# You, Me, and the Theme



## Creed (May 30, 2014)

My question is very simple: how important is theme to you?
For some writers, I understand it can be the first thing they go to, as a way to spark the rest of the story into existence or simply because they think it's important.
For others (like me) it seems to be something just on the sidelines, capable of adding to the story, and certainly worth considering at times, but it's the tool from the toolbox that generally doesn't get covered in much grease.
As opposed to an actual theme behind what I'm working on, I'll often pick up certain ideas that stand out, as simple as "Fire" and "Water" (two elements I adore subtly working into the narrative- even before I read Timothy Findley) or more complex like "The power of dreams."
When writing an essay or project like that, I'm always told to start with a thesis. Not always my style, and certainly not for writing fantasy. And while I adore works with themes like in Lord of the Rings, it's not how I generally write.
What about you?


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## Queshire (May 30, 2014)

I think a theme can be useful. It can serve as a backbone to build things off of or serve to tie things together. For me coming up with a theme is most useful when there's an aspect of the story that I find myself frequently conflicted over. Then I can make a theme for that aspect and use it to guide me.


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## Feo Takahari (May 30, 2014)

If you asked me directly, I'd say what matters to me is characters, but I don't think you can do a good study of two or more characters without finding some point of contrast between them--people are too complicated to just throw two complete personalities at the reader and say "Hey, these people are different!" That point of contrast develops into a theme, and you can use it to draw further parallels with more characters. (This can be a lot more organic than it sounds--if you put two people in the same situation and have them react differently, the difference determines a theme even if you don't do anything to say "Hey guys, this is the theme!")

There's a book called _Implied Spaces_ that uses architecture as a metaphor. No one sets out to have a triangular empty space under the roof, but you're probably going to have one if you have a triangular shape in the roof design. For me, that's what themes are--the implied spaces of my character studies.


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## Devor (May 30, 2014)

If you're building your characters consistently, you're going to have themes.  Real life has themes.  People develop quirks and habits and patterns of thinking that shape their experience of the world.  The whole notion of a character arc creates themes.

So, it shouldn't be something you need to think about too much directly.  That is, unless you want several characters to have a cluster of interconnected themes that tie your book together.  Which I think of as a bit of an advanced technique.  It adds to your work if you do it well, but it's another layer of complexity that you have to manage, which can lead you to forcing specific changes onto a story that don't belong there.

I would suggest looking for which themes tend to pop up naturally in your writing, but don't worry about playing with them until you see which ones a good fit for your writing.  Then you can start to build them up.


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## Penpilot (May 30, 2014)

Devor said:


> I would suggest looking for which themes tend to pop up naturally in your writing, but don't worry about playing with them until you see which ones a good fit for your writing.  Then you can start to build them up.



I agree with this. I usually don't think too much about theme until I finish the first draft. Afterwards, as I edit, I'll notice themes in the story. Some I'll build up. Others, I'll down play or just leave be. It all depends on where I want the story to go. Also as said above, themes will always pop up in your writing. Some themes you may not even see.

I've heard of fans going up to authors and telling them how they loved this theme and that in their stories, and the author didn't intentionally put any of those themes in at all or was even aware of them.


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## Helen (May 30, 2014)

Creed said:


> For others (like me) it seems to be something just on the sidelines, capable of adding to the story, and certainly worth considering at times, but it's the tool from the toolbox that generally doesn't get covered in much grease.
> And while I adore works with themes like in Lord of the Rings, it's not how I generally write.



You make it sounds like theme is optional. I don't think it is.



Creed said:


> I'm always told to start with a thesis.



A very useful approach.


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## Creed (May 30, 2014)

Helen said:


> You make it sounds like theme is optional. I don't think it is.



In my opinion it most certainly is a conscious choice… on a certain level. Like Devor said, there are themes which pop up naturally in writing, and those are, obviously, not optional. I love it when I look through what I've written and find a unifying idea behind parts of my WIP, put there without any conscious effort. But trying to (on the conscientious level) include a theme into a first draft or a first edit is certainly something people do.



> A very useful approach.


True, but again only on a certain level for me. I prefer to start with a character, build the plot and world from around them. But I think an idea could provide an axial thesis for me, as long as it isn't as specific as my profs demand a thesis must be. I'd prefer an idea, something general, something malleable.


