Tag Archives: character

Make Your Characters Distinctive

You populate your stories with a full cast of characters and expect readers to keep them all straight. Asking a lot, aren’t you? Today, I’ll explore ways to make that task easier for your audience, those kind folks who shell out money for your books.

Image created using www.perchance.org

Source Unknown

Though I try to credit my sources, I’ve misplaced the inspiration of this information. I subscribe to newsletters from DreamForge Magazine and one item from over three years ago prompted me to take notes. Now I can’t find the original newsletter. In any case, I’ve put the advice in my own words and added items to the list.

Pair Description with Action

You need to describe your characters, of course, and physical appearance plays to the primary sense—sight. You’d do well to appeal to the senses of sound and smell, too. But a paragraph weighed down with description slows the story’s pace. Consider sprinkling in the description verbiage with action. Examples:

  • “No!” Her long, brown hair swished as she turned and stomped away. “I won’t do it.”
  • Jake used his long arm-span to advantage, sweeping his knife to keep his adversary’s slashes out of range.

Be Specific

Edit out generalities and replace them with concrete terms. Appropriate similes and metaphors can serve you well here.

  • Instead of “He looked, in a word, handsome,” use “His physique would prompt Michelangelo to destroy David out of shame.”
  • Instead of “She was strong in every sense of the word,” use  “She could have bench-pressed a life-size marble statue, then won a stare-down contest with it.”

Use Revealing Traits

Often a character’s physical appearance or mannerisms can indicate a characteristic emotion or internal conflict. This falls in line with the “show, don’t tell” adage. The Emotion Thesaurus by Angel Ackerman and Becca Puglisi can aid you here.

  • Instead of “He seemed perpetually afraid,” use “He huddled in corners, sweating, trembling, and avoiding eye contact.”
  • Instead of “She looked okay, but I could tell something troubled her,” use “She paced back and forth, frowning, and running a hand through her hair.”

Provide Distinctive, Identifying Traits

Consider giving each significant character something that sets the character apart. It could be an unusual hairstyle, an item of clothing, a scar or other imperfection, an atypical gait, a characteristic gesture, an odd verbal expression, or anything in a near-infinite list. I won’t provide examples here, but you get the point. Every now and then, when that character appears in the story, mention that specific trait to jog your reader’s memory of that character.

Add a Weakness

Give your character a flaw, a weakness, a vulnerability. As a minimum, your protagonist needs one, if not all your major characters. Later in the story, let your antagonist test the protagonist’s weakness and exploit it in some way.

Don’t Forget Motivation

Give each major character a motivation. You may select from a large number of these, including love, revenge, greed, survival, etc. For your protagonist, consider showing why the character feels that motivation. Perhaps it springs from a formative childhood experience. That motivation should tie in to the protagonist’s goal. Don’t confuse goal with motivation. Goal is what you want. Motivation is why you want it. Together, the motivation and goal of the main character drive the plot along.

Assign the Right Name

Spend some time thinking of the right name for your characters. I’ve blogged about this before. An unusual name can set a character apart and help a reader remember the person. A common name can identify the character as an “everyman.” Two characters with similar names, especially with the same first letter, can cause readers to mix them up. Names that resemble a word can help a reader associate a character with that word, whether the word is appropriate for that character or diametrically inappropriate. You can also use the syllabic rhythm of the name (first-last or first-middle-last) to suggest something about the character.

If you apply the above techniques, you might create characters almost as distinctive as—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 10, 2024Permalink Leave a comment

Entwining External and Internal Journeys

Often, the best stories show us two journeys. In one, the protagonist contends with an outside force, possibly another person, to confront and resolve a problem. We call that the plot. The other journey takes place within the protagonist’s mind and involves emotions, beliefs, personality, and, in the end, learning and change.

You’ll find a nice overview of this in editor and writing coach Ley Taylor Johnson’s post here and I encourage you to read it. My post emphasizes different points but (I hope) expresses the same overall view.

