Themes enhance stories, making them more meaningful. It’s theme that makes a story linger in your memory. It’s theme that provides the touchstone for what happens. It’s what informs everything that follows the opening sequence.
What Is Theme?
Theme refers to the underlying message of your story—what it is really about beyond the plot points. Theme is the universal message that serves as the foundation for everything that happens in the story. It is a broad, but specific idea that informs every element in the story, from the action to the words used, character traits to setting, to any combination of those elements.
Some popular themes in stories are:
Good vs. Evil
Love Conquers All
Redemption
Crime Doesn’t Pay
Coming of Age
People Against Nature
There are as many themes as there are values in society. Any moral or idea can serve as the theme of your work. But how do you find the right theme for your story? How do you discover the themes that speak to you?
Finding Your Theme in Three Easy Steps:
What Themes Attract You?
Look closely at those stories that speak to you. The ones you return to again and again. Why do they pull on you? What do you get from them that you don’t from other stories? What are the underlying themes of those favorite stories? We are pulled to certain stories because they resonate with some inner need within us. It’s those needs within us that also create the best stories. If you love stories about finding your strength, use that to create a story with a similar theme. If you find yourself watching shows that always portray self-reliance, use that as a clue to what matters to you. By embracing the themes that speak loudest to you, you will be able to create stronger stories that will mean something to you and your reader.
What we consume is a roadmap to ourselves. If we stop to consider the themes in our favorite works, we can often find patterns and meaning that we can use in our own work. What do you watch or read? Do they have similar themes? Do they speak to the same issue in different ways? Can you use those themes in your own work to make it stronger?
What Truth Are You Compelled to Share?
What do you know or believe that you want to share with everyone? What truths do you wish everyone knew? What do you see that you wish everyone saw? These are your truths and your themes. These are the topics that matters to you. And if it matters to you, you can make it matter to your character and your reader. Those are the truths and themes you should incorporate into your stories.
Watch Your Reactions
What stories make you mad? Which ones make you cheer? These are both clues to what matters to you. If you can’t figure out your go to theme, look to your reactions to life. What moves you? What makes you rant or rail? What makes you cry? What makes you bounce out the door in happiness? These are the emotions that make great themes. What makes you feel? Tap into your deepest emotions and figure out what makes you feel that way? What’s the underlying cause? What moves you to that reaction? That is your truth—your theme.
Using Your Theme
Once you have your theme, you have all you need to create a strong character flaw or disbelief. Simply turn your theme on its head. The opposite of your truth is the lie your character will believe.
If your theme is love conquers all, then the lie could be that love is a weakness. If your protagonist believes this, all actions will turn away from love as the answer. That lie becomes the obstacle throughout the plot, until the main character learns the truth.
If you figure out why your protagonist believes that lie, you have stumbled upon their backstory. This is where your character went off track. This is the starting point for a life based on a lie—a lie that repeats itself in action again and again. Mistakes, missteps, missed opportunities. This origin story for your theme is the catalyst for where your character is when the story begins and what informs every step taken from that moment to the moment of realization when the lie is revealed.
That moment of truth — the classic A-ha moment — is the theme revealed in story form. This is the moment when your main character changes.
Theme shows why the story matters not only to the reader, but to the characters too. It is the moment where protagonists must face the lie they have held dear and realize they have made poor choices. It is where they change, which is the point of a story—to show transformation.
What themes speak to you?