How To Develop Theme?

You can ask ten writers to define theme and you'll get eleven answers, maybe twelve. The theme will develop on it's own, based upon what you're writing about, and how you feel about it.

that’s funny. i was reading one of chuck palahniuk’s essays on theme earlier today. he said your theme is like a limited number of horses that drive our work through to the end. like a symphony that has one main melody yet intensifies toward the end but is still the same basic melody. he said that in a television commercial, no one eats alone and sad at a greasy plastic table. in thirty seconds, the stream of images include flashes of drink cups, food, restaurant signs, employees working the counter with smiles, and colorful take out bags. they all say the restaurant name, or to some lesser degree they all say “happiness” and “good food” and “pleasure”.

that’s pretty much the best i’ve ever seen it defined. i always think of it as adding textures to a painting, but it is still the same painting whether stripped bare or layered thick. the only real worry is in making certain you don’t overdo it to the point that it completely covers up the painting

RJK is right, but you can do some things to nudge it along. If you know your theme going in, you can look for places to help illustrate that. For example, "oppression" is a theme in my book, so everyone in the book is trapped in some way. It doesn't appear as big plot points or anything, but just the world details I used are things that show this, so it's a constant background noise.

It's tough to insert because it can often come across too in your face and obvious. It works best (IMHO) when it's subtle and the reader picks up on it subconsciously.

Sometimes you know the theme before you start, other times you have no clue. If you don't know going in, just write and see what themes develop, then work to deepen what you already have. Look for places where you can show your theme by tweaking a few details here and there.

Theme isn't developed just in scenes - theme is in worldbuilding and your choice of cast of characters. But in scenes, theme is developed through the choice of type of problem a character has to deal with, the character's attitude and approach, and whether the results reward or punish the character.

Say you wanted to have a theme that "calmness solves problems, passion and violence make them worse". You would need a character who is known for being particularly calm or particularly not calm. Then you can have them either react in their typical way, or for once react the opposite way. So you could have a skilled potter who is usually placid-tempered, but their lover has done something that really pisses them off, and they ruin every pot they try to make that day. Or you could have a flighty girl who is usually a clutz, but her sister or friend tells her "stay calm, think it through, act slowly" and the girl hears this advice echo in her head each time she is about to panic, so the girl listens and tries to follow the advice and for once isn't clutzy at all.

Personally I don't think you can "force" theme development. Some writers don't even think of themes when they write -- the themes just materialize based on the story. I mean, if you write about relationships, for example, then some themes will natural come about, and the plot will just naturally develop the themes.

One thing to do -- whether consciously or subconsciously developing the themes -- is to think about the central issues and questions of your story. What is it about? Why are the characters doing what they do? What are their motivations, desires, wants, needs, etc.? I think when you focus on those things, the themes will emerge naturally. Say, you're writing about a story on "unrequited love" and the characters go through their trials and tribulations, finding love in the wrong places, etc. the theme of "unrequited love" would develop if you keep thinking about what it means to love someone who just won't love you back.

In The Pacific Between, the themes of "duality" and "stuck between two things" came about naturally because that's what the story and characters were about: two cultures, how the protagonist felt about two women, the two worlds he traveled to and from... the physical world(s) start to manifest into the character's internal world. I did not consciously think of those themes but by focusing on the protagonist's core psyche and desires and wants, those themes simply emerged.

Also, don't be offended if your readers don't get it. Themes can be this vague, elusive thing. I think most readers would at least feel them or subconsciously understand the basic themes of the work, even if they don't necessarily realize it. Heck, many writers don't realize their own themes until some readers tell them what they think!

In dramatic writing themes can be found in the throughlines of your characters.

What's a throughline? It's the story behind the character's personal story. A throughline tells of the passion or unmet desire that leads a character to face trouble after trouble and either surmount them or succumb to them.

A character arc consists of the emotions at the end-points of the through-line. Usually the arc takes a character from pole to emotional pole.

A theme connects passions and desires to consequences. Themes are lessons we can draw from a throughline. The lessons are thematic because they're restated in variations. Because themes require us to notice passions and consequences they're interpretative, and depending on how we appreciate the desires or passions, how we express them may differ.

Lastly, the same lessons can appear in multiple throughlines. So the one theme can be drawn from multiple characters.

Example:


We can design themes consciously by thinking about character arcs and throughlines. However, what we end up writing about are character motives and plots, so if our plots stem from character arcs and throughlines then our themes will be well-represented. If our plots ignore those things then often we won't have many themes -- or our themes will appear subconsciously.