The 4 Aspects

Johnson says your main character should have a want, an obstacle, a need, and a flaw. She states them in that order since that’s the sequence for revealing them in the story.

The character wants something, and that strong desire provides motivation. However, the obstacle stands in the way. The obstacle could be a person, some aspect of the setting, or some other negative force. You should establish the want and the obstacle early.

Later, introduce the character’s need. The need is the reason for the want, and goes deeper than the want. The need is the underlying, emotional, psychological, or philosophical answer to the question, “why does the character want what she wants?” The character may be unaware of the need early on.

Most often, protagonists also suffer from a flaw. Like the need, the flaw resides within the character—a personality defect, a phobia, a suppressed memory, etc. As with the need, the character may be unaware of the flaw at the beginning, or might have grown accustomed to concealing it.

How the 4 Aspects Relate

The want and the need both propel the character forward. The obstacle and the flaw oppose that movement. The want and the obstacle are, most often, tangible and external to the character. The need, as mentioned before, explains the want—providing the underlying reason for it. The want may not last to the end, or may change. The character may abandon the want. But the need usually does not change, though it may be satisfied at the end.

How do the obstacle and the flaw relate? The obstacle, whether wittingly or not, preys on the flaw, targets and exploits it. While the obstacle appears early, the flaw may lurk unseen until late, though the writer might provide hints of the flaw all along. In the end the character must confront both the obstacle and the flaw, and resolve, in some way, the problems they create.

The Journeys

In the external journey, the character pursues the want but is stymied by the obstacle. When asked what a book is about, a reader often answers with this external journey, the plot.

The internal journey takes place in a different realm, one of doubts, fears, bouts of sadness, joys, thoughts, prejudices, mindsets, etc. Within her mind, the character journeys first to understand the need and eventually to attain it, despite being opposed by the flaw.

The Journeys Intersect

Much of the time, the external journey moves forward through action and dialogue, leaving only brief moments for a character’s fleeting thoughts. A good writer won’t let the internal journey slow the pace of the most intense scenes of the external journey.

Use the down-times between high-tension scenes to allow the internal journey to come to the fore. During these interludes, the character takes time for reflections, deeper thoughts, realizations, revelations, and learning—progress on the internal journey.

In the end, both journeys reach completion. The external journey features the character confronting and overcoming the obstacle to either attain the want, or to achieve a larger goal. The internal journey shows the character confronting and overcoming the flaw to satisfy the need.

Perhaps two other journeys end here, as well. You’ve finished reading this blogpost, and the writing has been completed by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 11, 2024Permalink Leave a comment

Shadow Theory—Use and Misuse

If you’re a fiction writer wishing to create vivid characters, you’ll like Shadow Theory. But beware of its major pitfall.

In your first attempts to write stories, you’re likely to invent characters without much nuance. Perhaps they’ll resemble common tropes or stereotypes. Even if you avoid that, your characters may lack the sort of quirks readers enjoy. The characters may seem flat, two-dimensional. Shadow theory can help with that.

Definition

In this post, author K.M. Weiland provides an outstanding, in-depth description of shadow theory. Please read her post, since I’m providing only a brief overview here.

Imagine your character as an impressionable child. She tries to be outgoing in an effort to make friends, but gets snubbed. Reacting to this, she adopts a more standoffish approach and remains aloof from others. This practice protects her from rejection. She has relegated her friendliness to the shadows. Though still a part of her, that trait is something she tries to keep hidden from the world.

The theory says this happens to real people, like you and me. We seek workable coping strategies and push their opposites to the shadows. However, the shadow remains attached, still available. If stress or other harsh circumstances require a change, we can switch to the shadow’s method, though we will find it difficult to break a long-held pattern and leave our comfort zone.

Use in Fiction

You see the powerful potential of this theory in creating fascinating, relatable fictional characters. A strong defining trait coupled with the opposite trait lying in the background—often the subconscious background, even as a suppressed memory—gives a character more dimension.

