Themes

betrayal, redemption, forgiveness, destruction, rebirth, indifference, inadequacy, loss, gain. Lots of things.

For me, the best way and the most natural way to develop theme is to allow it to develop on its own. Write the first draft and see where you went with it. If you sit down and consciously put in symbols to represent themes and scenes that only support the theme without any other function, the story comes across as fake. Of course, you can sit down and say I'm going to write a story about loss, or grief, or whatever, but after that, wait and see where the story wants to go.

When I got my degree in Lit one of my professors said that the worst person to ask to analyze a work was the writer. Because what the writer intended is not always what comes across, and very often the strongest symbols and themes came about organically without the writer being totally aware of it.

I agree with that to an extent. I do think that what was intended is very often not what comes across, simply because the writer brings a different agenda than the reader, different influences, different perspectives. However, I do think that as a writer we can sit down after the first draft and consciously look for where we can support the theme better, where we might change some things or some characters to better illustrate a point. But I think it should always serve the story rather than the other way around.

Theme must support the narrative, not the other way around. If narrative supports theme it becomes a lecture that tries to clobber the reader over the head. And sometimes you might find that the theme you wanted to write about is not the theme that emerged. Don't fight it. Go with what you wrote. It'll be stronger than something that's forced to fit a preconceived model.

I should disclose that I dont outline, ever. If you like to outline, I still say dont force it. If you veer away from the outline, go with it. see where it takes you. you might be surprised at what your subconsious wants to say.

I don't concentrate on the theme when I write. I'll decide, for instance, to write a short story about a girl having lunch with her grandfather.
Now as I'm writing, my point of view on certain issues is brought up to the surface and I usually see a theme emerge, perhaps I go into the age-gap theme between the grandfather and girl and I explore that. Or maybe something else emerges and I work with that.
But I never sit down and pick a theme, then write about it. I'm not against it, it's just not something I've ever done.

Interesting comments. Nevada, your's make me want to take a creative writing class. I've never had one. I intend to, though, as soon as I have the time.

I've written very little and had nothing published, but what I have written deals with loss and grief. I don't know why that is. I guess I must be a basically melancholy person.

My current Novel In Progress has the theme of success and lack of success in overcoming loss/dealing with grief. I didn't start writing based on this theme, however. I started with a character that had experienced loss and was dealing with grief. I then introduced other characters that were dealing with various types of loss and had adopted various strategies for dealing with it.

So, I didn't create characters to support a particular theme I had in mind, rather it was the experiences of my central character that created the theme for the novel. The other characters and their particular experiences serve to support this theme.

I'm enjoying working on the novel and it helps me to have a unifying theme to write around. I can imagine that every project I do will have a unifying theme that will help me focus and tighten my writing. I can see these themes, though, emerging the same way the current one did: from the unique life experiences of a paricular character that I want to write about.

There is a problem with this approach that I am continually fighting: the work tends to get unbalanced when everything is centered around the theme and the issues faced by every character supports the theme; especially when the theme is something that can get depressing very quickly.

So, I am on a quest to lighten up some of the characters' responses and introduce some other counterbalancing characters. I try to keep the thought in mind that one of the amazements of life is that humor can exist in even the saddest situations.