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## Bansidhe (May 31, 2014)

I use theme as the "spine" of my stories, but thoroughly in the background, informing conflict and character development.


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## thefeyfox (May 31, 2014)

I think the theme/questions are one of the most important parts for _you_ as a writer to understand in the context of your story. There are so many times I find myself up against a wall and if I bring it back to the theme or the questions my character is trying to answer within herself/himself (most of the time subconsciously) I can usually find a character to bring in to help, or a way to rework the storyline to get them there.


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## Terry Greer (Jun 1, 2014)

A theme is like the bass track beat behind everything. It's not what you normally remember but without it everything else becomes unstuck.


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## Devor (Jun 1, 2014)

I went to a book signing in NYC once where a handful of published authors were in the audience talking about theme.  One of the authors was from Italy and was shocked by how little the American authors thought or cared about their themes or the messages they were telling with their books.  She said that you were supposed to start with a thesis and build your book around it.  The American authors, on the other hand, were perfectly content to rewrite endings and "go wherever their characters were taking them."

So my take is that there is a regional difference in how these things are understood and discussed.


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## Guy (Jun 1, 2014)

What Devor said. If I try to consciously come up with a theme, things get clumsy and stilted. If I just write the story, theme seems to be a side effect that just pops up on its own. Once it's there I can work with it and develop it, but if I try to develop the theme first, if I sit down and say, "All right, what's the theme of this story going to be?" I can't seem to make it work.


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## Svrtnsse (Jun 1, 2014)

For me, when I started my wip I had no thoughts whatsoever about theme. However, as I've been writing, there are certain things that have come back, over and over, and they have formed the theme. When going into the second draft that is something that I'll be aware of and I'll be able to push it through a little more clearly in the beginning of the story, where it was not yet fully developed the first time around.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jun 1, 2014)

Incorrect post destination...apologies.


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## Jabrosky (Jun 1, 2014)

A few years back I had a guy criticize my stories because they had no unifying theme that kept everything together. He likened them to a computer RPG that just threw enemy after enemy after the player without any real story structure.

Ever since then I've found that developing a theme or at least a character arc can help with structuring a story. It's rather like how you build a research paper around a thesis. On the other hand there is the challenge of keeping the theme subtle to avoid preachiness.


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## thefeyfox (Jun 1, 2014)

Terry Greer said:


> A theme is like the bass track beat behind everything. It's not what you normally remember but without it everything else becomes unstuck.



^ what he said.


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## Helen (Jun 1, 2014)

Creed said:


> I'll often pick up certain ideas that stand out, as simple as *"Fire"* and *"Water"*



These aren't really themes, but symbols with particular usage (for instance, water signifies rebirth and the character may be thrown underwater before a significant change).



Creed said:


> I prefer to start with a character, build the plot and world from around them.



If we say, for argument's sake, that the theme in the _Wizard of Oz_ is self-belief (taken from  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) then you can see how the final shape of the character, plot and world is a function of theme, not the other way around.

You can play around to find it however you want, but the final shape has to be reworked around theme.



Devor said:


> I went to a book signing in NYC once where a handful of published authors were in the audience talking about theme.  One of the authors was from Italy and was shocked by how little the American authors thought or cared about their themes or the messages they were telling with their books.  She said that you were supposed to start with a thesis and build your book around it.  The American authors, on the other hand, were perfectly content to rewrite endings and "go wherever their characters were taking them."
> 
> So my take is that there is a regional difference in how these things are understood and discussed.



Americans think about theme in exactly the same way as that Italian lady.

Thematically, you can't rewrite endings without changing a lot of other things. Use _The Wizard of Oz_ again. If the theme is self-belief, then Dorothy has to do it in the end. And that's why you need to give her Ruby Slippers earlier on. And that's why a big part of the story is her seeking assistance outside herself.


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## Devor (Jun 1, 2014)

Helen said:


> Americans think about theme in exactly the same way as that Italian lady.



Yeah, but themes are rules, an idea of "how you're supposed to do it," and Americans tend to recoil from that.  I didn't mean that Americans have a different idea of themes.  I meant that American authors don't think of it as being as important as a starting point.

And it isn't.  If a character has an arc, where they start as a youth and mature into a hero, then somebody's going to identify the theme as "coming of age."  But the author didn't need to think about "coming of age" as a theme that everything ties into.  The author didn't need to look beyond his character, and the character's outlook, and how that character develops and grows over time.

