what themes do you put in your writing?

sunandshadow said:

...rather than intentionally building a book to teach some moral lessons, ... some people deliberately try to avoid this. So now I'm curious: If you do put a thematic message in your writing, what message and why? If you don't, why not?

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I'm not sure I intentionally leave out a moral theme but when I'm writing, I am not specifically conscious about creating one. I don't read a novel to discover some great insight in morals and I sure don't use the inclusion of a moral theme as a criteria for choosing one to read.

I'm more interested in an innovative approach to a problem, ie: matter transporters, time or faster-than-light travel, dealing with an advanced culture (or one that is less advanced), or the like. Sure, there is a theme in any of them that can be devined. I think I know teachers who could devine a theme from the ingredients list on a box of Cheerios--maybe even a moral one, come to think of it....

But when I set about telling a story, it isn't with a particular moral lesson in mind. Hell, I'm mostly without 'em anyway...what business have I in preaching one?

I think if you have a personal moral sense it comes through in your writing - you don't need to hammer it home.

My primary goal is to entertain - other people see themes in my stories that I didn't even know were there. If pressed to come up with a theme (Expresso Fiction, for example, always asks what the theme of the submission is) I usually have no answer. I'm constantly surprised that it seems to be required, to know what your theme is, as if stories could be stamped out that way.

I have a few themes that seem to be common throughout all my work, just because they're part of my own character and end up in my writing because I'm the writer. I certainly don't try to put themes into my work. The absolute last thing on my mind when I'm writing is the theme, although if pressed I will grudgingly admit that a theme is there, intertwined inexplicably with the main character and the way she or he grows throughout the book.

What's the point? The Lit Crit people will eventually get a hold of it and twist the world a 1000 different ways.

Some books do have moral lessons built in....they come off preachy and much later when the advice no longer applies, asinine.

Tell the story first. A lesson should be apparent with out hitting someone over the head. A good example if this is "Speak".

Tirjasdyn said:

What's the point? The Lit Crit people will eventually get a hold of it and twist the world a 1000 different ways.

Some books do have moral lessons built in....they come off preachy and much later when the advice no longer applies, asinine.

Tell the story first. A lesson should be apparent with out hitting someone over the head. A good example if this is "Speak".

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I've yet to bump heads with editors yet, so I'm not sure if my story will be precisely what I hope it will look like.

It's interesting, but I've seen some "preachy" kinds of stories. And I think one of the reasons why people fail to write effective stories with a message, is that people copycat writing styles, and rather cruedly add in their message.

The best fables and myths and legends of yesteryear were pretty much people making a moral point of some kind. And it never came across as preachy, but mostly as a story with a point. But if you looked at the messages, they were always subtle, and didn't come across like a Pepsi commercial.

GailKavanagh said:

I think if you have a personal moral sense it comes through in your writing - you don't need to hammer it home.

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You've said something profound here. At least it is to me. What people think can't help but come out in some way. However, a conviction of some kind is more likely to stick out, depending on whether it is with the current or against the current of pop culture. I used to feel Star Trek was always preaching. And alot of time it was. It was addressing some of the social issues of its day. (Black and white kissing; two half white and half black men fighting because they were white and black on the opposite sides...etc)

I think Roddenbery felt compelled to change culture, and was like Norman Lear, in that he couldn't write something without putting his values in it. So, in effect, in modern fantasy, if you look closely, you will often see some kind of message.

I tend to love fairy tales and mythology, where a "moral of the story" is the norm, and not the exception. But you had great interesting stories, and the moral was somehow intertwined. It was graceful.

sunandshadow said:

I don't think theme has to be hammered home, stamped out, or preachy. Consider worldbuilding for example - if you are portraying a society, the differences between it and today's society and whether you present these differences as causing the characters happiness or suffering will imply/reveal some of your thoughts about what society ought to be like and what's good for people. In many famous science fiction novels like The Handmaid's Tale and The Left Hand of Darkness the worldbuilding was deliberately built to convey these sort of thoughts - are they preachy?

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You find people on either extremes. I know Tolkien's convictions came through his stories to some degree, but he was intending to write a mythology, and not preach. However, the core of his story is not about usurping power, but seeking immortality, in which his perspective is very much a part of the story. You have a fall of the Valar, a fall of mankind, which includes Elves, and a hint of a future redemption. That could be seen as preachy. However, it is all contextual, so it never seems preachy.

In the Silmarillion, the light of the two trees was somewhat of a divine light. And he felt the Sun and the Moon were essentially defective, and lesser lights of a fallen world, necessary because of the fall. But if you delve further, you'll see references to Illuvatar's plan, and the Flame Imperishable. It's as deep as people want to go, because it is deep period.

Yet, there is no religion in Hobbiton, and in fact, I think according to Tolkien's letters, they really weren't religious period.

sunandshadow said:

In the absolutewrite chat the other evening, I was surprised to hear that rather than intentionally building a book to teach some moral lessons, as I've always thought it was supposed to be done, some people deliberately try to avoid this. So now I'm curious: If you do put a thematic message in your writing, what message and why? If you don't, why not?


