There are words I think of as “infinite words.” These are words that express more, in their essence, than we can ever quite seem to explain. They’re the words of poetry. Indeed, many are complete poems all in a single word.
For me, one of those words is “theme.”
Theme is one of those endlessly fascinating subjects you can study all your life and never quite nail down. You circle it many times and think you’ve got it captured in some neat little formula, only to discover you’ve seen just one of its faces, one of its many ambiguous and numinous aspects.
That’s fun. It’s also frustrating.
For a writer—or, indeed, any artist—who is trying to consistently create stories that are thematically strong and solid, our finite relationship to the infinitude of theme can often feel akin to facing down the night sky in an attempt to understand the universe. As with so much of writing, we either go mad, or realize “the struggle is the glory.”
Last week, I offered a bird’s eye view of how I see theme. That post was the first of quite a few discussions on theme, which I hope to posit this year. Today, I want to investigate the thematic principle.
What Is Theme?
One of the reasons theme is a tricky topic to master is that it is also often a tricky topic to talk about. Because it is such a vast (and abstract) subject, every writer seems to have a slightly different definition. I learned this first-hand via the many Writing Questions of the Day (#WQOTD) I’ve conducted on Twitter and Facebook over the years. One of the questions I occasionally ask is the simple “What’s your story’s theme?”
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The responses span the gamut from writers who rattle off single-word summations (such as “responsibility”) to writers who fret because they can’t confine their theme to a single word. My personal preference for summing up theme is to look for the “Truth” at the heart of any prominent character change within the plot. But other authors will, with equal validity, choose instead to identify underlying topics or recurring motifs, many of which are never made explicit within the narrative.
This myriad of subtly different approaches can create confusion about what theme actually is. After all, every single one of these approaches seems legit. And they are legit—because every single one of them, although not necessarily definitive in itself, helps us gain a bigger-picture view of story. Just as importantly, each of these views provides metrics by which we can consciously analyze and perfect what we are doing.
In future posts, we’re going to look at theme through the lenses of plot and character, which will help us see its more specific and explicit manifestations. But first we need to enter the subject through the doorway of theme itself.
And “theme itself” is perhaps best summed up by its simplest definition:
Theme is a unifying idea or subject, explored via recurring patterns and expanded through comparisons and contrasts.
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Because theme often gets boxed into the narrow view of its being nothing more than “the moral of the story,” it’s helpful to also observe theme at work in different mediums.
Take music, for example. I’ve always considered music the “purest” form of storytelling. Music is sheer emotion, manifesting in what is sometimes not just a mental or imaginative experience, but also a physical experience. Music tells stories and conveys truths without even needing words.
French composer Pierre Schaeffer said:
The moment at which music reveals its true nature is contained in the ancient exercise of the theme with variations. The complete mystery of music is explained right there.
The same could be said for story. Although we parade it through various costumes of intellect, action, and sentiment, story—like all art—is ultimately an expression of theme. The plot and the characters are just window dressing, providing visual metaphors for the author’s underlying (sometimes subconscious) ideas. If those ideas ring with universal truth, it is ultimately the theme, more than the plot or the characters, that connects with readers.
Thematic Principle: What Is It?
The simplest way of expressing theme is via the thematic principle. The thematic principle may be a word, or it may be a sentence. Either way, your thematic principle is the “single, unifying idea” we talked about. It is your story’s representation and exploration of a universal Truth.
This Truth can take many forms:
- It may prove a commonly held Truth (“wars are evil”), or it may be an attempt to disprove a Truth (“wars are a necessary evil”).
- It may tackle the deepest questions of human existence (“why are we here?”), or explore our most deeply held values (“love is the most important thing”).
- It may offer answers, either implicitly or explicitly (“love conquers all”), or it may choose only to raise questions (“does love conquer all?”).
- It may focus on moral dilemmas (“is it okay to protect your own life at the expense of someone else’s?”), or it may simply highlight certain patterns (“life in the inner city”).
- It may choose to comment (“Nazi Germany was immoral”), or it may attempt only to observe (“events of the Holocaust”).
- It may choose a Truth that is high-minded (“life has meaning”), or it may be mundane (“high school is hard”).