As your plot inflicts increasing pressure on your character and she finds her accustomed responses failing again and again, you can bring the opposite trait out from the shadows to win the day. This shift to shadow behavior won’t be easy for the character, and that difficulty adds to the drama.

Misuse

As I read Weiland’s post, I loved learning about this literary tool, but saw a danger. A hammer is a fine tool as well, but it hurts when you smash your thumb with it by accident.

If you’re clumsy in the use of shadow theory, you could confuse readers. You shouldn’t show a character acting one way throughout the book, then have her suddenly change behavior without explanation.

If a character acts out-of-character, readers notice and can’t help questioning the author’s competence.

Solutions

You can overcome this problem in a variety of ways, including the following. You could:

  • provide a flashback to show the shadow trait forming in the character’s past,
  • show the character’s thoughts as she realizes the shadow trait exists (She may wonder where it came from, and may even recall its source in her past, but it should still require effort to use the shadow trait),
  • show a second character (B)—perhaps an ally or love interest of A—who senses the shadow trait in A and helps A to see and use that trait, or
  • give hints of the shadow throughout, so the reader sees it but the character doesn’t until the dramatic ending (this may be the most difficult of the four).

If you’re like me, you write descriptions of your major characters before creating the first draft. Consider answering the questions asked by Weiland in her post as you develop these descriptions. You might devise your plot such that circumstances test your character’s accustomed behaviors but those behaviors produce bad, then worse, setbacks. Only when the character, through internal struggle, calls upon the shadow trait, can that character prevail.

As the old radio drama tagline put it—Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows…and so does—

Poseidon’s Scribe

June 9, 2024Permalink

Catalyzing Character Chemistry

Forget your high school chemistry classes. We’re talking fictional character chemistry here—human reactions. More complicated, more dramatic, and potentially more explosive.

You know it when you see it on TV or in the movies. Two actors with great chemistry. Somehow, their interaction sizzles and sparks, even ignites into figurative flame.

Written stories, the good ones, portray this chemistry too. When a reader knows two characters separately, and they’re about to get together and interact, the reader anticipates something big will happen.

As a writer, you serve as the catalyst for this chemical reaction. You make it happen, and the only things consumed in the process are your time and some Kleenex.

How do you concoct that chemistry? Author K. M. Weiland wrote a marvelous blogpost explaining the process and giving wonderful examples. After reading my brief summary below, study her post for a better and more complete description. What follows is her process, abbreviated and put in a different order, and in my words.

Connect to the Plot

K. M. Weiland listed this last, but to me it comes first. The scenes where your characters interact must serve the plot. They must move the story along. If you write a scene with great chemistry, but it doesn’t advance the story, you’ve taken an unnecessary tangent and written a darling you must kill. Whether you’re a plotter or a pantser, make sure the scenes propel the action forward.

Put Engaging Characters in the Crucible

The chemistry works best with well-defined characters. If you’ve introduced the characters by themselves earlier, then the reader anticipates the coming interaction. Give your characters different (and very clear) motives, desires, and personalities. These traits needn’t directly oppose each other, though that helps. Perhaps the characters share a common goal, but differ on the manner of achieving it. Exploit all differences.

Alternate the Give and Take

As the characters banter, fluctuate between agreement and disagreement. Give one character the upper hand, then the other. You’re striving for equal yin-yang balance here. Weiland calls it ‘the dance of opposition and harmony,’ a perfect metaphor.

When catalyzing this chemistry, don’t limit yourself to dialogue alone. Give your characters things to do, actions to take. These actions can illustrate and emphasize what they say, or tend to contradict their words, depending on your intent. For example, if a character says something harsh, perhaps she can do something pleasant to soften the impact.

Allow an Out-of-Character Moment

Consider letting Character A say or do something unexpected, beyond A’s usual role. Not only will this surprise the reader, but it will jar Character B, forcing B to adapt to the shifting dynamic.