My WIP is basically about how to seek and obtain happiness in one's life, through friendship, passion, commitment, and family. Also that civilization is created as an emergent feature of creating a balanced interdependant group of different types of people.

A secondary theme seems to be emerging that men and women ought to be regarded as completely equal and sex should not have anything to do with reproduction, which should instead be based on two people having a bond of love such that each completely likes and respects the other and consequently they want to create a child who is a mix of them both.

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I think the danger in starting with theme/message is that doing so can overpower story and characters. Readers don't buy novels looking for a message, but for an entertaining story filled with good characters.

Any good story has a theme built in, but a good theme doesn't necessarily have a good story, and can overshadow the best of stories.

I don;t think good fiction is about messages. As a famous director once said, "If you want to send a message, use Western Union."

It always seemed to me that good writing means holding up a mirror so society can see itself as it really is. They can then decide for themselves whether or not the way they are is good or bad, and make changes, or not, accordingly.

In other words, you don't write a novel that says "We should all get along," you write a novel that simply shows the truth about how different people and groups interact in real life, and let readers form their own messages and truths.

Yu just show teh world a sit really is, and tell a good story in the process. If you do this, theme will come out of story, rather than story out of theme.

I like having a point to my story. I don't intentionally write a theme into them, but I do write toward a premise. It doesn't necessarily reflect my personal belief, either. For the novel I'm currently shopping around, the premise is, "A promise made to a king shall transcend death." Then I write a story to prove the statement true.

I don't start a project with a certain theme in mind. When I start, I do it with characters, setting, a story question and - hopefully - some plot points and the ending in mind.

The themes enter the story while it is being written. There are themes that tend to reappear in my writing: friendship and familiy. loyalty and treason for example.

Upon revising, I do think about themes and wether to cut, change or insert a scene to bring the theme out more clearly. But the important part there is to weave the story together as a whole, not to make the story into a sermon with a "and the morale of the story is... ". That is just not the kind of writing I enjoy to read or to write.

If I did my job well, the reader will find these themes and apply it to his or her own life. If not, then no amount of preaching will get "the message across".

Nateskate said:

I used to feel Star Trek was always preaching. And alot of time it was. It was addressing some of the social issues of its day. (Black and white kissing; two half white and half black men fighting because they were white and black on the opposite sides...etc)

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That one just annoyed me so much, because it was so lazy - it so easily could have been a believable piece of SF which just happened to have a moral attached, but instead they couldn't be bothered to even try to make it realistic, and just presented it as a blatant bit of propaganda.

All they had to do to make the whole thing believable would have been to give the two races some sort of camouflage patterm, one white with black stripes or spots, the other black with white stripes or spots. That would have made perfectly sound evolutionary sense - but half black and hald white divided down the middle? Puh-leeze - what are we supposed to think, that they evolved walking round and round a hill like the mythical haggis-beast, with the sun always on one side and shadow on the other, so that they evolved vertical counter-shading?

whitehound said:

Puh-leeze - what are we supposed to think, that they evolved walking round and round a hill like the mythical haggis-beast, with the sun always on one side and shadow on the other, so that they evolved vertical counter-shading?

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... they had the harlequin gene.

Basically, I believe they were trying to make social comment on society as it was then while still being entertaining. There were a lot of programs doing that in the 60s and 70s. Some still do, but with a bit more finesse.

sunandshadow said:

If you do put a thematic message in your writing, what message and why? If you don't, why not?

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I don't intentionally put one in my writing, nor do I intentionally avoid it. Any themes and/or morals that end up in my writing wrote themselves in without my consent. I don't think about how my writing will impact someone, I just put BIC and type. I find that thinking too much about what I'm writing results in it being crap, so I don't try to steer it in any particular direction.

~DragonHeart~

Pthom said:

... they had the harlequin gene.

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Mmm - but in that case surely the handedness of the markings would be random within any given family - you wouldn't get whole lines with the coloured patch only on one side.

I suppose it's just about possible that an alien race might have colour-genes which distinguished left from right - if they were maybe not so bilaterally symmetrical as us. But you *know* they didn't think of that

DaveKuzminski said:

Basically, I believe they were trying to make social comment on society as it was then while still being entertaining.

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Sure - but they gave up all pretence at being an SF show, when 10 seconds' thought an an extra half-hour in makeup could have preserved the SF element without diluting the social comment.

And they were trying to reach the lowest common denominator in all likelihood at the same time as well as contain expenses.

Whoo, do I feel better. The first book I wrote (see below) has a definate theme. The character learns to find strength and courage inside herself. But it's a pretty character driven book. The last two books I've written (currently submitted and the WIP) are the first two in a series, and I think mostly plot-driven, so I don't seem to have a "theme" - the stories are just good adventures. If a theme emerges, I don't put it there.

I say I feel better b/c I was worried about not having a theme. The characters don't really discover anything new about themselves, except that their friendship is made stronger. They've been through this really weird, tough experience and now they have to keep a secret. I guess it does kind of have a theme, but it's not like some big revelation, it's more gradual.

whitehound said:

... if they were maybe not so bilaterally symmetrical as us. But you *know* they didn't think of that

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heh. "They" didn't think of a lot of things. But Larry Niven did, with his "moties."

whitehound said:

That one just annoyed me so much, because it was so lazy - it so easily could have been a believable piece of SF which just happened to have a moral attached, but instead they couldn't be bothered to even try to make it realistic, and just presented it as a blatant bit of propaganda.