You don't need to start with a thesis.  You don't even need to think about themes too much if you're building your character effectively.


((edit))

When it comes to the example, the conversation that I heard, I should probably clarify what took the Italian author so much by surprise.  The American author didn't "rewrite" the ending, so much as scrap the ending she was planning because the characters "refused" to go where she was telling them to.  She was surprised because of how little the theme meant as a focal point for the other author.


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## Mythopoet (Jun 2, 2014)

Creed said:


> And while I adore works with themes like in Lord of the Rings, it's not how I generally write.



Here's the thing, a lot of the themes that people see in LOTR, Tolkien did not put into his work intentionally. People actually pointed out what seemed like obvious symbolism to him years later which he insisted he had not been conscious of in the writing. 

Theme is basically the answer to "what's the big picture of this story, what's it all about?" Or, when you've finished reading a story, and sit back to think about it, what did it all mean? 

Now, you can determine this "what does the story mean, what is it really all about" factor before writing it and then write the story to fit the theme. Or you can just write the story and then determine what the primary meaning that comes through from the story you've just written was. (And then perhaps edit it to make the meaning more clear.) Either way is valid. Or you can just write the story and not worry about the theme and trust that your readers will find meaning in it for themselves. 

But there is not story that doesn't have any meaning or any "big picture" idea of what the story was about. That is just part of what a story IS. It makes sense of and instills meaning in a series of events. And readers will always find ways in which the story has meaning personally for them. We read stories for that very reason.


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## Queshire (Jun 2, 2014)

I'm curious about how you would go about starting with a theme and building a story off of that. Can anyone give me a hypothetical example of what this would be like? I think I would like to give it a try.


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## Steerpike (Jun 2, 2014)

Queshire said:


> I'm curious about how you would go about starting with a theme and building a story off of that. Can anyone give me a hypothetical example of what this would be like? I think I would like to give it a try.



There are different ways to go about it. Take Melville's _Billy Budd_ as an example. It is interpreted by some as thematically addressing tension between positive law and natural law (positive law being man-made law; the law is what it is and is valid because it was set down according to a legitimate process. Natural law, on the other hand, being a law or nature or (more commonly) set forth from the divine, so that it is unalterable regardless of what humans say).

If you decided at the outset that you wanted to explore the theme of natural law v. positive law, you might start thinking up a situation where the outcome would differ depending on which type of law was applied. That gives you tension right there. In Billy Budd's case, under a natural law theory, the idea is that he might well be morally innocent of any crime (a killing, in this case), whereas under the positive law in effect at the time, he is guilty and the punishment is death.

So you go from theme to simply fleshing out a fact scenario that illustrates conflict relating to your theme. Not saying that Melville did this, but you could do it that way and arrive at a story like Billy Budd.


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## Scribble (Jun 3, 2014)

I suppose I'm more like those Italians Devor mentioned. I'm an ideas person, and so I tend to start with an idea and then see where it goes. Characters and story spring up from that.

My current WIP started from a rumination on the idea of... what if Isaac Newton in his searching for answers discovered active, working principles of alchemy rather than physics. What would our society get to? What would alchemical industrialization look like? Humans would be still obsessed with averting death, automating mundane work, and not thinking about the future costs of the resources they draw on today. At 42 years old, with children, a broad knowledge of science, a wife in cancer treatment, these ideas of death and the future of our world are dominant in my mind. 

This leads me to ask questions... What are we? What is a human? What is the destiny of humanity? Do we have one? Is there a soul? Is there a god? Is there any point to all of this suffering and foolishness?

I don't propose to give answers, not even a glib "42", but I have questions to ask and I can ask them through the process of writing. I can't imagine any other approach for me to follow.


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## Devor (Jun 3, 2014)

Creed said:


> When writing an essay or project like that, I'm always told to start with a thesis.



I think the word "thesis" is a problem with discussing themes.

When I was in college, they made us take a course called "Writing the Essay," which was all about breaking with the concept of a "thesis" in order to discuss ideas.  With a thesis, you have a statement that you then attempt to prove.  You can't write a book like that.  It's far too limiting.

So instead, we were supposed to come up with something called an "Idea statement."  You start with a simple statement, "An emotional truth can be more real for a person than the actual truth," and a piece of evidence to support it.  Then you add another piece of evidence, and based on that evidence, you adjust the idea statement a little bit.  "An emotional truth can be more real than the actual truth, but it can also be more perilous."  And you continue to add evidence which changes or challenges the idea statement, piece by piece, until you have something that feels powerful and complex.

