Veronica had me LOL-ing with her quips about themes sounding like Morgan Freeman. Talia had me hmmm-ing in thinking about how I use theme even when I present technical data in an engineering forum.  Katherine had me nodding about how I never know what my themes are until long after the novel is written.

But one…ummm, theme (if you will) of all posts stuck out: the themes of their novels presented themselves AFTER the story was on paper.

They also did a good job of explaining that themes are the concepts which permeate every word of a story. It’s Veronica’s “My story dispels the myth of the existence of free will.” Or Talia’s “You get to decide what kind of person you’ll be.” It’s a single sentence (or, jeez, a single WORD) that sums up your entire manuscript.

And we're not supposed to plan that out?

*The plotter in me shrieks*

More troubling to my analytical side: Most of the time, a critique partner has pointed my themes out to me. Sometimes it’s even a character that’s come right out and stated them. Of course, I give a sly smile, but inside I’m freaking. How did I not realize that?! I hadn’t gone out to write a story about society being held together by our humanity, except I did. It appeared like magic…sure, it may not have saturated every word, but it was on every page.

Shoot, once I even had a great idea for a theme, but nothing I did kept the story on it. It sounded forced. In the end, I dropped it and let the true theme reveal itself at its own pace.

And this brings me to my ultimate dilemma with theme: The planner in me is supposed to write 60-100k words, each of them in support of a theme that I can’t know until I’ve written said words.

Can you see me short circuiting right now??

How can I make theme fit into my planning spreadsheets and outlines? How can I plot my theme?

Simple: I can’t.

The plotter in me will never be able to go into a project truly knowing the themes…he'll just be surprised when the magic happens.  

Hey! Pull up a chair and let’s talk story themes.

Are you cringing? I think most writers do when we hear that word. Telling someone your theme is akin to revealing your moral code. For me, it's hard not to feel lofty when saying something like, "My story dispels the myth of the existence of free will."

In my head, themes come out sounding like voiceover by Morgan Freeman. Weird, I know. Point is: talking theme makes me feel preachy and not a little bit lost. It makes me wonder about my writing, and myself:

What is my point? What do I believe? Is it important enough? Is that really what my story is about?

Enter James Scott Bell to save the day. Bell is a fiction author, and an author of some excellent books on writing craft. Last year, the Muses and I attended a conference, and he gave us the following exercise to help us identify our story themes. Try it, if you're struggling with the your story theme.

Imagine you're in a bar twenty years after the events in the story. Your protagonist walks in, sits down beside you. After you get over the shock of seeing a figment of your imagination drinking a beer on the next barstool over, you ask the following questions about their journey in the story:

•                Why did you have to go through that?

•                What did that do to you?

•                What did you learn?

Go ahead a free-write for about ten minutes on that, and BOOM. It works. It worked for me. Try it. Set your inner Morgan Freeman free!

Modified from an earlier post on the YA Muses.

My take on theme in writing is simple.

What do you have to say about the human condition? That’s your theme. I’m willing to bet that you have a few opinions about life, love, survival, death, loss, heartache, ambition, faith, change, family, sacrifice, trust, education, government, war, or growing up.

You do, right? Maybe there are generalizations about a topic that drive you crazy? Maybe you’ve had personal experiences that have shaped your views profoundly? My agent, who was a brilliant editor before she became an agent, once told me that my book needed to be about something beyond the characters and the plot. What, at the end of the day, was my book about?

If I couldn’t answer that question in one sentence or less, the book wasn’t ready. It’s through theme that a story transcends entertainment and becomes something more. Something that makes the reader think beyond the characters and their immediate problems, intruding into the reader’s own views about the human condition, reaffirming or changing the way they look at the world.

 I don’t think it’s crucial to know your theme when you first start writing a story. Oftentimes, we don’t know why we’re drawn to certain topics or stories, and we’re figuring them out as we go. But by the end of that first draft, you’ll start to notice themes weaving their way into your story on their own. At that point, I do think it’s important to understand what your book is really about, because your plan for revision will be shaped by what you want to say.

As a trial attorney, I was taught to use themes to present a case, as a way of priming the jury to hear and interpret the story from a certain perspective right off the bat, by inviting them to connect emotionally to using universal concepts that are readily understandable. When you have one hour to communicate a complex chronology of facts and legal issues, a good theme will do a good bit of the work for you, by preparing your audience to see the facts (or story) from a particular point of view.
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” That one line communicates the prosecutor’s message more effectively than a long winded explanation about all of the events that may have driven the spurned wife to violence.