- It may be optimistic (“life is wonderful”), or it may be pessimistic (“humans are selfish”).
The one thing the thematic principle can’t be is vague. At first glance, this may seem an easily disprovable suggestion, since you can probably name great stories that seem pretty foggy in the thematic area. This is because excellent themes are rarely blatant or “on the nose.” But if a story works, you can bet that however subtle its themes may be, they are neither vague nor accidental.
There is a huge difference between a vague theme, told by an author who was never quite sure what the theme was, versus a subtle theme that permeates every part of a story so completely it becomes almost invisible via its very prominence.
When I first investigated one of my favorite movies, John Sturges’s classic The Great Escape, I initially found it difficult to sum up a unifying thematic principle in any explicit statement. My go-to metric for finding a story’s theme starts with identifying the Truth at the heart of the protagonist’s arc, then looking for mirroring statements in every aspect of the story. But in some stories, like The Great Escape, the themes aren’t so easily discovered (more on that in a minute).
The Great Escape (1963), The Mirisch Company.
How Your Thematic Principle Affects Every Part of Your Story
Although condensing a story into a pithy “thematic principle” can sometimes seem overly simplistic, this is exactly what makes it a valuable tool. Your story’s essence, boiled down to its most concise statement, can become the guiding principle for your entire project.
Once you have discovered what your story is about on a thematic level, you will be able to gut check every single scene, every character encounter, every bit of incidental symbolism. The more cohesive every single piece of your story becomes, the more powerful your theme becomes—and the more you can rely on overwhelming subtlety, via your plot and character arcs, rather than falling into heavy-handed moralizing.
As we’ve discussed previously, theme is rarely born in solitude. Theme ideas grow apace with plot ideas and character ideas. This means you do not have to identify your thematic principle in isolation. Identifying the point of your plot and the change in your characters will provide big flashing arrows pointing straight at your thematic principle. (We’ll be talking about both of these in future posts.)
For today, however, I do want to talk about the thematic principle in isolation, specifically ways you can identify theme in stories where the plot and character arcs don’t immediately seem to point to a unifying idea or Truth.
Let’s look back at the movie I mentioned earlier.
The Great Escape is a true story, chronicling the tremendous effort of Allied prisoners to escape a German POW camp. Despite its huge cast, it is less a character story than an event story. So what’s the thematic principle? What Truth is this story sharing beyond that of a remarkable (if largely failed) historical gambit?
The Great Escape (1963), The Mirisch Company.
How to Identify a Story’s Thematic Principle
On its surface, The Great Escape may seem to reflect the reason writers often feel theme should not be approached consciously. This is because when theme is done exceptionally well, it is often difficult for the audience to verbally identify it. (Can you verbally express, off the top of your head, the theme of great musical compositions such as Aaron Copland’s Rodeo or Gustave Holst’s The Planets?) However, it’s important to note this difficulty for us as readers arises from the seamlessness of the story’s themes. It rarely, if ever, arises from the author’s ignorance of those themes.
Regardless whether you are trying to identify theme as the reader/viewer of someone else’s stories or as the author of your own story, one of the first places you should look is the ending. The ending always tells you what a story is trying to be about. (Some stories get there organically and successfully; others try to present thematic arguments in their closing scenes that, in fact, are only weakly supported by the preceding story.) However subtle or blatant, the Climactic Moment is the thematic point of the story, with the Resolution scene(s) usually offering some sort of explanatory context.
Once you’ve nailed down a concrete idea from a story’s closing scenes, take a look back through the preceding story. Is that same idea mirrored throughout? If not, it could be the story fails to work thematically. Or it could be you simply failed to choose the correct concrete definition for the story’s abstract theme. In that case, try again.
I have come to define the theme of The Great Escape as “the indomitable human spirit.” The story ends with most of the escaped POWs either dead or returned to captivity. On the surface, that doesn’t seem very indomitable. But two particular scenes prove what the story is about.
One is the response of the senior British officer to James Garner’s query about the worth of their gambit:
That depends on your point of view, Hendley.
The Great Escape (1963), The Mirisch Company.
