Theme for Fiction Writers

Introduction

Dear fellow fiction writers: are we supposed to be consciously leveraging theme or not?

Or are deeper stories that address what we find meaningful just supposed to magically emerge out of pure subconscious magic?

Is there even a learning process for that?

How do we develop meaningful stories, if obsessively planning them out kills the charm and makes us sound preachy, but refusing to do any planning leads to stories that feel cobbled together and meaningless to us as writers? Even if readers like them?

How are we supposed to navigate theme when it’s damned if you do and damned if you don’t?

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Overarching Themes in Fiction

What is a theme?

A theme is a repeated pattern in a work that carries or seems to carry a particular meaning, often in order to explore or highlight abstract concepts, like “love” and “life” and “pure existential terror.”

Some people take theme to mean something big. Very big. The underlying, mysterious threads of meaning that run through an author’s work. The topics with which an author seems to be most heavily invested. The author’s use of story as a platform. On a smaller scale, the moral of the story.

A heavy-handed two-by-four of meaning, something that slams the audience in the face over and over again. Yay.

Theme either should, or should not, be planned out.

Either the writer can see their own themes, or they can’t.

And readers get to build their own themes from their interpretation of the author’s work. Or they don’t.

BUT AT ANY RATE, THEME IS A BIG STINKING DEAL.

I dunno about that kind of big theme. It’s never really seemed like something I want to mess around with.

What I do know about is another type of theme, one writers can explore consciously if they want and put into their stories without using a two-by-four. The kind of theme you don’t necessarily have to plan out, but you can if you want to.

Lazy theme.

Small theme.

Parallels to Theme in Essay Writing

Let’s look at an essay (like this one; blog articles are essays, for the most part).

When you sit down and write an essay, the essay gets to be about something, and it gets to be a structured argument, like this:

• Introduce the ideas of the essay.
• Make the main points of your essay.
• Conclude the essay.

The thing that makes an essay an essay, though, is an attempt to pass along insights to the reader: not just informing or persuading the reader, but making the reader feel they have a deeper understanding of the subject.

Ideally, an essay writer sits down with a general idea about some subject. They form some ideas about the subject, then write something insightful about those ideas.

Everything in an essay revolves around a central thesis, or central argument of the essay. The essay guides the audience through the process of exploring the idea: what is it, what does it mean, what are the pros and cons, and so on.

To essay means to try.

A good essay tries out—or explores—an idea.

Some essayists plan out their ideas in detail, rigorously breaking their ideas and arguments into separate sections. Others write the essay in order to clarify the idea for themselves, then take steps to make sure other readers can follow along the same journey.

Both types of writers (and I’m suggesting there’s a clear binary in writing methods when there really isn’t) must have a solid foundation in their subject in order to produce insights; both types of writers eventually have to express an idea to a reader instead of just to themselves. Expressing an idea to yourself is just a diary entry; not useless but also not really an attempt to communicate something.

Both types of essayist can successfully surprise the reader.

Themes as Exploration

For writers, theme (aside from anything a reader or critic might come up with after the fact) is just a term for the process of exploring a central idea, a thesis.

Let’s say that your central thesis goes something like this:

True love conquers all.

In an essay, you’d state your thesis, then break the thesis down into separate parts, like what is love? and what does it mean for love to conquer things? and what isn’t love? and what about the edge case where it seems like true love but it doesn’t conquer all, is that then not true love or just bad luck? and what if it fails at first but later succeeds, does that mean it’s true love or not? and what if it’s ugly and awful but it conquers things, is that true love or just abuse?

The edge cases are where the question gets interesting, right?

In an essay, you’d set out your argument that true love does conquer all, make some definitions of what true love is and what it means for true love to conquer something. And then you could stick those definitions together and call it a conclusion. Voilà, an essay.

You could stop there, and ehhhhhhh, a lot of essays do. But those aren’t the good essays.

The good essays are the ones that go past the basic thesis and the definitions. They still have to spell these things out; it’s just that they keep going past them into the edge cases.

If it doesn’t conquer all, was it ever true love?

Often, the edge case will have an illustrative example. One of my favorite examples (via Spider Robinson) is of a dilemma where a woman who intends to become a nun falls in love with a man who wishes to marry her and have a family with her; she feels affection for the man but chooses to become a nun and follow her vow of chastity instead.

