Theme is something I’ve been thinking about for years, because it’s one of those writing things that I can’t seem to ever quite grasp when it comes to my own writing process. Thanks to my excellent high school English teachers, I can pick out and analyze themes in other people’s stuff, but I never quite get it for my own.
Judging from some of the discussions I’ve had on this topic, lots of other people are confused about theme, too. So I thought I’d ponder that for a little today.
Theme is often defined as “what the story is about,” which I think is where the confusion starts. Stories are “about” their subject – “Beowulf” is about a hero defeating a monster, for instance, and the story of King Arthur is about a kid who unites a kingdom, becomes king, and then has it all fall apart on him. But theme is what the story is “about” on a deeper level, underneath the trappings of specific characters and events, where Beowulf is about facing and defeating fear, or protecting the people you are responsible for, and Arthur is about the human drive to create a utopia and how impossible it is. Or Beowulf is about courage and Arthur is about ideals.
It’s like listening to an argument between two people who have a long, problematic relationship. If you listen just to what they say to each other, the argument is “about” which TV show to watch tonight. But the real argument may be a long-running conflict over who makes decisions all the time, or who has power in the relationship, or over one party feeling neglected or ignored or disrespected by the other. The TV program is just the mechanism, the excuse; the argument is “about” TV only on the surface. Under the surface, it’s “about” something else entirely.
But most of the time, when your average reader tries to describe a book to somebody, he does so in terms of the plot, characters, or subject — “It’s a book about a guy who goes to sleep in this cursed hall and fights a monster…” Because those are the things that make one book that is (thematically speaking) “about” class warfare different from all the other books that are “about” class warfare. But the fact that plot, characters, etc. are usually more obvious than theme doesn’t mean theme isn’t there, or isn’t important or interesting.
The trouble, for me, is that theme is very dangerous for me to look at directly when I’m writing. It has to stay below the surface, in my subconscious, or everything falls apart. This is quite frustrating, because often (in retrospect), some of the decisions I make in the course of writing would be much, much easier if I knew what my theme was. Even the ones that aren’t easier decisions would be more comfortable if I actually knew at the time just why I was making them. I can’t control how my backbrain works, though, and it just doesn’t work if I try to figure out my theme before the story is finished.
Another problem is that stories can have more than one theme; they can be about families and growing up and ecology and the effect of incompetence on public policy, all at the same time. And some of what stories are about, on this level, are things that the reader brings along, not things that the writer put in. Furthermore, if one tries to cram too many themes into one story, it has the same “kitchen sink” effect as trying to cram too many plots or characters into it – the story starts to give at the seams, and eventually splits open, strewing characters, plot, themes, and everything else in an untidy mess all over the floor.
Which is about where I usually stop worrying about this. I know what works for me, and thinking too hard about the theme of whatever I’m writing does NOT. But lots of writers do find it helpful, so I keep nudging at it from different directions, hoping I’ll find some approach that will make it all make sense (and ultimately, make my work easier).
I’ve discovered that some authors recommend figuring at the story’s theme towards the beginning of the writing process while others suggest waiting until it’s time to revise. I wish I knew which method would be more effective for my own writing. I think I might be better off waiting until I have a first draft finished. I’ve been working and reworking the plot and characters, and rewriting the first few chapters accordingly, and even though the changes I’ve made have all been significant improvements, there comes a time when it’s more important to just write out the full story.
I’m so glad you wrote this. I can’t approach theme directly, either, and I used to worry that there was something wrong with me or I didn’t understand storytelling well enough. So many other people seemed to be able to come up with intelligent-sounding analyses of the themes in their work, and although I knew mine had these deeper meanings, I couldn’t readily articulate them. I also had a gut feeling it would be a mistake to force myself to map these things out beforehand, at least at my current level of understanding. There are things that the subconscious and/or higher self can handle beautifully if the intellect stands back and lets them, so that’s my current plan. 🙂
One thing I’ve noticed is that my subconscious gravitates toward certain pieces of music to play while writing, and if I ever examine the lyrics (for the songs that have words), I usually have a “Duh!” moment.
I can’t plan theme directly either – I once spent two months treading a perfectly good reboot of one of my perennial stories into the ground by doing just that. I think there were seven different themes to keep track of at one point.
If you want to imagine the result, imagine a drunken Ambassador Elizabeth Taylor is climbing with her courtier toyboy up the roofs of Gormenghast to spy on the Sacred King’s secret magical rituals, and that her grocery bills would have been more interesting. Didn’t try that again!
I’ve found more recently that I can use themes in a more tentative way, though – just to describe one view of my present vision of the story. If I only care about the story, and not about keeping the theme consistent, these… thematic views…? seem to clear my vision more than fog it. But I know too well what would happen if I tried to write to the theme on purpose.
Specifics: my WIP began with the vague ‘themes’ of winter, revolution, and rebirth. It isn’t, even at the deepest level, ‘about’ them: to me, it’s primarily about two old people who’ve screwed up their lives big-time, and finally get something most enormously right. The rest is shadows on the wall.
If I were to be asked the theme now, my current best would be something like, “It’s about the democratic sensibility in fairy-tales. It’s about greatness and narrowness of spirit, and what it is to be a hero, and the ways that might and might not be a good idea.” That’s helping me a lot when I’m generating and snipping plot strands, and trying to get a handle on the slippery elements. But if I were writing about those things, it’d be crap – I’d better write an essay instead.
No. I’m writing about a couple of old semi-villains who Learn Better, but also use the virtues of their defects to bring about something wonderful. This couple. The themes are just the things they keep making me think about, in order to tell/read their story aright. They’re useful because they’re incidental. Tomorrow I may see winter’s theme again – or rebirth through to spring.
