Turns Out Theme is Actually Good for Something (this just in)

Fiction-Zone: Leaps in Fiction Mastery by Diane Holmes, Chief Alchemist of Pitch University

Theme, theme, theme.

In 3 Definitions of Theme I’d Like to Flush I pointed out that when the word “theme” comes up in writerly conversation, no one responds, “Theme is one of the most useful tools I have.”

It’s time to make you a useful tool in creating story and not just understanding or analyzing  it.

explore

Theme is What You Explore

Yup, that’s my basic definition.

PART ONE:

It’s what you want to explore in this story because you have something nuanced to say about it.

Or…

It’s what you need to explore because you don’t have it all figured out yet.

PART TWO:

It’s what your characters will end up explore as well, because it’s written into the texture of their lives and the things that bring change.

PART THREE:

And finally, it’s the experience you hope to give your readers that leads to an understanding.

BONUS: And while you were probably taught you only have one theme per story, I give you permission to have as many as you want.

Life is complex.

People are complex.

Using Theme to Create Your Story

Think about the story that you want to create and finish the sentences:

STEP #1

I’m exploring the nature of ______________ and how it _____________.

What really draws me to this story are the moments when you can see/understand what ________ is like.

I’m exploring what it’s like to ____________ so much that you can only.can’t  _______________.

EXAMPLE:  I’m exploring the nature of family and how you can create your family by added people, even if you aren’t related to them.

EXAMPLE:  What really draws me to this story are the moments when you have to do something right regardless of the chaos around you, the grayness, the fact that what’s right and what’s legal aren’t in agreement.

EXAMPLE:  I’m exploring what it’s like to need to protect someone so much that you’ll sacrifice everything you have for them, all, because you won’t know who you are if something happens to them.  You’ll lose who you think you are and who you want to be in the world.

STEP #2

Look at what your theme tells you….

  • The scenes you’ll need.
  • The type of characters involved.
  • The trajectory of the story all the way to the end.

It’s not dictating your story.  You still get to decide what type of story, and all the thousand other details of creating plot, character, and scenes.

But finally, theme is helping you on your journey.

EXAMPLE:

You can’t explore building family unless you actually have a character who (for some reason) doesn’t have a family present.  And you can’t show adding people unless you… add them.  And so on.

Imagine you want to write a Young Adult book, and you want to write about a girl who changes her name and runs away.  If you want to explore how you can build family, then you’ll need to decide how she feels about being alone, and how she feels about the first person who is “potential family.”

Let’s say that you also want her to get involved in robbing a bank. Does she meet other teens who are pulling bank jobs?  Do they take her in?  Do they become her family?  Or does she meet someone else who is involved?  Someone she sees as a little sister?  Someone who becomes more an more important to her until she really is a sister?

(You can see now that the theme is not the plot, but it still helps you create scenes and move forward.)

Expanded Definitions of Theme

* Theme is what you (and your character) explore that gives your story (your character’s journey) power, meaning, and resonance.

* And it’s not just the “what,” it’s also the “how” and the “why” the exploration uncovers.

* It’s the uplift of your heart, the giant inhale of recognition that something basic—primitive, even–is being touched, and you want to be inside that story, because being there is being close to “my precious.”  It’s a craving.  A code you simply must decode.  In story, you’re drawn to stories about  this topic, this set of circumstances.

* Theme is the compulsion that drives you to write your story toward something or to place your story so that it’s “stuck” in this something.  It’s the force beyond your love of your own characters and plot.

* Theme is held in the epic moments  that shoot to the core of your heart, your mind, or your soul.  Even if that moment is small and quiet, we get why it matters to the characters and to us as human beings.

* Theme is the feeling and desperate need behind the actions, behind the personality, behind the conflict

* Theme is what fills the story cells that translates to our life and what moves us.

* Theme tells about striving.  Surviving. And what we hold on to.

* Theme tells us the story we tell ourselves after the story is over.

clip_image004Diane writes two alternating columns for Freelance-Zone:Fiction-Zone: Leaps in FictionMastery and Marketing-Zone:Marketing-Zone: Marketing Yourself and Your Book.

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