This suggestion is immediately reinforced by the return of Steve McQueen’s character. After facing down the dejected camp commander (who is on his way to a court-martial), McQueen ends the movie with a cocky grin. His defiant strut back to solitary confinement is played against the jaunty but poignant closing score. The scene emphatically underlines the idea that this ending is not to be seen as a defeat.
The Great Escape (1963), The Mirisch Company.
When this theorized thematic principle is then played back against everything that happens previously in the plot and in the character development, we can then see how it resonates in every scene—but in such a subtle way that the power is magnified. The theme is shown instead of told.
One final thing to note is that (as previously mentioned) theme is a slippery thing. A story’s thematic premise can often be summed up in more than one way. Some people will look at The Great Escape and phrase its thematic premise differently. Usually, however, this variety just offers differing viewpoints of the same principle. For example, one person’s “indomitable human spirit” might be another person’s “virtuous patriotism.”
***
Thematic principle is the essence of theme. As the central idea which all other interpretations of a story’s theme either refer to or evolve from, it is a powerful place from which to begin planning and/or identifying your story’s theme.
Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! How would you sum up your story’s thematic principle? Tell me in the comments!
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About K.M. Weiland | @KMWeiland
For me, ‘theme’ is simply what is revealed from a story well told.
As I write, the story fleshes out the characters. And all the revisions distill what we would call “morals” or “values,” or even one singe human emotion.
But one man’s philosophy is another man’s kindling . . . the main characters in my story have the life of an unborn child held as leverage. They deliberate loyalty, commitment and procreation.
“What is revealed”–I like that.
Thank you for this great post !
I must say I’m quite excited to read that you’re going to be discussing theme further this year,
as I’m having a bit of trouble developing a story from its thematic principle, which would be phrased as “the relation between identity and society’s expectations”…
I would love to hear your thoughts on how to craft the best possible premise and story out of this approach in an upcoming post !
Yes, I’ll be diving more into the nitty-gritty of crafting theme in plot and character in future posts.
I’d have to say, for superhero stories, good versus evil.
Yep, that’s an almost universal underpinning for most action stories.
I enjoy these thought-provoking posts. Although the idea of high school being hard made me chuckle. In my current work I try to explain the universal tendency of government to abuse its authority. Some call it the tyranny of the majority. I think it was Churchill who described democracy as two wolves and a lamb debating what is for dinner. Only in our case it’s the tyranny of the politicians to misrepresent themselves in order to get a majority of votes and then abuse power once in office.
Just ask John Hughes. 😉
“The ending always tells you what a story is trying to be about” – very helpful observation, thanks. I’m going to use it to test my current work in progress.
Always loved The Great Escape but had never considered its theme before and I think your analysis is spot on.
There is a lot written about being able to pitch a novel (or film) in one or 2 sentences. Do you think the theme and the pitch are similar?
Theme may be revealed or implied in a pitch, but a pitch is usually about concept and premise. You might find these posts helpful:
Story Concept and Story Premise: Do You Know the Crucial Difference?
How to Pitch Your Novel: What’s the Difference Between Your Story’s Hook and Your Story’s Heart?
I know I should have gone right to work…but oh no, not me…I had to start reading your post and now I have all those links lined up in my tabs to read later! But thank you, I needed this as my work in progress is flaying a bit. However I know it will gel soon, after circling around someone being a legend in his own mind, how that flaw is revealed, and what it does to my protagonist when the hypocrisy and pretense are exposed. Well back to work…
Sounds like an inherently juicy character arc!
This arrived right as I’m working on my pitch to agents. Tremendously helpful. Thank you!
Cool beans. 🙂 Good luck!
Thanks for the article. I look forward to the upcoming installments.
My theme is about connection (predominantly people to people, but also to place and the natural world) and how connection leads to purpose.
Nice. I like that you’ve already identified several comparative layers.
This is a lovely post. I like that you mention music themes. Thinking about music, and the way the theme hold everything together… it’s interesting how, in an orchestra, say, if you just hear one person practicing, say, the cello, it might not sound like music at all, but as soon as the cello part starts resonating against the violins and piano, the other parts become so much richer.
