A Writer’s Quandary: Should Theme Come First?

A Writer’s Quandary: Should Theme Come First?

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Theme.

In contemporary literary studies, a theme is the central topic, subject, or concept the author is trying to point out, not to be confused with whatever message, moral, or commentary it may send or be interpreted as sending regarding said concept (i.e., its inferred “thesis”).

Blah, blah, blah.

When I wrote my first few novels, I had no idea what the theme was when I started; I just wanted to tell a story. If a theme fell out of that story, so be it, but I didn’t want to “point out” something to the world. Even more telling, I refused to tell a “message, moral, or commentary.” That would be foolish.

I feel (and it’s important you understand that this is my feeling) that too many writers, too many publishers and too many big personalities think it’s important these days to “point out” something to the world, often to the point of being rude, offensive or both in the name of resistance.

That’s nice, but I really don’t think readers are hoping to be given a message, moral or commentary every time they open a book. Some people just want to read a story and be taken away from all those things to a land of butterfly kisses and unicorn farts.

But I digress…

Castles didn’t start with a theme or moral. But after years of writing, rewriting and writing again, what I ended up with could be considered a theme: “Can mental illness be hereditary, environmental or both?”

Likewise, Sketches from the Spanish Mustang was originally going to be a collection of stories with no central theme. However, as I wrote, Thomas Tweed–one of the characters–kept telling me to look at him with different eyes.

Bingo. Theme.

When I started to plot and flesh out the next work, a thriller about three brothers, an idea formed that I could say something, could possibly even begin with a theme and write the story around it. That theme (or moral, even) came to light when a friend of mine was killed in Afghanistan just days before Osama bin Laden was hunted down.

So I had a quandary: can I write a story based on a theme/moral, or should I just shut up and color?

I thought about this for a while. I made more notes. I even wrote out some basic ideas of a theme or a moral to the story.

And the outcome?

I guess I still don’t have any answers. The novel I outlined was going to be both a thriller and literary, and that “literary” element requires I say something. In fact, the story begs me to say it, and the more I flesh it out, the more the theme and the moral become apparent.

But is this the right way to do things?

I don’t know, which I why I titled this post: “Should Theme Come First?” In reality, the authors out there have different opinions. Some think you should just tell a story. Some think stories will eventually form a theme. Some set out at the beginning to say something and the theme is apparent from page one.

I guess that really answers my question, doesn’t it?

Theme (and moral) should be up to author, especially those independent authors who don’t wear the chains of their agents or their genre and therefore have the freedom to write whatever they see fit.

Even though Castles and Sketches from a Spanish Mustang and even my fantasy novel Difficult Mirrors all have themes that were formed after the fact, will my next novel be written around a theme?

Maybe. If so, it will be new for me, but I’ll learn something: it will work or it won’t.


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