Today we’re tackling one of the most misunderstood, but vital, elements of writing fiction. Today is all about “theme.” What is it, and how do we get it working our stories?

SHOW NOTES:

Welcome back to the Inside Creative Writing Podcast! My name is Brad Reed and I’m really excited to be bringing today’s topic to you. It’s one of those things that might give you unpleasant flashbacks to that high school English class where the concept of “theme” was one of those elusive, confusing pieces of literature that never quite clicked for you. If that’s the case, you’re not alone. As a high school English teacher myself, I watch students come into my class with the same glassy-eyed hesitation when I start talking about theme. But, the good news is that they leave my class understanding what it is and why it’s so important in a piece of writing. We’re going to take it a step further today and go beyond just finally understanding what we’re talking about when we’re talking about theme and begin to explore how we can use theme to make our writing more relevant, powerful, and compelling for our readers.

But before we dive into theme today, I want to mention that the Real-Time Revision Video that we uploaded on Thursday – that’s be video 24 in that series, I think – is all about theme. So if you find that, after today’s episode, you’d like to see how I identify and implement theme in my own writing, check out that video. It’s part of our free-to-everyone Patreon rewards and you can find it either on the podcast website (www.BradReedWrites.com) or on our Patreon page at www.Patreon.com/bradreedwrites. Again, we’ve made all of our resources over there free for everyone, whether or not you’re a Patreon team member. If you find value in what you find there, we simply ask that you consider throwing a few bucks a month our way to help keep the show up and running as part of the Patreon team.

I also wanted to remind you about the opportunity you have to be a guest host of the podcast! I’ve talked to some of you about this and am finding something interesting–that a lot of you don’t feel like you have the expertise to submit a short audio segment for use on the show. Well, if that’s you, I want to dissuade you from that notion. We are all on our own unique journeys as writers. We all become experts in some things and remain novices in others. We all find techniques that really click for us and dismiss others that just don’t work with our writing style. This opportunity is really about just sharing what’s worked for you as a writer, regardless of what “level” of writing you are at. Basically, it works like this: Record yourself basically teaching an element or technique of writing that you are especially passionate about for about 15-20 minutes. This could be on your own or even with a partner. (Try to use a decent external microphone so the sound quality is good.) It’s basically just you sharing something that works for you that others might benefit from. Then send us an mp3 file to bradreed@bradreedwrites.com and you might hear your segment on the show. I’m thinking of it a little like the way talk shows used to work. When Johnny Carson went on vacation or had to miss a day of taping, they didn’t just run a rerun like talk shows do now. They had a guest host come on for the show instead. That’s kind of the model I’m looking for. You don’t have to worry about producing the show, doing an intro or outtro or Wise Words or Weekly Challenges (unless you want to). We’ll take care of all of that. It’s really just a chance to play host for a day and share what’s working for you with other writers. You could think of it like submitting a guest blog post only this is recorded audio. Just like any submission, there is no guarantee that we’ll end up using your audio on the show, althought we’re going to do our best to find a way to get all of them out there. Also, at least at this time, there is no compensation for audio segments, but you can feel free to mention your website, Twitter handle, books you currently have available, anything along those lines as long as promotion isn’t the focus of your segment. If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to email me. bradreed@bradreedwrites.com.

Last week we explored the concept of Writer’s Block on the podcast, and I asked for your feedback about the show, about some of the claims I made, and for you to share any techniques you might use to push past those roadblocks we hit when we are writing. Listener Jesse Hawley called our message line and left us some thoughts about something that works for him. Let’s take a listen…

(Jesse’s audio)

Thanks for your insight, Jesse! You’ve hit on a technique I’ve never really thought to try. It makes sense since so much of what causes what we like to call writer’s block is a lack of confidence in our own skills. It makes sense that looking at writing that you consider to be inferior in some way, yet has still found success, might help to give us more confidence. I haven’t read Ready Player One–it’s been on my to-read list for awhile now but I just haven’t gotten to it–so I can’t comment on what I think of the writing, but it makes me think about something I heard a few weeks ago, and I apologize that I can’t place exactly where I heard it. They were basically saying that, if you have a good enough plot and your structure is solid, then readers can look past writing that is less-than-stellar. But if your plotting and structure aren’t good, no amount of good writing (sentence-level writing) will save your book. It’s about the story first and foremost. And I think that goes hand-in-hand with what Jesse is talking about here. Whatever it takes for us to get out of our perfectionist minds and into writing is a good thing!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Jesse, and for your support of the show!  If you have comments you’d like to get to us, and that we might use on a future episode, you can give us a call like Jesse did at 541-952-2406.

Alright. Enough of all that stuff. I’m excited to get into today’s topic, so let’s do it. Theme: what it is, what is isn’t, and how we can use it in our writing…

Of all the things that English teachers teach, I think “theme” might be one of the hardest ones, and I’m actually not sure why that is. I think part of it is that there isn’t a clear agreement, even across teachers of English, what we mean by theme, but it also has to do with how many other ways we use the word theme. I mean, you could have a prom “theme” that is “Under the Sea” or “Night Beneath the Stars.” You could decorate your house with a country theme. You could even compose a theme song for a TV show. Or you can go to a theme park like Disneyland or Universal Studios or Sea World or Dollywood, for that matter, and theme just means the concept or idea that ties everything together. So how do these relate to themes that we either find, or want to create, in the books that we read and write?

The first step, and the most important step, is in separating what we mean by “theme” in books and stories from what we mean by theme in all these other circumstances. I want you to divorce the word theme from all the other connotations when we’re using it to talk about writing. It means something different, and getting it all thrown in with the other uses of theme will only complicate what we’re trying to do here today. So, at least for now, forget that you’ve ever heard the word “theme” before. YOu’re staring with a blank slate and ready to give it some meaning.

And to do that, we actually have to start with another word, but this one you already know. And that word is topic. Topic is simply a concept or a thing that is under discussion. It’s almost always one word, or maybe a phrase that sums up a single idea. Books will usually have a huge number of topics–things that it is talking about. For example, the book I’m writing right now is talking about earthquakes, survival, family, love, loss, religion, faith, trust, danger, hope, hopelessness, fear, and a bunch of other things. These are all topics, not themes. Let’s use Harry Potter as an example again. What are the topics of Harry Potter? Well, things like magic, friendship, education, good and evil, family, love, adventure, loneliness, and on and on. None of these things are themes, even though you might have been taught that they are. Forget all that nonsense. We already have a word for these things, and that word is TOPICS.

Now, we’re going to use TOPICS to find THEME. And remember, at this point, you have no idea what we mean by theme, so keep an open mind, a blank slate.

Let’s start by choosing one of the MAJOR topics