Let Them Grow

The interaction may well expose character flaws, forcing self-examination. One or both characters may change as a result of their confrontations, which may serve to round out the rough edges of their personalities. A great example of this is C.S. Forester’s 1935 novel The African Queen, and the 1951 movie of the same name. In the course of the story, Charlie Allnutt becomes more confident, daring to accomplish actions for a cause greater than himself. Rose Sayer backs off some of her strict religious intolerance. Both grow as people.

This concludes today’s chemistry lesson. All you mad scientists—er, I mean, budding writers—can now follow the formula for creating great character chemistry, as revealed by K.M. Weiland and—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 12, 2024Permalink

7 Things I Wish I’d Known When I Started Writing

When you see books for sale online or in stores, do you ever fantasize about seeing your name on the cover as the author? Decades ago, before I began writing fiction, I pictured that and wondered, “how hard can it be?”

Beginner Me, Current Me

At that time, I had a great story idea and estimated I’d achieve bestseller status in a year or two. Many facts about writing remained unknown to me then, things I wish someone had told me. Today, I’ll tell you.

  • Make Characters Appealing. To Beginner Me, stories consisted of plot. The author just dropped characters in to have things happen to them. Not true. Readers yearn for engaging characters. Give them a protagonist they can love, or hate—just feel strongly about. Many authors come up with characters first, then figure out what happens. An exciting plot might provide a literary sugar rush, but all truly great books showcase memorable characters.
  • Start Short. These days, novels predominate over short stories. Readers tend to take novelists more seriously. For that reason, beginning writers often tackle a novel first. Beginner Me did that. His unpublished novel sits on my shelf. It served the purpose of getting Beginner Me accustomed to daily writing, and of learning things about the craft. I wish someone had suggested I start with short stories. Some time after I switched to them, I started getting published. You can crank short stories out faster. The submit-reject-submit cycle runs more rapidly. You can establish a readership and move on to novels later.
  • Accept Long Odds. A few—a very few—inexperienced writers get their first novel or short story accepted early on. Most—a vast majority—pile up many rejections before their first acceptance. You might be one of the few, but odds are, you won’t be.
  • Understand the Tiers. Those books you see on bestseller lists, on lists of what to read next season, on the top of Amazon’s ‘Featured’ lists, and on the prominent bookstore shelves, have one thing in common. They’re published by one of the ‘Big Five’ publishers based in New York. If your novel gets accepted by one of them, an army of workers will design your book’s cover, arrange for book reviews, publicize your book, put out press releases, and line up interviews for you. If your story or novel gets accepted anywhere else, that army dwindles to one person…you.
  • Market and Network. Beginner Me thought writers typed up prose while others took care of marketing details. For those few who land contracts with the Big Five, that’s true. The rest of us do our own marketing. You may not see yourself as the glad-handing, back-slapping used car salesman type, but you’re going to have to abandon your introvert comfort zone and learn those skills. It helps to network with other writers to watch and learn from them.
  • Be Realistic. Beginner Me had heard of writers getting paid advances of thousands of dollars. I’d jot down some words, submit the manuscript, sign a contract, and soon I’d be sailing my yacht to my private island, where I’d have a mansion. Yes, a few authors receive large advance payments, but most writers work a day job. Their writing hobby pays for lunch, once a week.
  • Get Help. At least Beginner Me knew this one and didn’t have to be told. Others have trod the writing path before you and are willing to share their knowledge. You may read How-to-Write books, take college writing courses, and go to writing conferences. Beginner Me did all of those. You may also attend writing workshops. I got the most help from critique groups. Find whichever type of help works best for you.

I meant this list to inspire you, not discourage you. You may see some items as depressing, but that’s not my intent. If the writing dream burns within you, if your story demands to be written, nothing I say will dissuade you. You’ll take the journey. Best to take it in an informed way, and not learn everything along the way, as did—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 17, 2023Permalink

Do You Begin with Character, Plot, or Theme?