I was browsing for quotes about theme a while back and found it interesting that what I kept getting were quotes about music. It immediately gave me a different perspective on theme in art.
Glad theme is a recurring theme this year. ;0) I’m finding these posts so helpful. Thank you!
For my WIP, the principle is something like: what/who should I place my trust in?
Nice. I like “question” themes. They’re always interesting to explore. I know I always learn something knew when writing them.
Love the post. But then your posts always have a way of unlocking stuff that I’ve sort of done in a subconscious, embryonic way, but haven’t fully formulated and expressed.
I think I’d sum the theme of my wip up as ‘happiness is healthy self-confidence and acceptance of change.’
It did take me a while to actually boil it down to that, I think because there are a few different riffs on it within the characters. There are angles covering fear of rejection or intimacy, guilt and co-dependency, denial, false bravado and overconfidence/arrogance.
You know, theme is kinda like personality. We can boil it down to a useful summary (such as Myers-Briggs and the Enneagram do), but it’s still just a representation of something much deeper and more nuanced.
LOVE Myer-Briggs. I’m a rare female INTJ. I also did Strong-Campbell.
INTJ here too. 🙂
What a great post. There’s an old addage…when you hold a hammer everything looks like a nail.
Your explanation of ‘overwhelming subtlety, via your plot and character arcs, rather than falling into heavy-handed moralizing’ is exactly what I needed to understand.
Thank you very much!
Hah. You know, I’ve been thinking about that quote a lot lately. 😉
For me and my WIP, theme boils down to a single word – identity.
Although the original draft written with no clear idea of where the story would end up, the second and subsequent drafts wrote the theme into the story without my being conscious of it happening. Maybe it’s because I write organically, I don’t know, maybe it is because it’s told First Person, again I can’t give myself an answer, let alone anyone else.
My story takes themes and motifs from my life and those others I grew up with, and for us the target wasn’t only academic, but working out *who* we were or wanted to be, as apposed to what the school wanted us to be. That was a subtle thread running through our experience as teens with Cerebral Palsy in a small special school (the maximum pupil number wasn’t any more than about 110) so we had peers to aspire – or not – and a sense of belonging if, like me, you had a positive experience, or a sense of isolation if the reverse was true. Either way, there was a sense of community, a “do or die” one for some of us.
Interesting. I realized last week that my fantasy WIP is actually going to be about Identity as well.
The theme of Zinovy’s journey is that, though human beings are not in control of the circumstances of their lives, they do control their destiny by the choices they make.
Empowered protagonists! 😀
Thanks for another great, thought provoking post. I really struggled with the theme in my current WIP. But with each iteration it became clearer and, as it did, that clarity helped develop and unify the plot and characters. It’s like the theme became the lens through which everything else was viewed. If it wasn’t in focus when viewed through that lens, it wasn’t right. If it was, it worked.
With my historical drama set in late 1900, a time of great optimism about a changing world, I’m really enjoying exploring the theme that “All progress comes at a price”.
Thanks again, and I’ll look forward to future installments!
“It’s like the theme became the lens through which everything else was viewed. If it wasn’t in focus when viewed through that lens, it wasn’t right. If it was, it worked.”
This is spot on.
After commenting on yesterday’s post, a couple of examples came to mind; one general and one more specific.
The protagonist in my WIP is a young woman seeking a career in a profession traditional practiced only by men. It’s not hard to imagine the obstacles facing her at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. I often find myself tempted to let her get it all off her chest and vent her frustrations with a powerful speech about justice and fairness and equality. But I immediately realize that I’m facing a serious problem. What fresh marks could I possibly make, through her, on such well-trodden ground? And what about my protagonist? Is someone who doesn’t leave fresh marks rightfully labeled a caricature? Seems like certain quicksand for a protagonist.
My theme provides me with the tool to solve this problem. Instead of letting her just talk about it, the theme of “Progress comes at a price” reminds me that I should be showing her attempts to make progress and then having to react to the consequences, anticipated or otherwise. Or rejecting the toll that one path would demand and deciding on another course of action. I’m confident that doing so will both make my story more universal and show my protagonist as being more human.