All they had to do to make the whole thing believable would have been to give the two races some sort of camouflage patterm, one white with black stripes or spots, the other black with white stripes or spots. That would have made perfectly sound evolutionary sense - but half black and hald white divided down the middle? Puh-leeze - what are we supposed to think, that they evolved walking round and round a hill like the mythical haggis-beast, with the sun always on one side and shadow on the other, so that they evolved vertical counter-shading?

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I think it was sloppy as well. The paint job was horrible. But my guess was that it was meant to be overt. His point was pretty much the notion that we shouldn't judge others by the color of skin, and how moronic prejudice can be. I don't think scientific accuracy was a primary thought.

How are you defining theme?

Whether a story is plot driven or chracter driven, wouldn't it still have a theme?

In my own writing, I was meandering listlessly, going down wrong path after wrong path until I gave into the novel writing book I had and defined the theme. I don't think the setting matters. To me, the theme is the core of the story, and the rest is the framework it is built on, whether it be a western, scifi, fantasy, chicklit, romance whatever. If you have a great setting, great characters and they don't learn, don't grow or have a goal, what is the point?

I didn't answer the question...

Mine is vague overall because I answered it for each character. I ask what is the point of having that character, if there isn't one, I ask myself if I need that character. I have since combined a few into one. Off subject again.

My theme is the search for a place in the universe, the search for a reason for being. A reader may or may not pick up on that, but it helps me to know it.

the point of not having a conscious theme would be just to entertain. 'theme' can be somewhat of a rather vague definition, i've found, often easily confused with plot. what you do mostly with a theme is say, 'i know something and i'm going to illustrate that for you now.' that 'knowing' may be something the reader doesn't agree with, so, for instance, if your theme is 'you have to have religion to be a good person,' don't expect me to buy five copies, lol. a lot of themes are just so vague or obvious as to not merit any particular, in-depth processes. 'friendship is good'... no kidding? really? wow. how profound. come up with that all by yourself, did ya? lol. i don't mean to pick on anyone, i'm just saying that's pretty lame, which most themes are. were there a list of the most obvious things in the universe and truisms even a five year knows about, i'm sure plenty of people would use those as themes for a story, if not a career.

a lot of themes are just personal opinion. 'A secondary theme seems to be emerging that men and women ought to be regarded as completely equal and sex should not have anything to do with reproduction, which should instead be based on two people having a bond of love such that each completely likes and respects the other and consequently they want to create a child who is a mix of them both.' sorry, s&s, that's hippie crap to me with no basis in reality whatsoever. i'm not saying it's bad or wrong, per se, just it's bad and wrong to me. it smacks of preachiness, almost. don't feel bad, though, i was just using that as a convenient example of pawning off the author's personal philosophy as a theme, which, for me, needs to more along the lines of truism-based reality. (don't get me wrong, s&s, i'm not attacking you, just the idea of using stories as a platform for one's personal propaganda is and always has been a repulsive practice to me, one which flourishes, so i'm clearly in the wrong here if you believe in the statistics.)

i just don't agree with a lot of people's 'themes' any more than i agree with their philosophy or politics. using opinion as a theme will probably be the fastest way to a niche market you could hope for. author's supporting their opinons, er, themes often only present those contrived facts and situations to support their own opinion. that is, a lot of authors aren't objective enough *not* to be spouting their ideals at every turn given the chance.

i get enough flak from spouting my opinion on MB's. imagine if i wrote an entire book like that, but with my ideals subtley hidden, lol. that's why i don't start off with specific themes in mind. it helps that i don't have to, either. if, in the course of writing it, one becomes apparent to me, i'll consider what it means in relation to the story and go from there, but i generally know what's going on before i get to writing so realizing a theme usually has little if any influence. then again, i don't sit down and plot which archetypes i use, that's just as awful for me.

of course, it's easy to get wrong what the writer intended. i had a star wars fan-fic up that someone reading could confuse with having all sorts of themes, but that's so not the case. the guy sacrificing himself for his wife and family wasn't a theme (which is really a plot point anyway), but just what the guy did based on his character. the protag was a stormtrooper, even, which wasn't even an 'evil isn't always as evil as it's perceived' thing. i just thought it would be cool, that's all. one of my high school teachers read themes into every third sentence. after awhile he just sounded ridiculous.

i suppose there's a lot of success to be had at jumping into a story theme first, though i think there should be some caveats to be aware of. for me, that's writing by numbers. *that's* when i ask 'what's the point?'

I'm just writing about what happens when mutually slightly alien world-views interact, and just about the people and the species and the ecosystem and the war and the illegal gold-mines and everything

But there is a recurring back-theme, which is that one should remember that people who are ill or injured or abused are still independent people, with their own personal agendas, who may refuse altogether to go along with the "pathetically grateful" scenario their rescuers may have been expecting.