The more moralistic the tale, the more that we can find themes in paired opposites, so that, for example:
The main reasons Ithink writers disagree on themes are:

• Confusion with motifs (which are recurrent symbols or images, and which often support themes, but not always);
• Writing intuitively without planning may make it hard for writers to understand their own thematic structures;
• Writers who are focused on plots or character reactions may not see themes at all;
• Some writers may not actually like their own themes and may not wish to own them;
• Some writers find cachet in mystifying their themes; and
• Writers who try and develop themes but don't know how to create plots from throughlines, may conclude that themes can only occur spontaneously.

DwayneA said:

I know how to develop the characters and how to develop the plot. But how do you use a scene to develop a theme? Can someone explain this to me? And could I have some examples to better understand how this is done?

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You need to write a fair old chunk before you can work out the theme. Common themes are betrayal, oppression...anything that can be applied to more than one character.

Okay, let's use The Great Gatsby as an example. It has many themes but let's say money. Fitzgerald's two main locations (West Egg, a trendy island for the rich, and Valley of Ashes, a slum) show the two extremes of money (poor and rich). We have characters who have money and characters who don't. Money can be said to rule many of the characters' lives. Symbols of wealth are the cars and parties.

Theme is highly overrated. Your readers won't notice the theme unless you push it down their throat and I've even seen people come up with themes the author never intended to put in the book in the first place.

Your job is not to bring across some sort of wider wisdom. You are supposed to tell a good story you and your reader will enjoy. Themes be damned. If there is some theme you want to share, then you already know what it is. Put it in by adding subtle details, choosing the right characters and putting them in the right situations. If you don't have a theme, don't sweat it. A lot of good books don't have intentional ones.

Themes are what creative writing teachers use to help people structure their stories. If you already do that well enough, you don't need a theme to tie it all together.

Personally, I don't discover the theme of my stories/books until after they're completed. Sometimes I never do, but the story is still a good one. I don't read books looking for themes, and I don't write them trying to convey themes, either. I just want to read or tell a nice story.

If you don't worry about a theme, you can still write a nice work of fiction.

Stijn Hommes said:

Theme is highly overrated...

...Themes are what creative writing teachers use to help people structure their stories.

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I have to say I have a problem with this notion that any writer attempting to 'say' something in their work should have scorned poured on them for it. (regardless of whether its done well)
Inverse snobbery seems to be acceptable in many literary criticism circles, and it shouldn't be.

Sure, a lot of great books exist purely on one level, but that doesn't mean that authors should never aspire to write things that amount to more than the sum of their parts. Great authors (which some people seem to think it's criminal to aspire to) can handle themes: in fact they should handle themes.
The literary landscape would be a lot poorer for people trying to drum it out.

RJK said:

You can ask ten writers to define theme and you'll get eleven answers, maybe twelve. The theme will develop on it's own, based upon what you're writing about, and how you feel about it.

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I agree. When students asked me what the theme of my book was I had to think about it awhile. I hadn't planned on any particular theme but realized my theme was the resiliance of the human spirit with a motif of fire that unified the theme. Interesting to look at it after the fact and see theme at work although you were unconcious of it at the time.

Arthur Miller used to say that he only knew what the theme was after he'd finished writing the play, then he'd have to go back and edit it.

This is a most interesting topic. We all know that old-time children's books were condemned for being "too preachy." That's one extreme of theme. Works like the old Dick and Jane reading books ("Go, Jane, go," and "Dick runs fast," etc., etc.) have no themes because they are not designed to teach anything except reading.

To me, it feels awkward trying to establish a "theme" in the beginning, yet a writer should be able to state the subject of the work. It may be "jealousy," or "confusion," or "grief," but is should be about something, and the writer should have something enlightening to say about the subject. If they have not, there's no point in writing.

Rather than "theme," I encourage my clients/students to tell me what they are trying to say with the story, novel, whatever. The reader should come away from the work convinced of something other than "I have just read a book." In my feeble opinion, at least.

Forgive me for running on, but I know a most interesting book about an "agony aunt" who is crippled and in a wheelchair. She hires a secretary, who at length falls for her husband, and he for her. In the end, the woman rolls her wheelchair off a cliff and dies. The book seems to have no theme, as such, but it certainly had something to say - or ask - about human motivation: did she sacrifice herself so her husband could be happy, or was it a done to prove a point? The story allows for both possibilities. It's an old book, but the question haunts me to this day.