The second example concerns an upcoming scene at the midpoint where my protagonist breaks with a matronly benefactor who opposes her goals. I imagine the scene taking place in one of the dining saloons on the ship that’s the story’s setting. There’s a piano there, so I researched the top songs of 1900, looking for a historically accurate one that I could have someone playing in the background. One title intrigued me: “A Bird in a Gilded Cage.” Within a few seconds I was reading the lyrics and listening to a faint, scratchy and almost unintelligible recording that sounded like it was made on one of Edison’s original wax rolls. Turns out the song is about a woman who gives up her youth and the chance of romance with someone her own age to marry a rich man long past his prime (kind of a 1900 version of the 70’s Eagles hit, “Lyin’ Eyes”).
Bingo! It fits my theme, hand-in-glove. It’s all about progress (attaining wealth, stature, security) at a price (captivity).
Now how exactly can I best use it? Tantalizing possibilities. First to mind is having my protagonist throw it in the matron’s face as an example of the conventional life she won’t accept. It fits the theme, but it’s a little obvious. Instead maybe the protagonist realizes that she’ll find herself in a different kind of gilded cage if she reaches her goal. It does better show the theme as specifically related to my protagonist’s goal and the price she’ll pay if she reaches it.
But is it the best use of it? No, wait – what if the protagonist throws it in the matron’s face as an example of what she doesn’t want, but then it’s the matron who sees the trap inherent in achieving the protagonist’s goal? She shows herself to be unexpectedly insightful, recalling the pain of compromises she herself made long ago. Not only is a supporting character now more three-dimensional, complete with her own theme-centric wound, but she’s also thrown the protagonist back on her heels!
And, of course, someone has to be singing the song. Why waste the opportunity? What if it’s an influential society woman who thinks she can sing but can’t carry a tune in a bucket? Someone grumbles that they can’t stand her screeching, but laments that they can’t afford to offend her by leaving lest she drop support for their charity.
The price of having reached high society?
Sorry for the long comment, but as someone said, “I didn’t have time to write it short.”
As always, your post was an inspiration. I have a scene to write!
Great stuff here!
I particularly like this: “Is someone who doesn’t leave fresh marks rightfully labeled a caricature?”
Excellent food for thought in that comment.
Thanks for taking on the subject of theme. Finding my way through the writing craft by reading books and taking courses left me wondering, “If they can’t define it, why discuss it?”
Yes. So totally agree with this.
Like Brenda, I really shouldn’t have started your post instead of responding to work emails, because, as always, your topic was too intriguing – and something I struggle with – to stop.
I pants’d my way through my current WIP and all along thought the theme had something to do with redemption. However, as you pointed out – which I hadn’t realized until you noted it – the theme pops up at the climax and claims the book is about whether we can really know another person. Big difference!
I wouldn’t have made the connections without reading your post this morning.
Now I can get back to my day job feeling much less confused and more excited to return to my writing tonight.
Thanks so much!
Yep, my themes often surprise me too. Often, theme arises as much out of the *feeling* of a story as it does out of the mechanics–which is yet another reason why theme can often be so tricky to pin down. I’m writing a story that I really thought was going to be about Faith, but I realized last week that its core is really about Identity. The two tie together in many ways, but the latter is what the story itself is pointing to.
The subtlety of theme is what leaves me thinking long after I’ve turned the last page. The joy I get from a book that leaves me tangled up in thought days later is a wonderful indicator to me that theme is alive and well in that book despite my ability to nail it down to one phrase or word. Great post!
My favorite stories are those I can return to time and again (like Great Escape) and come away with something a little new every single time.
Great topic. First, hope all is well with you regarding the flooding in Nebraska.
As you point out, theme is nebulous. Can you have multiple themes, say, duty & sacrifice vs. the temptation of absolute power? Or does that risk muddling your story?
I also worry about making my wip to on the nose. For example, these lines, which started out as a bit of a joke by borrowing a meme from LOTR:
“Speaking of legends, do you recall an epic saga about a ruler who bends mortal kings to her will with a magical ring?”
“A metaphor for marriage perhaps? Hmm, a ring, that could also be a sexual symbol,” Lady Kresatia said.
