Your Book Means Something

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

In her excellent recent post Kris wrote:

I know you’re tempted to dismiss theme as mere enhancement. Le cerise sur la gateau, as the French say. But it’s essential. Try this experiment: Write the back copy for your work in progress — three paragraphs at most. Ha! Can’t do it? Well, you might not have a grip on what your story is about at its heart. Now often your theme doesn’t show itself until you’re well into your plot. Well, that’s okay. But when it begins to whisper, listen hard. Good fiction, Stephen King says, “always begins with story and progresses to theme.”

No matter what you do, your book will have a theme (or meaning) at the end.

Because your characters carry a theme. Always.

Do the good guys win? Justice will triumph.

Do the bad guys win? Justice is a myth. (This is the theme of Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors.)

So: you can set out to say something, or can wait to see what you’re saying. But say something you will.

As Viktor Frankl puts it in his classic book on the subject, “Man’s search for meaning is the ultimate motivation in his life.” It is a subconscious reason readers pick up books. In the fictional search, they also are exploring their own inner territory.

Vision

Develop a vision for yourself as a writer. Make it something that excites you. Turn that into a mission statement—one paragraph that sums up your hopes and dreams as a writer. Read this regularly. Revise it from time to time to reflect your growth.

Root that inspiration in the world—your observations of it, and what it does to you. “I honestly think in order to be a writer,” says Anne Lamott, “you have to learn to be reverent. If not, why are you writing? Why are you here? Let’s think of reverence as awe, as presence in and openness to the world.”

If you stay true to your own awe, your books cannot help but be charged with meaning. That’s not just a great way to write. It’s a great way to live.

What Theme Is

Theme is a statement about life. It can be implicit or explicit, subtle or overt. But it must come through fully realized characters engaged in a believable plot. Otherwise the book will come across as a thinly veiled essay, sermon, or jeremiad.

Now, there is nothing wrong with “message fiction.” In message fiction an author says to the reader: I have strong, heartfelt beliefs about this issue — and I think I know what the truth is. I’m going to reveal that truth in this novel, through the lives of these characters, and I hope to convince you to believe as I do. It’s not a matter of shades of grey. There is a right and a wrong here, and everything depends on my convincing you to cling to the right.

But the key word here is not message; it’s fiction. If your book doesn’t work as a story, the message will fall flat.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin is message fiction. So is To Kill a Mockingbird. The Narnia books of C.S. Lewis are message fiction, but they work as engaging stories with characters we care about.

Donald Maass says:

A breakout novelist believes that what she has to say is not just worth saying, but it is something that must be said… Strong novelists have strong opinions. More to the point, they are not at all afraid to express them.

But the key word here is not message; it’s fiction. If your book doesn’t work as a story, the message will fall flat.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin is message fiction. So is To Kill a Mockingbird. The Narnia books of C.S. Lewis are message fiction, but they work first as engaging stories with characters we care about.

Try This:

  • Write down the five things you care most about in the world.
  • Now the five people you most admire.
  • For each of the above, write 250 words about how you feel about each one, as if you had to convince a skeptic of the truth of your convictions.
  • Now pick one of the paragraphs and put that fire and emotion inside your main character. How might your MC show that on the page?
  • Go to the end of your WIP (either as written or as it might be written) and ask your character to explain to you what life lesson he or she has learned through the struggle of the plot. (In mythic structure, this is called “the elixir” which the hero carries back to benefit the community.) There’s your theme.
  • Or look to your character’s “mirror moment” to find what your story really means.

Over to you now. Do you think about theme before you begin to write? Or do you let it emerge as you go? Or do you not think about it at all?

Is there a theme you see recurring in your writing?

This post is brought to you by the audio version of The Mental Game of Writing. I was invited to try Kindle Direct Publishing’s beta of “virtual voice” narration. Since I have narrated a few of my writing books, this is an experiment in saving massive amounts of time. What took me 10-15 hours before (narrating, editing, etc.) now takes 10-15 minutes to set up and go live. You can listen to a sample of the result here.

32 thoughts on “Your Book Means Something”

  1. This post was so enjoyable just for the joy of writing about 5 people I admire. Interesting that creativity was an element in the admiration for all of them.

    As to theme, I don’t put a lot of conscious thought in it when writing, I just let it emerge. Besides I know that one of my general, broad themes is justice and somehow what I write is going to touch on that.

    Message fiction is a tough call–I’ve read message fiction that turned me off because it was so blatant. And I’ve read message fiction that even so managed to, as you discuss, tell a great, engaging story. I try to strike that balance in my own writing, and hopefully when I fall astray of it, if I don’t catch the problems, my betas will.

    Thanks for a post that gives me pause to stop and be grateful for the people I admire and the traits in them I admire. A fond walk down memory lane.

    • In one of my novels, the characters eventually tell six variations on the same joke as a kind of shared running gag. The first version happens around page three and was present in the very first draft: “My town is too small to have a village idiot, so we all take turns.”

      The sixth occurrence, after the hard-won victory, is proposed as a toast: “To our beloved kingdom, which is too small to have a hero, so we all take turns.”

