It's been a long day and I've finally finished preparing meals for the rest of the week (yes. This is meal prep Monday instead of Sunday!). In any case, here are some thoughts about theme, and the value of stories to readers.
So.
There are a lot of questions out there on the internet about 'What is theme?'. They usually come with the follow up question 'How can I put theme into my book?'. It's not easy to answer this and yet it's not impossible either.
Theme by itself is an ethereal thing. It's intangible (except it isn't really). It feels mythical. A lot of question marks pop up in people's heads when they hear 'theme' (or maybe those are just the literary students). Theme is a bit like a unicorn. It's beautiful but it's also shy. It's rare. It's difficult to find in most mainstream books. Has anyone seen it? Does anyone even really know what it is? Does it even exist? (Well - it should.)
A simple way to include theme in your own fiction is to ask yourself a single question before you write.
This question is:
What do your readers get out of your book once they're reading it/have read it?
It can be paraphrased into 'What do you want to show/teach people with this story?'. Hold on. I said 'teach'. But that doesn't mean 'preach'. There is no excuse for preaching and no one wants to read it, neither in fiction nor non-fiction (pay heed non-fiction authors who write textbooks!). The entire jig of theme is that it's subtle. When done well it should sink into your readers' minds (subconscious) WITHOUT them realizing that 'OH THAT IS THE POINT AUTHOR WANTED TO MAKE'. If they know it and they're not a literary student then that's usually a bad sign. Don't suffocate your reader with your opinion/theme.
All right. Back to What do your readers get out of your book once they're reading it/have read it?
This is one of the most important questions you should be thinking about as soon as you start your first draft.
The answers might be varied (and this is where theme comes in).
Your own unique answer to the question will be - or at least tie in - with your book's theme. The question can be answered in many different ways. A few examples:
When my readers read this book they gain/learn...
... an understanding of love!
... a sense of security in their life!
... how to trust!
... how to become selfless!
If you consider this well before you write the ideas that come into your mind (such as 'I want my readers to learn the value of friendship!') will automatically colour the text while you compose it. The theme will usually wind itself into the story without your being aware of it. It's how I wrote Hourglass (in which I wanted to show a greedy and selfish boy learning the value of friendship and loyalty over shiny trinkets) and Hourglass's theme is coherent throughout the five book series. And I did not plan these books. I simply wrote with that sole idea about selfish to selfless (valuing his friends more than the artifacts he wants to collect) in mind and it worked out beautifully.
There are however two caveats.
The first one is that sometimes it's HARD to know your theme before you've written the story. It can be really excruciating to FIND the answer to the question and determine what exactly it is you want your readers to experience/learn while reading your book.
The second one concerns the writing itself. If you have no idea about the characters and the rest of the plot this method of weaving in theme subconsciously might not work. And if you're still trying out your characters you might not be aware immediately what they want/what you can teach your readers through them.
It might even take one or more drafts to know your theme - and then it might be necessary to do a re-write of the whole book. But that shouldn't scare you. The more you learn about your characters and story the better it will be. There's no need to rush.
So the next time you write something try to get the basics down: the characters and what happens to them. Then think about what this teaches your readers. Or do it the other way around. What would you like your readers to know? What do you think is so valuable it must be written down for everyone to read? Then build on that with your characters.
Does this blog post help you in any way? What do you think about this approach to theme? WriteBot would love to read your thoughts in the comment section below!
Happy evening!
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