We were telling stories not as a substitute for life, but as an enhancement of it. From the first time two human beings ever shared a story, we discovered that the fire that catches in one's imagination spreads as easily as the one in the forest, and that the ashes left behind by that imagination can leave our souls fertile for a lifetime. So think of a story as a process, a dance between a teller and a taker, aware of each other's powers and responsibilities. Every story has a message, a set of ideas and emotions. Every story has a design, or style, or aesthetics.
Every story has a medium, a space where the expression takes form.
So every story is a trinity between these three things, and the two-way streets that connect them. And remember that every story is alive, is an evolving process where people who receive stories have the power to shape them to the contours of their own soul. Sometimes, however, your medium can define your limits. And this can be good, because storytellers would die of boredom if they could control everything that their audiences sensed and felt. You can't stimulate imagination and suffocate it at the same time.