You’re thinking about writing a novel. Do your first thoughts focus on a character, events, or ideas? Whichever it is, opportunities and dangers await you.

This past week, I listened to an online lecture by author Emily Colin on the subject of “Hooking Readers and Publishers with Your Opening Pages and Never Letting Go.” She mentioned these three types of starting points, and that got me thinking.

I discovered a post by author PJ Parrish dealing with two of the three—character and plot. She listed strengths and challenges associated with each mindset. Using her post as a starting point, I’ll present my own list of pros and cons for all three.

Character-Based

Your first question is, “Who?” and you imagine a character, or more than one, fully formed, with backstory, personality, and appearance all locked in. Your character is like family to you.

Pros:

  1. Reader Empathy. People care about characters, and if yours are interesting and well-drawn, your novel will entrance readers.
  2. Writer Empathy. You know your character so well, you’ll have no problems writing actions, behavior, and dialogue at any point. You’ll know the character’s appropriate action in, and reaction to, any situation.
  3. Editor Empathy. Character-driven stories dominate the fiction market now. A story with engaging characters may be easier to sell.

Cons:

  1. Idolizing. If you fall in love with your character, you may see no flaws, and therefore no change will result, no learning will occur.
  2. Meandering. If your plot is weak, events may seem disconnected or illogical. The plot may seem contrived, with scenes designed to showcase the character instead of presenting a series of increasingly difficult challenges.
  3. Puzzling. If you neglect theme, readers might like your character, but be left wondering what the book was all about, and why they should care.

Plot-Based

Your first question is, “What if?” and you imagine the conflict, the journey, the rising and falling tension, the escalation of stakes, and the resolution.

Pros:

  1. Blurb. You know your back cover blurb already, as well as the story outline and synopsis. A ready blurb makes the story marketable.
  2. Suspense. The thing that keeps readers reading on—suspense—comes easy to you. You’ve lined up the twists that keep readers surprised.
  3. Structure. The writing may go easier for you, since you know where the story’s going.

Cons:

  1. Unsurprising. If you adhere to your plot outline too rigidly, the ending might be predictable. Or you might force a character to act out-of-character, because it’s necessary to your plot.
  2. Boring. In peopling your plot, you may end up with characters who are flat, uninteresting, even stereotyped.
  3. Puzzling. If you neglect theme, readers might like your plot, but be left wondering what the book was all about, and why they should care.

Theme-Based

Your first question is, “What’s the point?” You have something to say to the world. You’d like to persuade, to bring about change. You feel deeply about a message you want to convey.

Pros:

  1. Elevation. Strong themes, well expressed, can raise a book above common genre books into the realm of literary fiction.
  2. Double-Take. Books with strong themes make readers think. Only later do they realize the power of the message, and that makes them love the book even more than when they first finished it. Such books can change lives.
  3. Endurance. Well-written stories that say something true and eternal about the human condition can become classics.

Cons:

  1. Preaching. If you beat your fist on the pulpit too strongly, the reader will walk out on your sermon. If you can’t weave themes into your fiction with subtlety, write a textbook instead.
  2. Forcing. Readers will sense when you’ve engineered your plot to make your larger point, especially if effects don’t follow from causes.
  3. Over-Simplifying. If your characters lack dimension, if they can be summed up in one word, if their purpose is just to symbolize an idea in support of your theme, they’re not realistic.

In summary, it’s okay if you’re any one of the three types of writers. (I’m plot-based.) Strive to recognize your tendency and compensate for the cons associated with your type. Think about the other two aspects as you write and shore up those areas you’re weak in.

Interesting bonus fact: if you rearrange the letters in the words “character,” “plot,” and “theme,” you cannot come up with the words—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 24, 2022Permalink

Using the 15 Fiction-Writing Virtues

In a previous blog post, I explored how Benjamin Franklin, an early champion of self-help, might advise us on how to improve our writing. To recall, Ben identified weaknesses in his own character and flipped around those negative weaknesses into their corresponding, positive virtues, toward which he strived.

