Unlock the Secret Formula: 3 Game-Changing Strategies to Master Your Novel’s Theme
Successful Fiction Writing = Creating + Organizing + Marketing
I blog weekly on one of the above three topics, alternating between them. This week, I’m blogging on Creating. Specifically, we’ll be talking about the theme of your novel. How do you find your theme? Do you even need a theme? This is not a huge topic, so this blog post will be shorter than usual.
Three Strategies for Dealing With Theme
First, let’s define what we mean by “theme.” When I talk about theme, I mean the deep meaning of your story. It’s the message behind all the shooting and kissing and car-chasing and wand-waving and shouting and whatever else is happening in your story. So when I use the word “theme,” I don’t mean merely some controversial subject. I mean the actual stance that you take on that controversial subject.
I can think of three strategies that authors use with their themes. There might be more, but these are the ones that jump out at me:
- You come up with the theme first, and then you create a story that sends that message.
- You come up with a story first, and then a deep theme emerges from the story.
- Your story doesn’t have a theme. There’s no message.
Authors have used all three of these strategies effectively. There’s nothing intrinsically right or wrong with using any of these strategies. You get to decide what kind of novel you’re writing. But it’s a good idea to know what your decision is, and why you came to that decision.
So let’s talk about each strategy and give some examples.
Strategy 1: The Theme Drives the Story
Some authors have a theme in mind, and they create a story to illustrate that theme. The hazard here is that your theme can come across as heavy-handed. The upside is that reader who already agree with the theme of your story will love your novel and may help promote it, and that may turn out to be very good for sales.
A classic example of a theme-driven book is Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe. This was the best-selling novel in the US in the entire 19th century. The theme was that slavery is evil. This is not controversial today, but it was in the 1850s. Some people loved this theme. Others hated it. The story was created solely as a vehicle for the theme. The book had a lot of flaws that make it much less popular today. It had a sentimental style that is long out of date. And it glorified the servility of the main character, Uncle Tom. It’s now an insult to call someone an Uncle Tom. And yet, for all its problems, the book had a huge impact.
A modern example of a theme-driven story is The Shack, by William Paul Young. The theme was that God is good, even though he allows evil in our world. This is highly controversial. The question of the goodness of God is hotly debated, and the problem of evil is one of the two strongest arguments used by those who don’t believe in the existence of God. Some people loved the book. Others called it stupid or heretical. The book sat at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list for more than a year and has more than 10 million copies in print.
If this is your strategy, then own it. You have a theme. Send your message. Make it clear. Be ready to take some heat for it. Be hopeful that bad publicity will lead to good sales. Sometimes it does.
Strategy 2: The Story Drives the Theme
Some authors just set out to write an interesting story, and a theme emerges. The upside here is that the theme naturally fits the story, because it grows out of it. But you may find that once you’ve found the theme of your story, you may need to rewrite it extensively so that the theme is fully woven into your novel.
So far as I can tell, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn fits this model. The book follows on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, a light-hearted book about a boy growing up in the South. It took Mark Twain about seven years to write the Huck Finn book, and things evolved as he worked on it. A strong anti-racist theme eventually emerged organically from the story. But the theme is not perfectly developed. The book is a 19th century novel, and it contains 19th century stereotypes and racial slurs that don’t sit well in the 21st century.
In my own novels, I’ve never started with a theme in mind. I usually just try to write a story and see what comes out of it. In my City of God series, a theme has emerged organically from the hard questions one of my characters, Ari, asks about the problem of evil. Ari rather reluctantly believes in God, but he’s not at all happy with the common explanations for why God should allow evil in the world. I am three books into the series, and the theme as it now stands is that the problem of evil is not solved.
If this is your strategy, then own it. Watch what your characters find disturbing—that’s your clue for the theme that may emerge. Once you identify the theme, take care to keep it consistent through the story. This may take a lot of rework. Do the work. If you don’t feel the need to hammer the theme hard, then don’t hammer it. A message can be subtle, if that’s more your style. Or it can be bold, if that’s what you want.
Strategy 3: There is no Theme
Some authors set out to write an interesting story, and no theme ever emerges. There is nothing wrong with this. A novel isn’t required to have a message. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a story is just a story.
I’ve read most of the Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child, and I don’t think any of them had a theme. Reacher travels around with nothing but a wallet and a toothbrush and the clothes on his back. He gets in fights. He catches the bad guys. He moves on. There’s no “moral of the story.” Fans of Reacher don’t seem to mind, and it’s certainly never bothered me.
If this is your strategy, then own it. You don’t owe your reader a message. You owe your reader a story. Your novel doesn’t have to carry some deep meaning.
Homework:
- Pick five of your favorite novels. What is the theme of each? For each one, do you think the theme was designed in from the start, or did it emerge organically?
- Did you start out with a theme in mind for the novel you’re working on right now? If so, what’s the theme, and do you hope that it’s controversial enough to drive big sales?
- Has a theme emerged organically from the novel you’re working on? If so, are you willing to put in the extra work needed to make sure the theme is consistent within your novel?
- Does your current novel have no theme at all? Are you good with that, or do you feel that it needs one?
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