I laughed. “I don’t think so. There was this wonderful line, something like ‘One ring to rule them all.’ Wouldn’t that be convenient?”
Lady Kresatia laughed too. “Would you really want ten husbands?”
“Certainly not, which must be why she brought them all in and in the darkness bound them.” I glanced at my ringless fingers. I had no need for a magical ring. I wore the crown of Polis.
The more concise the author’s approach to a unifying theme, the more control he’ll have over the story. However, so many ideas and truths in life are inter-related. In your instance, duty and power are really just the exploration two opposing answers to the same question.
Love this! You know, I have always had that same problem with identifying the theme of one of my favorite books, Kidnapped. I could never pinpoint any specific thematic principle, but have always heard that Stevenson’s works tend to “raise questions.” I came to a similar conclusion as you did a few days ago, when a closer look revealed that everything seems to point to one central idea, somewhere along the lines of “people are not what they seem to be at first.” Or in other words, not all that glitters is gold. I’ve also had that problem with my own story, writing pages of lines describing what my thematic principle is. I ended up with a list like yours above, and wondered why they all seemed to work. Thank you so much for writing this post!
Nice. I haven’t read Kidnapped in years and years–but I think that interpretation makes a lot of sense.
In every new post, I realize I have so much to learn… Thanks for this post!
I was trying to sum up the Thematic Principle of a couple of movies. But, I can’t think of one for “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” movie. In case you have watched this one, of course, what would be the Thematic Principle of it?
Haven’t seen it I’m afraid, so can’t comment there. From what I’ve heard about it, I bet it has something to do with the power exchange between men and women.
Such a great movie example! The theme of my novel is “the light is within us”. The main character is obsessed with light – natural and unnatural, and learns that the light she seeks is within herself and always with her.
It’s always fun when you can bring in a definite metaphor as a visual aspect to theme.
Just want to say thanks for your always thought-provoking and (usually) creatively inspirational posts. Whenever I’m stuck, I turn to you! Your insights–and the comments and ideas that follow from fellow writers–are a living, changing part of the tool box, and much appreciated!
Glad they’re helpful! 🙂
Funnily enough I didn’t work out the theme of my current WIP until I wrote the last chapter. It turned out to be ‘Which is more important: freedom or responsibility’, something I struggle with in my own life!
Thanks for all your tips. I’m now examining my character arcs and seeing how I can work this in without bashing my readers over the head with it.
Nice! I explored a similar theme in my book Storming. It was a fun one to work through.
I enjoy your posts. It took me awhile to discover the theme. Originally it was the evil government.
Recently i discovered the theme. I took a class on Writing a Query. Examining that aspect led me to my theme.
Love. How far will a parent go to protect their children? Even though it is about rebelling against an corrupt government; the story is about the lengths two parents will do to protect their children.
There are so many facets of writing. Log-line, elevator pitch, Twitter pitch, multiple sentence pitch, blurb, synopsis, query.
Thanks for the interesting articles. Sitting in front of the Public Library’s warm fireplace. 🙂
This is an important example. What the story is *really* about is what’s happening on a personal level with the character. This should be mirrored in the external conflict, but the “large” antagonist rarely points as surely to theme as the “small” antagonistic forces.
This idea of theme definitely is hard to grasp. I wonder if we don’t spend more time worrying about identifying it than writing our stories, from which the theme should develop and reveal itself. (This triangular relationship – plot, character, theme – carries almost as much mystery as that of the triune Godhead – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – which baffles so many Christians.) But your efforts to clarify the concept for the rest of us, in plain English, are definitely beneficial. Thank you!
I think I captured my recent novel’s theme in the “elevator pitch” I use on the business card about the book that I created to hand out a couple years before the book saw print. “The Sturgeon’s Dance” is about Rory and Josie, who are psychically linked since birth but never meet until they are in their thirties, when he joins her office as a consultant. The story follows their struggles to figure out what is going on between them. (Of course, each has emotional baggage to sort through and set down – no baggage: no story!) The primary character, Rory, in particular is restless and finds solace in the wilderness of Maine. My “elevator pitch” is:
“A soul’s search for that primeval fullness of joy.”