      It wasn’t until much later that I realized that was as good an encapsulation of the theme as any, and it had been there all along.

      My unconscious mind never tells me anything.

  2. I realized about 6 books in that I write about overcoming guilt. No, I’m not saying why, but interesting that I didn’t plan or even know about that 5 books in.
    Sigh.

  4. “…ask your character to explain to you what life lesson he or she has learned through the struggle of the plot. (In mythic structure, this is called “the elixir” which the hero carries back to benefit the community.) There’s your theme.”

    Jim, the term “elixir” always confused me b/c I thought it was a physical item like a treasure or a secret formula. Thank you for opening my eyes that elixir is the theme and life lesson.

  6. Do you think about theme before you begin to write? Or do you let it emerge as you go? Or do you not think about it at all?

    Ever since I ventured into eco-thrillers, theme is crucially important. So, yes, I think about theme before I write. It simmers through the plot, pushes my characters to act, and builds till it reaches a boiling point.

    Is there a theme you see recurring in your writing? Yes. Greed kills. Tearing apart the Natural World and decimating species can only result in our self-extinction.

    • I like that word, Sue–simmers. You can’t boil throughout, or it becomes a screed. It’s clear your theme is important to you, and that, as Priscilla says above, energizes your “why.”

  8. Do you think about theme before you begin to write? Or do you let it emerge as you go? Or do you not think about it at all? Mostly I let it emerge as I write. I’ve tried thinking about it beforehand and find that, even as an outliner, my theme emerges in the drafting.

    Is there a theme you see recurring in your writing? Yes. Doing the right thing regardless of the cost is one I see recurring. Another is the importance of “found family” and how it change you for the better.

  9. In my critique group, it’s painfully obvious which submissions arise from passion and which are merely phoned in. Both beginners and old pros need to read this post from time to time. Strong stuff!

  10. I don’t think about theme when I’m starting a work of fiction. I begin with characters and a general idea of the plot. But the theme emerges as the story develops, and it always revolves around the search for truth.

    “Go to the end of your WIP (either as written or as it might be written) and ask your character to explain to you what life lesson he or she has learned through the struggle of the plot.” Interesting that you mention this. In the last chapter of Lacey’s Star, the main character says, “I had learned a difficult lesson. The truth does not always taste sweet, and I had struggled with the bitterness of what we had uncovered ever since that day in the Willard County Sheriff’s Office.”

  11. To me, theme is synonomous with character arc. So, I do have an idea of what it is before writing because my characters have something major they’re struggling with, but the specifics emerge as I go.

    Something funny, at the midpoint of the first draft I’m working on, my protag literally says, “I’ve watched enough movies. I don’t need to learn this lesson in real life.”

  12. I love my Watkins family and their horse farm in my one completed screenplay. I’ve been told it would make a good Hallmark movie. It’s also been suggested I write it as a novel and I may.

    It’s not Marvel. They aren’t superheroes. They’re an imperfect family who love each othet and try to keep things going. In this larger than life world of ours I hope there’s still a place for real (to me) people

  13. My theme in most of my books is about unseen, unappreciated people. A lesson I learned as a newspaper reporter. The receptionist by the elevator seen and hears most of what’s going on, but they are treated as wallpaper.

  14. Great post! My screenwriting instructor at LA Harbor College gave us his definition of theme early in the course: “A statement or question about the human condition, looked at from all perspectives.”

    It’s theoretically possible to have more than one theme in a work. However, each additional theme inevitably weakens the previous ones.

    Do you think about theme before you begin to write? Do you let it emerge as you go, or not think about it at all?

    I generally just write the story and the character’s reactions eventually reveal the theme or its negation. I may go back and foreshadow or exemplify what I’ve discovered. Music and motif can also reflect theme–or subtheme, if you insist on having one.

    • Great points, J. I like what your prof said. “All perspectives.” That’s crucial, to make it a real story, and not a jeremiad. I have a beat in my Super Structure called “The Argument Against Transformation.” Once I know the transformation at the end, I like to put an early scene where the Lead is arguing against it. Provides for a nice arc. Like when Rick in Casablanca argues, “I stick my neck out for nobody.” At the end, he sticks his neck out for Ilsa and Laszlo and, indeed, the war effort…at the potential cost of his life.

      And yes, when a theme emerges, you can go back and layer it in earlier. The nice thing about being a fiction writer!

  15. Ooh, I feel like people don’t talk about theme enough. I’m currently working through deepening drafts of a fantasy story set on an alien planet. One plotline follows a princess in an arranged marriage to an evil prince, and the son of the captain of the guard who loves her. The other plot is about a resurrected warrior who fights demons. Eventually when the plots converge, it’s going to be a huge shock for readers (or so I hope!).

    But as I’m revising it, I’m learning that my theme is about grief and loss. The main character is the guardsman’s son, and he walks around in a perpetual state of grief. The demon slayer grieves the past life he can’t remember and is shunned by everyone. The girl faces her political marriage(s) with a stiff spine, but her sadness is there, too. At the end, it all comes to a head and they confront the villain together, and they get their happily ever after, but it’s hard-won. It’s one of those books I hope readers will enjoy despite the theme. I don’t know why it turned out that way.

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