I once read (I wish I could remember where) that one of the best ways to effectively communicate theme in a novel is to have one of the characters actually say the theme at some point in the story. This jibes with what I’ve learned about theme as an attorney- stating the theme primes your audience to interpret events with your world view in mind. In lawyer speak, it’s effective advocacy. And let’s face it, at the end of the novel, we want to persuade the reader to see things from our point of view. Or at least to understand it.

I think of themes in terms of broad, pithy statements:
 “Promises are made to be broken.”
 “Promises should be kept at all costs.”
 “Beauty is only skin deep.”
 “Appearance is the only thing that really matters.”
 “Love is worth the risk of heartbreak.”
 “Love is a death sentence.”
 “You get to decide what kind of person you’ll be.”
 “You can’t change who you are.”

Chances are you agreed with some of these statements. You disagreed with others. But I’m willing to bet you considered what your personal beliefs were, and tried to reconcile your beliefs with the statement. That’s the power of theme. It challenges the reader to question their own beliefs. Through story, a writer can raise new questions and present a different way of looking at society, life and our own belief system.

When executed well, theme can help a story to change people, or at least help them empathize with a different world view.

One caveat, theme should not be confused with a moral. Themes can be dark and pessimistic. And the goal of your book is not to “teach” a certain point. Your goal is to tell a good story, and through story, share a truth about the human condition. Theme connects readers to your work in an immediate, interactive and persuasive way.

 Why wouldn’t you want to include it in your stories?
 I know you have something to say.
 Go ahead, say it.

Theme.  It’s a word that strikes fear in my heart.  It’s the reason I didn’t even consider majoring in English.  It’s so ambiguous, so personal, so…difficult.  There can be a number of themes in a novel, but for the purpose of this blog post, I’m going to be writing about Theme.  The big one.

I have never been able to analyze literature.  Moby Dick?  It’s about a whale, right?  And Finnegan’s Wake?  I haven’t the faintest idea what that’s about.  Even in English 101 (a requirement for any major at the first university I went to) I sat, stunned, while the professor and all the students discussed the theme and symbolism of Sons and Lovers.  I kept wanting to ask, “Are you sure D.H. Lawrence really intended that?  Could it just have been a byproduct of him trying to tell a story?”

For me, and my writing, the answer is a resounding yes.  Theme is a byproduct, perhaps not of trying to tell a story, but of my own subconscious. I don’t—perhaps, even, I can’t—start writing a book by saying, “Now, my theme is…”  I find it takes me right back to English 101, staring stupidly at my desk while all the other students discover their own brilliance.

That doesn’t mean that my novels don’t have themes.  In Memo From the Story Department, Christopher Vogler says that theme is what the novel is about.  One word.  Love.  Hope.  Family.  Acceptance.  It can be big and all-encompassing.  And personal.  For you to write a fabulous novel, the theme has to be personal. (Vogler also says you have to know your theme while developing your story.  He’s probably right, and I just keep hoping my subconscious is doing the work for me.)

Long ago, at our very first Muses retreat, we talked about theme.  And we talked about how it’s possible to have a theme that arches over all of your work—the entire body of it.  At the time, I had no idea (I was still staring at my desk).  But now, having finished four novels (well, three and a zero draft) I can see that in every single one I explore the same general theme (for want of a better word, though it still makes me feel small and stupid).

Look at your own work.  What do your main characters want?  Not all the characters, necessarily.  But your narrators.  Your close third person POV.  What are they striving for?  What do they lose when they are thwarted?  What does the antagonist take away?  When all is lost after the climax of the novel, what does your narrator grieve most keenly?  And if you aren’t writing a tragedy, what does she get in the end?

This question doesn’t have to be answered out loud.  This is not a test.  You are not stupid if you can’t answer it right away.  I didn’t discover mine until a month or so ago when I was answering questions for an interview.  It was a total lightbulb moment.

Maybe you already know your theme.  Something that you were meant to explore.  Something so deeply important to you that you dare not say it out loud.  But you know it’s there, and you keep it in mind with every novel, every page, every word.  That works, too, and my hat goes off to you.

I still don’t know how D.H. Lawrence (or Herman Melville or James Joyce) approached his writing.  With theme in mind?  Or did it just appear?  And were all those readers from English 101 correct?  Would he agree with them?  Or would he just shake his head and keep his theme to himself?  He knew what he was writing—and why he was writing it.  Perhaps it doesn’t matter if everyone else gets it right.  Perhaps, in some instances, the theme a reader sees is as personal as the theme the writer intended—even if it is different.  Perhaps, at the end of the day, there are no right answers, just the truth in what you write.