What the hell is this about?

[DustinMax]

Life is not about one theme.

As long as it serves the story include it.

 

[Jay Aitch]

(I confess to skim-reading this, so excuse me if it's already been discussed) I am in Howard's camp. I don't actually go out of my way to write with a theme in mind. However, through the act of story telling, themes emerge. Out of the make-believe world I create comes a social theme. Out of the attitudes and beliefs of the characters in that world come others. I know only one thing, I did not seek out to make social commentary a theme. I think (if I have succeeded at all) it grew organically from the story that had to be told.

 

[NickP]

hmmm - the theme is the reason you need to write the book.

There's 2 ways to approach it - through character or through plot.

For a character (or characters, if you are going to have a few mains) the character flaw needs to be refined and twisted and tested by the story universe until it comes down to a choice - usually between what the character WANTS and what the character NEEDS (default choice being "love" in the absence of anything else) - wrong choice means death, either literal or metaphorical.

But thematically the characters could (should?) be linked (plot)- they are grappling with the same cosmic riddle (some subset of "how to live your life?") - but in the end the moral of a story is likely to be trite or at least well travelled - but that doesn't mean the journey isn't worth the miles.

You can begin with a great big HIGH CONCEPT idea - but this will only work if you work at the human level - what effect will realistic sex robots have on actual human beings?

 

[Charles Ott]

One thing I finally figured out about themes: all themes, including those by brilliant and original writers, are banal and obvious. The book I'm trying write now has the theme "Rationality is better than craziness." It's not like anybody actually needs to hear that message, or would suddenly turn his life around from hearing it, and yet I think I'm getting an interesting book out of it. Other themes include: love heals loneliness, valor is better than cowardice, love is better than selfishness. There really are no new themes and nobody would pay much attention to a book that actually had a new theme. The art is in how you present it.

 

[Quillwitch]

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 hear you! I´m in the same boat. Things tend to get out of control and I cannot for the life of me keep my novels to a small, quaint story. Everything has to be complex and multilayered.I guess that´s just the way my brain works. The only thing that has helped me but my thoughts in order when there are so many, is Dramatica. Dramatica Pro is one of the few tools out there that tackles theme. Theme adds depth and meaning to the story, it is the third leg of a complex story.
I am a major planner now, since being a panster got me nowhere. I think you are on the right track, the more you write, the more you discover, so, write it all down, but you should also start hashing out a plan so that it doesn´t grow up to be a monster.

 

[Quillwitch]

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?

I think theme should come to you organically, according to the story and the characters. It´s really what you feel when you write it, or, more importantly, it´s the WHY you are writing this story, WHY this story has to be told. I don´t think you actually plan WHAT the themes will be, but more along the line as to HOW I can weave theme(s) into the story. Sometimes themes are reflected by one specific character or is something that is underlined throughout the story.
It really all depends on you!