I only found this when 1) I figured out what the ending was and then could work toward it, and 2) I discovered the turning point (subtle though it is) in writing a chapter that falls in the middle of the book, which sharpened the premise of the story from its very fuzzy, disorganized origins.
“Primeval fullness of joy.”
That’s lovely.
This was a very interesting explanation of theme. I wondered if it was necessary to express this as one word or a sentence. Or if other sentences are required for different facets. The end couple of paragraphs showed that other so called themes are in fact different viewpoints or interpretations. So maybe I was not on the wrong track. I started to consider theme only when my WIP book was completely drafted. I started to think about it when a reader asked about the first character that is introduced on page one. How he’s kind and such a loving father (in olden times) and it will be impossible to justify what happens next. Within a few paragraphs his wife dies in childbirth, he orders the new born child to be killed in retaliation and abdicates all responsibility as a father towards two other children. He appears to be deeply traumatized and depressed. It comes out later why.(backstory) Eventually he can’t handle the climactic moment and commits suicide. This shocked a reader as she read what became of this kind loving man. This character is only one lesson in theme. Basically that there is good and bad in all of us and we struggle with it. That’s the first basic theme.
The different metaphors (characters) that are introduced explore this. Good and Bad are not always in balance. (one facet) Some otherwise good people will be reactively so evil, or create such evil with the best of intentions, but usually in the most extreme of circumstances. egs take away a loved one, or harm their children.
Then I had a really horrible two faced villain who kicked aside the theme and its truths with his nastiness. A character tries to help him be good. Doesn’t work. So frustrating. For me as well. He was originally good, kind, heroic, noble. Things happened to gradually push him over the edge. He would not fit the theme. I reluctantly had to admit the theme isn’t always correct for every character. Sometimes when good people turn bad due to injustice there is never a way to get them to see two wrongs do not make a right and allow the good they receive now, to retrieve the good in them. What started as moral outrage has turned them against anything good. Bad people can turn to good but good people who turn to bad can’t always turn back. Darth Vader didn’t, or did he? His back story was tragic too. And every story needs a hero versus a villain. So I have a hero who at times in an antihero (fits the theme), and a villain, who used to be a hero but turned to the “dark-side” for good. (Possibly a dark example of theme)
Sounds like perhaps your antagonist is exploring the “negation” of your theme.
For me, theme is like Pluto in 1919: something we know is there but are yet unable to locate with our instruments. Plot and character come quickly but theme for me is always delayed, sometimes til the second draft.
Your note that the ending is the key to theme is very helpful. Thanks
And then turns out not to be a planet after all? :p
Katie, here is an article about a diary made by a man who was part of The Great Escape: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/for-sale-a-pow-journal-documenting-wwiis-great-escape It’s up for auction!
How cool! Thanks for sharing this!
“However subtle or blatant, the Climactic Moment is the thematic point of the story, with the Resolution scene(s) usually offering some sort of explanatory context.”
Thank you for this line. I often feel that the denouement is overlooked or at least given short shrift by writing instructors and yet I’ve always felt it was just as important as the other parts of the story. Done well, I think it can offer an emotional impact even greater than the climax.
I haven’t been able to put my finger on the reason until now. Context.(!) You see someone crying, you don’t know whether it is joy, loss or rage until you get the broader context.
Sometimes, after the antagonist is defeated and the credits start rolling, some small action or comment is dropped which reveals an unexpected piece of character background or motivation or the camera pulls back to reveal the broader context of the setting/conflict and the perspective of the _entire_ story can shift. You suddenly find yourself re-evaluating everything that came before from a new perspective.
I’m going to have to update my mental model of how stories function now…
A great example of this is Woody Allen’s wonderful screwball film The Purple Rose of Cairo. The shocking Climax wouldn’t work at all without the poignant Resolution.
This is why I love to watch “deleted scenes” — they always add some little nuance to the character.
Theme is how a story fits into Jordan Peterson’s modified Jungian archetypes.
I’m going to do a post on archetypes soon.
Katie, this is one of the deepest, most insightful articles on any subject having to do with writing that I’ve read in a very long time. I admire your courage in mentioning “universal truth” and its importance in story. We live in times when many people do not even believe in the existence of universal truth.
