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So, I'm writing, writing and thinking, thinking and writing. I'm thinking, what the hell is this novel about? The theme of this novel, what is it?
Well, it's about grief. It's about friendship. It's about what it means to be a hero. I know this to be true because that's how I planned it before I ever wrote a word.
Except that the more I write, the more it seems to be about other things as well -- prejudice, hubris, suicidal exploitation of the natural world.
But that's all right, that's the process of creative discovery (I imagine/hope/keep telling myself). I'm either adding depth or making a mess. That's why we edit, right?
The point is, how much do you wrestle with your stories' themes?
How much do you plan them out?
How much do you discover them after the fact?
And how much do you try to focus them on a single point?
I'm not sure. It can be. Or it can be simple, if you start with a theme. Then the difficulty comes in trying to tell a story that explores the theme in a satisfactory way. My understanding of theme is that it functions something like a statement of truth (one possible truth, at least – I'll leave ultimate truth to the philosophers). For example, grief leads to growth is a statement that could be true, and if I wanted to write a novel with this as its theme, I'd be looking for all the different ways I could dramatize the idea, both to demonstrate its truth and its falsity, with my protagonist discovering its truth by the end.
Or, changing track completely, you could approach theme like @Howard, and not worry about it consciously at all.
Yep, maybe I do. But I'm curious, how would changing to 1st person POV make the story less YA?