Every story that sticks with you has the same three layers. The first layer is the story the character is living. This action layer has the plot problem, the real world, face-to-face, the antagonist and protagonist locked in struggle. This layer is the action and reaction.

The second layer is the inner journey of the character as influenced by the antagonist (or any cast member, really), subplot, secondary theme. It’s the one taking place inside the character’s head, the layer where we watch this person become someone new by the last page.

The third layer is the one where you say something about the world or the reader or the way the reader sees the world. This is the theme layer, the crawls-under-your-skin layer, the connection to the conversation happening in books and media and world events outside of the world in the story.

Without that third layer, you can still have a story. I had a story. I had things that happened and a character that realized he needed to change and the change that he made. And when you finished reading, it all went away.
One of the genres that does the third layer best is horror. Really good, crawl into your skull, and whisper hello, weeks after the fact, horror. Take Hereditary, which is about witchcraft, but also saying something about families, and well trod paths and those unavoidable destinies. Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark (movie version) had a horror story around each character such that the ending of each story was truly delightfully frightening.

I didn’t understand the third layer of story until I read Lisa Cron’s works, Wired for Story and Story Genius. Though the example story she develops is a little Hallmark (in Story Genius), there’s a reason Hallmark sells. And the concepts are easily illustrated so that you can apply them to your own work, big or small.

So about 22 drafts in, I had a character. I had a supporting cast. I had a villain and a couple antagonists and a wider world. And it didn’t mean anything. I hadn’t truly nailed down the why of the story and how that why fit into the world I live in.

You ever see Buffy? I am devastated to declare that it’s a classic, because I am now old enough to call things I saw as a teenager “classics”. Sure, she’s the chosen one. In the world of Buffy, it means she protects humanity from evil monsters. But what if your hunting territory is much smaller? And no one can leave? Then we would call your territory a prison. And the chosen ones serve an entirely different purpose. That wasn’t the third layer. The third layer went a little something like: if you are going to play a game, forced or not, and you play against the gamemakers, can you ever truly win? Can you dismantle the system once you’re inside of it? Once you win enough to make real change, you’re a part of the system. And that makes you part of the problem.