In that earlier post, I made a list of fifteen fiction-writing virtues, encouraged you to make a similar list, and then left you on your own. Today, I’m picking up where I left you stranded, and providing a structured approach for applying those virtues as you write.

benjamin-franklinBen Franklin took his list of thirteen virtues and focused on applying one per week. He kept a log of his success rate, noting when he succeeded and failed. That simple and easy method might not work for the fiction writing virtues, since the one you’ve selected might not apply to what you’re doing that week. Your virtue list, if it’s anything like mine, might be more event-based.

What you need is a mechanism for (1) remembering, (2) applying, (3) recording, and (4) reassessing your virtues:

  • Remembering means that the applicable event-based virtue will appear before you when that given event starts, so it’s a reminder to exercise that virtue.
  • Applying means that, in the moment of decision, you choose to act upon your virtue and do the virtuous thing.
  • Recording means that you’ll keep some sort of log or journal of your success and failure.
  • Reassessing means that once one or more of the initial virtues have become an ingrained habit, you strike it from the list, consider other weaknesses in your writing that require improvement, and add new virtues to work on.

From my earlier blog post, here again are the 15 fiction-writing virtues I came up with. Reminder—yours will likely be different.

15 Virtues

I had split the virtues into five Process virtues and ten Product virtues. Here are a couple of tables showing to which parts of the story-writing procedure each process virtue applies, and to which story elements each product virtue applies.

First draft Self-Edit Critique Submit Rejections
Process Virtues 1. Productivity X X X X X
2. Focus X
3. Humility X
4. Excellence X
5. Doggedness X

 

Character Plot Setting Theme Style
Product Virtues 6. Relevance X X
7. Appeal X X X
8. Engagement X X
9. Empathy X
10. Action X
11. Placement X
12. Meaning X
13. Style X
14. Communication X X
15. Skill X

Remembering. The best solution is to print the list of virtues and keep it near your computer or tablet when writing, and refer to it often. Over time you’ll remember to refer to the “Excellence” virtue before submitting a manuscript, for example.

Applying. This is the most difficult part. In any given writing situation, you must do your best to live up to the virtue that applies to that situation. You’ll likely fail at first, then get better with time, practice, and patience.

Recording. If you keep a log, journal, or writing diary, that is a good place to grade yourself each day on how well you achieved each virtue that applied that day. You may learn more from failures than successes, in recognizing the causes for the failures. In time, you will strive harder to achieve each virtue simply because you won’t want to record another failure in your logbook.

Reassessing. Your list of virtues should be dynamic. Whenever you believe you’ve got a virtuous habit down pat, you can delete it from the list. Whenever you find another weakness in your writing, you can add the corresponding virtue to the list. Perhaps you’ll find that a virtue is poorly phrased, or is vague, or doesn’t really address the root cause of the weakness; you can re-word it to be more precise.

If you faithfully apply a technique similar to this, and you find your writing improving, and you gain the success you always desired, don’t forget to send (1) a silent thank-you to the spirit of Benjamin Franklin, and (2) a favorable and grateful comment to this blog post by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 10, 2016Permalink

The Basset Hound in Ripper’s Ring

There’s a basset hound in my upcoming story “Ripper’s Ring.” Let me tell you about him.

His name is Diogenes, and I’ve described him as having a copper-and-black mottled coat, a white blaze down his snout, and a white-tipped tail. He’s a pet, owned by my one of the story’s main characters, Detective Wellington Thales Bentbow.

Bvdb-bassethound1Diogenes is not quite like the hound pictured here, but you get the general idea of their characteristic wrinkled, sagging skin and drooping ears, giving them a perpetually depressed countenance.

I chose a basset for my story for a couple of reasons. From the time my wife was growing up until a few years after I met her, her family kept pet Basset Hounds, owning as many as three at a time. They remain one of her favorite animals.