Could what she feels for the man possibly constitute true love?

When confronted with a choice between the man and her own calling of faith, she chose the latter. She must not, therefore, love the man.

But wait! She may also feel that if she disobeys her calling of faith, that she has lost her integrity—and would be bringing something flawed to the man, becoming his possession rather than a true partner and mate. In order to remain the person he loves and not be subsumed by him, she has to follow her calling. She must, therefore, love him.

To deeply explore an edge case is necessarily to explore, in a deep and interesting way, the thesis of an essay. It is a theme.

If it works that way in essays, why not in fiction?

Keep in mind that an essay’s purpose is to explore a question, not answer it.

Fiction as Exploration

To consciously build—or creatively guide, if you’re the type of writer who doesn’t plot out their fiction ahead of time—a theme in fiction, treat theme like the exploration of the central thesis of an essay.

To consciously use a theme in a story, you need to:

• Introduce the ideas of the story.
• Make the main points of your story.
• Conclude the story.

In fiction, the basic building blocks of your story are characters, settings, and conflicts. The basic building blocks of theme in fiction also have to be characters, settings, and conflicts.

To build a theme in fiction—the kind where you’re exploring a thesis or central idea—is to make characters, settings, and conflicts that relate to the central idea of the story.

True love conquers all.

If you write a simple story where two lovers have obstacles and resolve them, the story will have a theme of true love conquers all. Nothing wrong with that.

But the theme—the process of exploration, shared by both writer and reader—will be far more interesting if you take the ideas exploring the thesis further, to the edge cases.

If it doesn’t conquer all, was it ever true love?

Out on the edge cases, the answers become individual and specific, and are based on the fine details of how the writer approaches the question.

Would you want to start with characters who are deeply flawed, and who have some sort of relationship that doesn’t work out? Or perhaps two characters who are perfect for each other, yet have some sort of dilemma where being together means changing in ways that make them no longer perfect for each other? What about two characters who are perfect for each other and have no real issues keeping them apart, yet still can’t manage to stay together. Was it just not meant to be, or is there something else going on underneath the apparent calm?

Let’s get even more specific.

What if you read a story that bugged the crap out of you, a story that might have been good but for the author taking the characters in a direction you didn’t agree with? Or one where you feel the ending skipped the good parts? Or a story that you liked, but you want more of, and decide to explore a what if that breaks down the elements of the story and tries to change one or two of them?

—Yes, I walked us straight into fanfiction.

Fanfiction as Exploration

Fanfiction is a perfect example of using these smaller themes in fiction. It’s an exploration of a story that the writer knows well, and either loves or hates or both.

What if?

The building blocks of fanfiction are taking the character, setting, and theme from the original story or stories being used as one’s source(s), and altering one or more of them.

A piece of fanfiction isn’t considered really interesting (at least, according to my daughter, who is far more knowledgeable about fanfic than I am) unless it explores something new, and unless it explores that new thing so thoroughly that it takes the reader to unexpected yet logical places.

How do good fanfic authors do this?

Good fanfiction authors read each other’s work and see what variations have been explored, then identify unexplored or underserved branches and select the ones that interest them the most. (Weaker fanfic authors will tend to variations that have already been repeatedly explored.)

Good fanfic authors identify what elements make the characters who and what they are; what elements make the settings vital to the story; what conflicts are essential in order to support the core of the story.

Aaaaand then break them.

How far can a fanfic author take a fanfic before it becomes not related to the original work?

A writer of a fanfic might grumble about fanfic work that goes too far and becomes unrecognizable—it is no longer a branch of a familiar story, but something that has broken away and become something else.

But when it comes to non-fanfic work, it’s almost impossible to go too far.

Practicalities of Theme in Fiction

First, is including a theme (that is, exploring a thesis) necessary to creating an interesting, successful work of fiction?

No.

But if you want to do so, here are my suggestions.

Start with a broad knowledge of Story, that is, the different ways a story can, have been, and are being told.

A non-fanfiction story doesn’t necessarily build off of a specific story or two, but often off the author’s entire knowledge of stories in general, across various types of fiction media, as well as nonfiction, news, and personal experience.

Keeping up with Story is a lifelong project, involving both a broad knowledge of stories in general and a specific knowledge of the niche one is writing in. What has been created before? What is common knowledge in a story? What do audiences tend to like?

