I honestly wouldn’t know what to define a story as, there’s way too many words you could possibly use to describe a story. It could be a fantasy, a dream, regrets, reality, the future, or just pure gibberish and still countless other possibilities. I think every story reflects a unique life the author was able to envision. That author felt the need to share and thus he expressed his views through a story. A story of whatever plot, setting, and characters. However each component would eventually link to the theme of the story that the author had wanted their reader to understand. So I guess, a story could also be defined as a collection of life lessons. Life lessons that authors wanted to share to their readers.
Although I find the term “story” too broad, I think the most important elements of a story would have to be its plot, characters, and empathy. The plot to act as the frame. Characters to support the frame. Empathy to fill in the blanks and connect more deeply with the reader. In my opinion I think empathy is the most important of the three, because if will make the reader the most emotional. When you’ve incited any emotion into the reader then they may remember that piece of literature for their lives to come. Like me, I am one of those readers that was able to feel a strong emotion from literature. It left such an impact on me, I still remember the story and will even go back a re-read that story. Either to relive those emotions or to try and learn more from the story.