What Are You Trying to Say?: A.K.A. Your Theme 

We've explored a little character work, a little setting building, and now we're moving into theme construction and development. To keep things nice and simple, your theme is the message you're trying to send your readers through your story. It is a lesson or warning you're presenting them with - or a question you're setting to them. Whether your story features ethically ambiguous situations and morally grey characters or focuses on the light-hearted romance blooming between two characters, there's a message to be found there somewhere.

Think back to your literature classes at school. You read books, and then you had to consider what these books were trying to tell you. What was To Kill A Mockingbird really about - what was the message to be found there, the lesson, the warning? Perhaps it warns us of the importance of bravely standing up to social injustice, or perhaps it's about how justice must be blind, beholden to no bias or prejudice, in order to truly function as needed.

Your theme has to be something that can be structured as an argument, even if it is a personally held belief or opinion. It's easy to say that the theme of To Kill a Mockingbird is that of justice, or coming of age, or racism. But what, exactly, does the book say about those things? Make it a statement - a clear, precise argument. So, I can say that To Kill a Mockingbird warns us that the justice and legal systems need to be free of prejudice and discrimination to allow fair treatment to all and prevent miscarriages of justice. It could also be a lesson on how standing up to others for what you believe in requires great courage, compassion, and empathy. 

Your story - the setting, the characters, the symbolism, and how everything unfolds - should all work together to get that point across. Even your writing style, the complexity of language used, and the tone and mood of your story, need to be taken into consideration, because they all play a vital role in connecting with your reader and helping them understand your thoughts, argument, or perspective. But these are more relevant to the how of the theme, rather than the what.

Stories, in this way, can be great persuasive texts, because they persuade by entertaining, and pass along arguments and lessons through intriguing and fun fictional scenarios. This is why I believe that stories are amazing tools for teaching and learning. It's also why I believe that as writers, it's our responsibility to consider, very carefully, what messages our stories are presenting to readers, and whether or not those themes are accurate representations of our beliefs and opinions.

You're sending signals out into the void. Make sure that when someone picks up on it, they can get the message.  

Even the story that's written without a theme in mind - written just for the heck of it - has a theme hidden away in there. No story exists that does not send its readers some kind of message. Sure, you can write something just for the fun of writing it, but you're placing your biases, opinions, and beliefs in there, even if you don't explicitly notice that. 

If your story is going to have a theme, anyway, why not take a moment to make sure that you're crafting that theme carefully, and with precision? 

And now, we 're getting back to the how of the theme. How do we apply or use our chosen themes in our stories?  

That's a lesson for another day. Stay tuned, and happy scribbling. 

I have a newsletter you can join if you'd like to get some freebies irregularly sent into your inbox. Currently, with the big changes happening in my life, I've had one hell of a time trying to get those freebies sent on time, but we'll be back to a regular schedule soon (one can hope). In the meantime, check out all of the other goodies already available for you there by signing up here.