Second, I discovered Basset Hounds possess a sense of smell for tracking that’s the second keenest of all dog breeds, behind only the bloodhound. That makes this breed a good dog for a detective to own.

Especially a detective like Wellington Bentbow, who is philosophical by nature, a loner, and probably a bit wrinkly and gloomy himself. He’s come to regret purchasing Diogenes, though, because the hound much prefers sleeping to any sort of detective work.

Bentbow chose the name Diogenes for his pet because of the ancient Greek philosopher. Diogenes of Sinope has become associated with dogs. In addition, Diogenes would wander around in the daytime holding a lamp before him. When asked why, he said he was looking for an honest man. (How he planned to detect honesty using a lamp was, I believe, part of his little joke.) But this idea of tracking down a particular man also played into the choice of name for my basset hound character.

In a future post I’ll blog about the uses of pets in fiction, but for now I’ll say there’s a danger involved when you introduce familiar pets in your stories. In particular, dogs and cats are endearing to readers and it’s so tempting to provide details about the animal’s cute behavior and personality, they can steal the show if you’re not careful. I had to fight to keep Diogenes a minor character, because he could have taken over the story.

RippersRing72dpi“Ripper’s Ring” takes place in London in 1888, and basset-type hounds were then new to England, having only recently been imported from France. The modern Basset Hound (capitalized) didn’t become a standardized breed until after the time of my story, so strictly speaking, Diogenes would be categorized as a basset-type hound.

You can read all about Diogenes in my story, “Ripper’s Ring,” due to launch on Monday, May 4th. If you own a Basset Hound that matches my description of Diogenes, I’ll be happy to post a picture of it, if you’ve taken the picture and give permission for posting it by leaving a comment for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 3, 2015Permalink

Life is But a Theme

Long-time readers of this blog have noted that I’ve explored four of the five components of fiction—character, plot, setting, and style. There’s been quite a clamoring for me to complete the set, and today I’ll do so by discussing theme.

You can think of the theme of a story as the central topic, the universal idea or message, the overall lesson or moral. I’ve said before that all stories are about the human condition and that’s because we choose human themes. Until we deal with other sentient entities, that’s all we really have.

ThemeHere’s another way to think about theme. It’s easy to identify the characters, plot, and setting of a story. Think of those as the ‘real life’ parts of the story, the parts you can visualize with ease. Now imagine key parts of that ‘real life’ getting mapped to a different plane, a place of Platonic ideals. Imagine lines connecting specifics in the story to generalizations in the other plane, concrete items linked to a realm of abstract concepts.

For example, an old woman in a story is linked to the idea of Age itself. A young man going through his first experience of adulthood is linked to the idea of Coming of Age. The growing love between two characters maps to the idea of Falling in Love. You get the idea.

There needn’t be only one theme in a story, and often you can identify more than one. Also, it isn’t necessary for the writer to spell out what the story’s themes are; in fact it’s much better to allow readers to infer them.

Let’s identify some themes in famous literature. Take 1984 by George Orwell. It includes themes such as ever-increasing government control, the loss of individual freedom, and the dangers of advanced technology.

Consider Love Story by Erich Segal. Some of its themes include the idea of opposites being attracted to each other, the sacrifices made for love, the rebellion of a child against his parents, and the notion of love conquering all adversities.

One of my favorites, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, also contains themes. These include the dangers of advanced technology, aiding the oppressed against oppressors, and the notion that revenge can drive you insane.

Is it possible to write a story without a theme? I’m not sure. Even if the writer has no particular theme in mind, readers and critics can likely discover themes the author didn’t intend, but are nevertheless present.

For a beginning writer who’s overwhelmed by the amount of writing stuff to remember, I suggest concentrating on character, plot, and setting (in that order of importance) without focusing on theme or style as much. Chances are a well-written story will have one or more themes, even if the writer doesn’t consciously strive toward one.

As always, post a comment if you agree, disagree, remain confused, or are just thankful that all five components of fiction have finally been addressed by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 25, 2014Permalink