Dear Writer,
My students keep asking me great questions about writing. This week, I was asked how to write themes into stories.
That’s an important question. Themes give literature relevance and weight beyond mere enjoyment. They teach life lessons and ask soul-searching questions. When I was a full-time English teacher, I loved teaching theme because I could get my jaded middle schoolers to understand what books can do, even for non-readers. Do you need to understand courage and leadership? Read The Hobbit. Grappling with a desire for revenge (I bet you are)? The Count of Monte Cristo. Any book worth reading has something to teach us, so you’d better be sure to write yours that way too.
But how? Well, that’s where it gets tricky.
My first instinct is to tell you that if you start writing with the intent to teach something, you’ll end up being too preachy and your message and story will fall flat. So, don’t purposefully write a theme into your story? That’s not the right approach either, at least not for everybody. There are definitely people who can write their first drafts with no thought about what their story will teach, pick up the serendipitous threads of theme, and bring them out more in the second draft. Good for them.
I’m going to assume that if you keep reading that you want to be a little more intentional without being too heavy-handed. My biggest piece of advice to avoid didacticism is to keep things from being too one-sided. Show more than one answer to your deep question. If justice is a big thing, bring in injustice or mercy as well. If your bad guy is representing an opposing theme, at least give them some ground to stand on.
Theme through Character
Characters drive your story, so it makes sense that one of the best ways to develop theme is through their actions and dialogue. I put action first because, as always, actions speak louder than words. Focus on their choices and the consequences that come their way.
Let’s go back to The Hobbit and that leadership theme. If memory serves, the nature of leadership is never explicitly discussed by the characters or narrator, yet the book is a treasure trove of leadership examples. We can learn wisdom from Gandalf, self-sacrifice from Thorin, and courageous nonconformity from Bilbo (read my essay here for more about that). These lessons are given through the actions of the characters.
When Thorin rushes to save Bombur and Bofur when Smaug is on his way to burn their camp, or when (spoilers for a book that’s nearly a hundred years old) he turns the tide of the Battle of Five Armies, taking a fatal wound, he does it all willingly. He may never say, “A true leader is willing to lay down their life,” but his actions do. Even though the consequence for his leadership philosophy is death, that doesn’t weaken the theme. He dies a hero, redeemed after making some pretty bad choices.
Of course, a character stating a theme isn’t necessarily a bad thing either, as long as they back it up. In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Dumbledore talks about making the right choice as opposed to the easy one. The dialogue forms a lens through which the actions of characters throughout the series can be viewed. Was resisting Umbridge in the next book the right or easy choice? In Half-blood Prince, which choice did Harry make with Snape’s old potion book? Hermione and Ron going with Harry on his quest to destroy the Horcruxes couldn’t have been the easy choice. Dumbledore’s words don’t fully develop the theme, but they do make it clearer.
There are many other ways to write themes into your stories, but I think I’ll save them for another letter. Remember, you have a lot of power as a writer. Use your stories to teach good, life-affirming lessons. I hope your book makes the world a better place.
Go write something.
A theme in development,
Tyler Hess
Freelance Editor
https://www.tylerhessportfolio.com
www.linkedin.com/in/tyler-hess-a76629170
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Harry Potter (all of them, because why not?)
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