I hope this isn’t too obscure and personal. If I’ve learned anything on themes, it seems to be, “Never try to close your hand on them.” I hope that might work for people who aren’t me, too; be interested to know if anyone else sees or uses them similarly.
For me, themes are a little like outlines -don’t get too attached to one, because halfway through, the story will veer off in a totally different direction and you’re left blinking and going `whoa, what just happened?’ I tried to write a story once about the importance of hope, and it turned into a story about loyalty. I tried to write a witty satire on modern ideals in a fairytale setting, and it turned into a story about second chances. I really like the themes I end up with, but I always have to do a lot of tweaking for consistency. Sometimes it’d be a lot less work if I could actually write the subject I set out to tackle.
I’ve got a story that appears to be theme-centric that I’m trying to revise. Betareaders say it lacks a sense of building to a climax. It looks like a plot problem, but every time I try apply the tools I have learned for fixing plots to this story I just get more bogged down and confused — I think I need to be using theme based tools instead. I believe as I keep poking at the problem I’m gradually working my way closer to understanding what it is the story needs, but the whole process is taking a LOT longer than I expected. 🙁
Writing a story while mindful of the theme is like sewing a gown while a woman is wearing the uncut fabric – The theme in a story is the living woman in a ball gown.
M.Ley – If you haven’t a clue which way will work for you, you mostly just have to experiment and find out the hard way.
Dana – I rarely listen to music while I write. I’m not sure why; I just never got into the habit. It’s kind of a shame – I bet it would help me clue into my themes. And yeah – for those of us who can’t articulate theme, trying to do so tends to be a really bad idea, very much like those writers for whom telling the story in any way before actually writing it is a bad idea because it removes all desire to write.
Gray – One of the problems with deliberately writing the trilogy I’m writing is that ever since the first book came out, people have been trying to tell me what it’s about, and I have to keep putting my fingers in my ears and going “lalalala I can’t hear you!” in order to have any hope of continuing to write the rest.
Michelle – Sounds fascinating – can you expand on how you poke at your themes and what kind of theme-centric tools you’ve developed so far?
Kris – I like that metaphor, especially since the finished ball gown will look a little different depending on who’s wearing it, even if it’s exactly the same gown. That works on so many levels…
I think my themes just kind of make themselves.
“Michelle – Sounds fascinating – can you expand on how you poke at your themes and what kind of theme-centric tools you’ve developed so far?”
Sorry it took me so long to get back to this.
When I wrote my comment I didn’t have any theme-centric tools, I just had a story in need of revision that I was stuck on.
The betareader comments had been very similar to ones I had gotten on other projects, most notably Cantata in Coral and Ivory: the momentum of the story just seemed to fade away and die. The problem wasn’t that the story was wandering or that nothing was happening, it was that the readers couldn’t see/feel how what was happening was a *story* rather than just some events.
To fix Cantata I wrote out the story in a summary form that went “this happens, and because this happens this other thing happens, and then because of that, this other thing happens (and also that other thing)…” I then used that summary as a guideline to making revisions designed to make the story that was already there more *visible*. To not just show the events, but to make sure the reader could see how they connected together.
But when I tried to use that and other plot/character motivation based approaches to fixing this story, I kept running into problems. I’m used to working from the assumption that a story about a character who has a problem, and who does things to solve the problem. My character had problems, but they weren’t *solvable* problems, and she didn’t really do anything to fix them.
Frequently I would ask myself “Is this really a story at all?” But something inside of me would insist that it really was a story — one about how sometimes things can’t be fixed, they just have to be lived through… and that doesn’t mean we can’t triumph over them anyhow. That seemed to be a story worth telling, even if it wasn’t the sort of story I was used to, and I didn’t seem to be doing a very good job of it. 🙁
Then I read your post about theme, and after thinking about things for a while I posted my comment about how I had a theme centric story on my hands and I needed to fix it using theme-based tools. After which life went more pear-shaped than usual.
But I’ve finally managed to do something with my “aha!” moment. 🙂
I made an attempt to come up with revisions based not on what happens, but what it all means. So I started at the end, and asked “In order to appreciate this ending, what must the reader understand?”
My answer was: “The reader needs to realize that my character has overcome her fear and found the strength and courage to love.” There’s my triumph over the unfixable, you see. 🙂
Then I stepped back a step, and said, “In order to be able to realize this, what will the reader need to understand?” My answer was that the reader needs to know that my character is afraid, and the reader must be able to recognize the source of her strength/courage. With out the first she has nothing to triumph over, and without the latter they won’t be able to see it as her triumph.
From there I went to “Why is she afraid?” and “What is the source of her strength/courage?” Answering those questions got me a list of things that the reader needed to be able to see in the story, and from there it wasn’t too hard to come up with a list of fixes that looks an awful lot like the lists of fixes I come up with when working from the direction of plot or motivation or whatever.
In fact, some of the things that are on the list are things that I had already mostly figured out I needed using other methods– only when I tried implement the changes, I couldn’t get them to ‘click’ with the story.
I feel in some ways a little stupid about that. Why couldn’t I get the answers right using the tools I had already — I was so *close*. But it was like I was trying to work with a damaged three-dimensional object that I could only see in two dimensions — I knew where the holes were, but I couldn’t see their true shape well enough to fill them in.
…Although I haven’t actually tried these new revisions yet — they may not actually fix anything. But I’m pretty sure I’m at least making forward progress. 🙂
Michelle – That was fascinating; thank you. I find the way you think about what the reader needs to know and understand especially interesting and potentially useful. It’s fundamentally different from the usual “will the reader like/buy this?” and “what does the reader want” questions that are what a lot of writers seem to start with, and which, IMO, are just asking for trouble on all sorts of levels. I like your angle much better.