What even is a good story?!? And how can you pull the elements of a successful story apart so you can explore new variations, not just of plot, but of structure, character arcs, pacing, and other, more sophisticated elements?

Setting aside nonspecific advice to “first learn how to write good stories” and “read both broadly and deeply” and the like, it seems like one solid technique is to ask:

You know what bugs the shit out of me?

Whatever comes out after that question is probably your thesis.

Example:

You know what bugs the shit out of me? When every fucking romance story has a happily ever after, yet most of the best love stories of all time are not. So I kinda want to screw around with that.

In order for me to write a love story, I could plan to write a story with a sad or bittersweet ending. I’m more of an improviser than a planner, though, when it comes to fiction. I find the process of planning out a story ahead of time to be laborious and dull. So I don’t do that.

I start with my assumptions about contemporary love stories:

• That they are about a pair of lovers in a romantic relationship.
• That the story is narrated by two main characters, the lovers, who take turns giving their separate perspectives of the story.
• That the characters’ lives will best be enriched by a romantic relationship.
• That the relationship will or should be permanent.
• That the relationship will follow one or more patterns common to the genre (i.e., tropes), such as second chance romance, secret baby, or enemies to lovers.
• That readers read the story in order to escape their difficult lives and do not wish to consider anything deeply; they just want an entertaining read—pure fluff.

Then I ask, How do I feel about these assumptions?

It’s that last assumption, the one about readers wanting to escape into pure fluff, that really grinds my gears. The rest of them I could happily toss out, too; I don’t think any of them are vital to writing a good love story.

But I maaaaay not want to vary every assumption, every time.

Isolated Variations

This is the equivalent of writing a fanfic with only a few elements changed, such as writing about what happened to Sherlock Holmes while he had disappeared and was assumed dead after going over the Reichenbach Falls, or moving Romeo and Juliet to the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

I have one long romantic suspense series that’s all about varying only a couple of things; the non-spoilery one is that the main characters have to trust each other. They can think they don’t trust each other, that it’s stupid to trust each other, even that they’re in physical danger from each other—but their actions have to indicate that they do, in fact, truly trust each other.

Miscommunications? Sure. But no stupid miscommunication that wrecks the relationship. Or at least, none going forward from the start of the story. (There are a couple in the past.)

Broad Variations

This is the equivalent of writing a fanfic with broad elements changed, such as writing about what would happen if Sherlock Holmes were hit by a truck, reincarnated as an evil princess trying to overthrow her father, while also being forced to solve crimes in a fictional Victorian setting run by a modern-day Japanese entertainment company. (Oooh…that sounds fun!)

I have one love story where I tossed out the idea of happily ever after, of romance being better than other types of love, of showing multiple points of view, of permanence, and most common romance tropes, supplying karma’s a bitch and found family instead.

It’s a story about multiple broken people who stay broken and aren’t romantic, but still love each other and build a found family out of it.

It’s also not a romance. It’s a love story—but it’s probably more horror than anything else.

In Conclusion…

I didn’t plan out either of these stories as such; instead, I took a rant about something that was bugging the shit out of me in fiction, broke down the assumptions around what was bugging me, and varied some of those assumptions. Then I typed up the new assumptions about the story at the top of my page so I’d see them every time I opened the file, and started writing.

I didn’t know what story would emerge from those varied assumptions. And I certainly didn’t try to force the theme. I just explored the varied assumptions, that was all.

My theme was just the exploration of my thesis:

You know what bugs the shit out of me? When every fucking romance story has a happily ever after, yet most of the best love stories of all time are not. So I kinda want to screw around with that.

In the normal course of writing a story, I have to introduce the characters, settings, and conflicts; the only change was that I made sure my characters, settings, and conflicts didn’t conflict with my new (varied) assumptions.

That was it.

—As a writer, you’re probably already doing this on some level.

My goal here isn’t to change (or “improve”) your process, but to give you insight into the idea of theme, so when people try to tell you that you should or should not try to write theme, you can do or say whatever you need to do in order to shut them the fuck up, without having to worry about whether or not you’re doing the right thing. Screw ‘em; they’re just insecure about creativity on some level.

From the outside, a theme looks big and heavy and serious.

From the inside, actually writing a theme is a tool you can use in a really fun game—writing fiction.

Have fun!