. Ideally, it's only mentioned once amid other stuff and not dwelled upon. Ideally, it's softened by the character stating it's their personal opinion (I think, the way I see it, if you ask me, ...) and not forcing it down anyone's throat. Ideally, the idea comes out as an organic whole with the events.
(part II) A character can state it, even forcefully, if it's presented as that character's personal conclusions for a given event or life in general. The narrator cannot agree with the character, but rather remain impartial (or maybe disagree). Other characters may disagree or they may be won over and consider it before later on disagreeing, choosing a variation of the statement or wholy embracing it. The important thing is that these are the characters' conclusions and the reader doesn't have to agree with them (hence the narrator not taking any sides)

The narrator can mention it, but only if neither the event nor the characters can make it evident. Ideally, it's as soft and unobtrusive as possible.

The most important thing is to make sure it doesn't sound preachy or imposing in the slightest. Subtlety is any message's best friend. So, if anyone mentions the message, the events must be ambiguous enough that the message would go unnoticed for many readers if nothing were said on the topic.
In the examples you offer, I think they seem to work very well (although I'd need to read the whole thing to be certain, obviously). I rather like when characters react to events by saying 'sometimes I think [universal truth that may be not-universal at all]'. Besides, you've got characters giving advise to friends and just stating their own personal thoughts, not imposing them, and often not at the end but in the middle or half-way. Pointing at messages at the end always makes them more obvious (and more similar to a moral).
So, no, it's not a bad idea to state the message of a story if you do it well.

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