"Life is about finding and embracing an emotional truth that reflects the happier part of the reality of your life."

Or some other, y'know, philosophical babble.

So applying that to the themes of a novel, you would start with a character's home life, and begin with a simple statement.  And the first challenge to that statement would come in the inciting incident and the call to action.  And in the resolution, the new idea statement would reflect a developed outlook on life.

I think that could be an interesting way to develop a character arc around that character's theme.  It reminds me of books like Siddartha or movies like "Slumdog Millionaire," with complicated life journeys instead of a basic flaw-to-strength arc.


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## Helen (Jun 3, 2014)

Devor said:


> Yeah, but themes are rules, an idea of "how you're supposed to do it," and Americans tend to recoil from that.  I didn't mean that Americans have a different idea of themes.  I meant that American authors don't think of it as being as important as a starting point.



Americans like rules less than Italians? C'mon.

I was listening to a podcast recently where a lady from Pixar said that every story there starts with a theme in mind. In TV you do it all the time. The majority of American writers absolutely think of it as a start point and as a fundamental consideration.

Besides, we're not talking about rules. We're talking about mechanics.



Devor said:


> You don't need to start with a thesis.



It's a bit like the outline vs pantsing argument. People come at it from different directions.

But once you've got it, you start using it as a unifying concept.




Devor said:


> If a character has an arc, where they start as a youth and mature into a hero, then somebody's going to identify the theme as "coming of age."  But the author didn't need to think about "coming of age" as a theme that everything ties into.  The author didn't need to look beyond his character, and the character's outlook, and how that character develops and grows over time.
> 
> You don't even need to think about themes too much if you're building your character effectively.




Theme is arc but arc doesn't always give you theme.

In _The Wizard of Oz_, Dorothy has two arcs - she learns to appreciate home and she learns self-belief. Theme was needed to build all those characters effectively.

("coming of age" isn't a theme. It's more like a class/genre. All of these are coming of age stories, each with its own theme: The 25 Best Coming-Of-Age Films, According To 'Spectacular Now' Director James Ponsoldt | James Ponsoldt)




Steerpike said:


> There are different ways to go about it. Take Melville's _Billy Budd_ as an example. It is interpreted by some as thematically addressing tension between positive law and natural law (positive law being man-made law; the law is what it is and is valid because it was set down according to a legitimate process. Natural law, on the other hand, being a law or nature or (more commonly) set forth from the divine, so that it is unalterable regardless of what humans say).
> 
> If you decided at the outset that you wanted to explore the theme of natural law v. positive law, you might start thinking up a situation where the outcome would differ depending on which type of law was applied. That gives you tension right there. In Billy Budd's case, under a natural law theory, the idea is that he might well be morally innocent of any crime (a killing, in this case), whereas under the positive law in effect at the time, he is guilty and the punishment is death.
> 
> So you go from theme to simply fleshing out a fact scenario that illustrates conflict relating to your theme. Not saying that Melville did this, but you could do it that way and arrive at a story like Billy Budd.



Good post.

Which begins to suggest just how fundamental theme is - it's the root of conflict, the soul of the story, tells you where to go etc etc etc.

Ignoring theme is folly.




Queshire said:


> I'm curious about how you would go about starting with a theme and building a story off of that. Can anyone give me a hypothetical example of what this would be like? I think I would like to give it a try.



Steerpike's post above.

But it's a much more precise science.

Best way is to analyze your favorite stories and try and figure out how every character, action, scene, bit of dialogue is built around theme. I highly recommend you do this.



Devor said:


> I think the word "thesis" is a problem with discussing themes.
> 
> When I was in college, they made us take a course called "Writing the Essay," which was all about breaking with the concept of a "thesis" in order to discuss ideas.  With a thesis, you have a statement that you then attempt to prove.  You can't write a book like that.  *It's far too limiting*.



On the contrary, it's liberating. You just have to understand how thesis and theme work.


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## Devor (Jun 3, 2014)

Helen said:


> On the contrary, it's liberating. You just have to understand how thesis and theme work.



I don't understand.  How is it liberating?  And could you address your understanding of what a "thesis" actually is and how that would compare to my interpretation in the post you've quoted?


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