I have a short story which I wrote organically. One thing that helped me see its theme (and I may not even understand it, or be able to articulate it, fully yet) was employing a technique I learned from the dear late John Yeoman: creating resonance with an image (or something else) repeated several times during the story.
Thank you for a profound article which (in my case at least) will require many re-readings in order to plumb its depths and mine all its jewels.
Yes! Visual images have such power. You might also enjoy this post I wrote last year: Don’t Write Scenes–Write Images.
There is a lot to think about here, but I am still not convinced about music being “the purest form of storytelling”. At least, it appears to require a fairly major adaptation of the term “storytelling” I notice that you don’t attempt to explain the theme of any musical piece.
I’d be very interested in your take on this.
The analogy only carries if you consider storytelling to be primarily an emotional journey–which I do.
I think the theme of my story is “letting go of what you’ve lost and moving on.” The idea of being stuck in time vs moving forward to some imagined future seems to come up a lot.
Sounds like a great theme to explore!
I have a question on the Inciting Event: If my Inciting Event happens before the first chapter, do I need to include a second one in the story itself?
Yes, you’ll need a beat halfway through the First Act that represents the Call to Adventure. Think of it as a turn that brings the protagonist still nearer to the irrevocability of the First Plot Point, where s/he will exist the Normal World of the First Act for the Adventure World of the Second Act.
Thanks, got it.
Yeppers.
Thank you for giving us so much food for thought. I need to spent time thinking before saying what the theme of my books is.
I have 3 parts of a series published. Do you think each book needs its own theme, or should a series have one overarching theme? I would be interested to here your views on this, as well as those of your many readers.
It’s usually best for a series–especially one of interconnected stories–to present a unified theme. However, each individual can (and probably will) explore its own offshoots of that theme.
*sigh* good news and bad news. The good news is that I’ve had it in the back of my mind that Maggie’s story arc was about “loyalty” — the price of it, the need to keep it up, how much do we give up before we have to admit someone no longer deserves it. [Can a theme or thematic principle be one word? I’ll work on that.] The bad news is that I now realize my “theme” has nothing to do with my proposed ending. (the murderer is caught, but it has nothing to do with the subject of Maggie’s loyalty). I guess this all needs a lot of work, but thank you for giving me some (more) tools.
What is your take on having more than one theme, or when someone describes a book as exploring the themes of, say, home, love and justice. Or would you say that these several themes could all be boiled down to one over-arching theme?
When it works, it is because there is an overarching link amongst the smaller themes. The litmus test is whether or not (and how well) they are all resolved in the Climax.
Fascinating. I’m stumbling about writing my first novel and hadn’t considered theme consciously.
On the surface, the story starts with one race serving another in the lead up to a war, and I’d considered it to be something like “the realities of war” or “why fight for a foreign power” or even “a boy’s life in the palace and the trench”.
But, really, it’s about family legacy. A boy ends a war through violence – just like his father did. Yet he does it better. Morally, better.
It ends with the main character’s people demanding he be their king (akin to the biblical story of Saul). I’m not sure what I should do with that demand. I s’pose I’ll know when (or more likely if) I get there.
Regardless, the individuals, their family, and their people are all recognised at the end.
Anyway… thanks. This helped me see that I need to end thematically decisive – rather than tie up events in a neat package.
Sounds good! You’ve highlighted an oft-overlooked truth about theme. The best themes are almost always deeply personal. Successful stories are rarely about “war,” but rather about one person’s intimate journey toward a specific insight.
Thank you so much for this site – what a great resource! I’m struggling through the second draft of my first novel and, because reading is always the easier path than writing, found this page.
I’m struggling with theme though. It feels like I’m equivocating. On the one hand I have ‘conformity, social order and service’ on the other I have ‘independence and freedom’ – My natural inclination is that both are extremes and a path through the middle is ‘right’. But ‘moderation’ doesn’t seem strong enough to be a theme. Did I miss the point here?
Sounds like you’re describing the two sides of the same issue. If “independence” is the theme, then discussions of “dependence” are always implicit.