Pictures are for entertainment; messages should be delivered by Western Union – Samuel Goldwyn (of MGM)
If you’re writing a sermon, shame on you if there isn’t some sort of takeaway.
If your ads need to sell product, the theme should communicate that your product solves a deep-rooted need within.
Writing for entertainment is different. Novels, Videogames, and Movies are all escapist mediums. With those, we want to be entertained, to ‘get away’ from our present situations.
When that’s your objective, the idea that we might have to do something lates makes it more difficult to relax.
In this case, theme needs to be almost invisible. But that doesn’t make it less important. If anything, it makes theme more crucial.
Theme Helps Answer Most of Your Pre-First Draft Questions
Without theme, it’s difficult to make the key decisions necessary to shape your story.
Which characters are the best ones to tell the story?
Why would a city be a better setting than an isolated island?
Would a funeral be a better place for a family fight than a graduation party?
What should your conflict be about?
I kind of knew what my theme was about when I started writing my current book: The search for truth is difficult, and takes multiple attempts, but it is worth it in the end.
Theme needs to be communicated by the characters actions. Doing so only with words will turn people off.
In real life, we have enough people telling us one thing, while doing another – that doesn’t resonate with us.
How Theme Guided My Decisions
The search for truth is difficult, and takes multiple attempts, but it is worth it in the end.
With this theme in mind, I knew that one character had to go through this journey. Difficult, disempowering lies needed to grab hold of my main character.
Then, the opposite:
There had to be another character who NEVER did this soul searching, but seemed to have control of everything and everyone. Eventually, the main character needed to surpass this unmoving dinosaur – forever set in their ways.
There also had to be other characters who either weren’t aware or thought the search was a waste of time.
Is my theme the same as what it will be when the whole thing is finished? Mostly.
Over time, I will refine it. That’s a big part of writing and rewriting.
For me, not knowing your theme until your finished is like using a scalpel to turn a kangaroo into Miss Universe – there will be a lot of deep cuts, and there’s a high chance it won’t work.
You can still communicate your message – and Tell A Great Story
If you don’t want people’s lives to be different, you don’t really have anything to say. There’s nothing to talk about.
Even if your story makes no change whatsoever, the thought that it could may give you the juice needed to follow through with your project to the end.
Not every writer does it this way – it’s only how I do it.
A few writers, after many false starts and hundreds of revisions, can make a good story without knowing their theme at the beginning. Even then, they likely refined their craft and subconsciously had an idea of it anyway.
Is it obvious to you when someone is trying to communicate a theme in a story? Has it ever made you love a story more? Less? Let me know in the comments…
