: Re: How much value do publishers and editors place on informative/educational content in fiction stories? I have heard people say that ‘good stories are educational as well as entertaining’. But

@Kristi637

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I agree that good stories are often educational, but not in the way that you're interpreting the phrase. Typically, in a story, you see a character placed in a dilemma or a challenging situation and you learn either how they resolve it successfully, or what not to do (in the case that they fail). Often this takes the form of a moral lesson, although it's never an explicitly didactic one in good fiction. I'm not always a fan of the dictum "show, don't tell," but here's one case where it definitely applies.

You can also learn a wealth of other things from many good stories --science, history, culture, psychology, law, agriculture, philosophy --but that's probably best conceptualized as a "bonus" that enriches a story, but only in the case that it serves the needs of the story. When the teaching overpowers the story it's neither a good story nor good teaching.

On the other hand, I don't think I'm alone, from my perspective as a reader, in demanding some level of depth from my reading. I'm all in favor of entertainment, but something that is "only" entertaining isn't very satisfying to me for very long.

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