The Theme of it All

"Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go." E.L. Doctorow

***

Theme ~~ what is it and why do writer’s need the haunting lure of it to reign in the reader?

It is good practice to carry a theme throughout your story. The theme of your story is usually implied through other elements, such as point of view, setting, imagery and the tone set throughout your piece of work. The theme becomes illuminated through these elements of style.

The theme is the underlying consciousness of your work. It is a central idea running like a stream throughout your work making it come together like cogs on a machine. Your theme will be the bonding of you and the reader, where he/she has a lightbulb moment, grasping what you have conveyed. If you have no theme, more than likely, you have no story that will glue the reader to your words and pages.

Sometimes the theme is not planned and often it changes in mid-writing. You had planned on your theme to be about the acceptance of death on humanity, but something happened along the typing path that had you (unconsciously) shifting to the beauty of mortality.

An idea is of the broader spectrum of the rainbow, where as the theme becomes subjective without limitations to you or your reader; over the rainbow so-to-speak. It is like feeding to your reader what he was thinking to be a lighthearted comedy, instead he received a thought-provoking piece of art that touched him profoundly.

If you’ve written 2500 words and haven’t a clue as to what your theme is, maybe go back and re-read, seeing if you missed something. It is possible that even you, the writer, missed the boat.

The theme is the underlying canvas to which you place the paint. You pick up a paintbrush (that looks an awful lot like a pen) and in a whimsical spin you begin creating art with words. As you feel the artistic flow being created subconsciously you will be spilling part of your sight and wisdom onto the canvas creating …a theme.

1.Don’t force a theme ~ It can’t be done and will come off as preachy or forced.
 
2.Write what you know ~ Writing what you have experienced in life and the hardships is perfect for the theme setting to begin. In fiction embellish your heart out.
 
3.Use a psychological approach ~ Think depth when you write. Is there a deeper meaning than what you had anticipated?
 
4.Try subtlety ~ Being subtle makes the reader do the thinking on many levels.
 
5.Do NOT struggle ~ Struggling to find a theme or to make your theme work will also assist you in losing the personality of your characters. Writing should come naturally, the theme will surface without your realization. Accept the theme you have and don’t try to change it. Natural flow is best.

Plot! Plot! Fizz! Fizz!

Gen. 1: 1 "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
The very first plot was born

Yesterday we talked about theme and today we’re going to talk about plot. What, you thought they were one and the same? Well they differ slightly.

You see, the theme is what is carried throughout your story. Let say, good vs. evil and the good triumphs. (always does doesn’t it?) This struggle between good and evil is an underlying force swerving in and out of the lanes, around the bend and sometimes flies right off the edge of the cliff!

The plot is the reason behind the story. Why does the man fall in love, why doesn’t the woman fall for him, why on earth do they rob a bank? Why does the woman suddenly fall in love? What happens to their lives while on the run before getting nabbed?

A lot of times as you’re writing, the plot changes. Maybe you had in mind the above scenario of man meets woman, but then he finds that she has a child that she’s been hiding from her estranged ex-husband. They no longer want to rob a bank, they want to both see the child safely across the border into another country. These are the kind of conflicts that are going to keep the reader turning the pages.

You see? The plot isn’t a set of rules that you play by. Sure someone can say “plan your plot THEN write the story,” but as a writer (and as a human being) I find that plans never go the way they are intended. Unintentionally, they go somewhere you hadn’t planned at all. This is where the creative writer expands his/her imagination and delves into the unknown.

Breeding familiarity is not a place for your plot. Your story needs to be UNIQUE, something that ISN’T out there on the shelf right now. A lot of writers try the backward method. And that is writing the last scene first and backtracking to the beginning. Seeing it from this angle, you’re in the midst of creating a plot.

In essence the plot is the WHY your story is taking place (character’s etc.) You character is what’s going to shape your plot. Create a good character, give him/her their own profile, (what color eyes, hair, faults, vices, benefits etc.) With each part of the character’s development, the plot will surface. Always ask WHY and the next paragraph will form itself (in your mind’s eye.) Write your heart out without even thinking of a plot.

Allow the plot to become a mirage way off down the road, the closer you get to it, the clearer the whole picture becomes.

And whatever you do folks, WRITE RIGHT!

The Theme of Things

Theme ~~ what is it and why do writer’s need the haunting lure of it to reign in the reader?
***

It is good practice to carry a theme throughout your story. The theme of your story is usually implied through other elements, such as point of view, setting, imagery and the tone set throughout your piece of work. The theme becomes illuminated through these elements of style.

The theme is the underlying consciousness of your work. It is a central idea running like a stream throughout your work making it come together like cogs on a machine. Your theme will be the bonding of you and the reader, where he/she has a lightbulb moment, grasping what you have conveyed. If you have no theme, more than likely, you have no story that will glue the reader to your words and pages.

Sometimes the theme is not planned and often it changes in mid-writing. You had planned on your theme to be about the acceptance of death on humanity, but something happened along the typing path that had you (unconsciously) shifting to the beauty of mortality.

An idea is of the broader spectrum of the rainbow, where as the theme becomes subjective without limitations to you or your reader; over the rainbow so-to-speak. It is like feeding to your reader what he was thinking to be a lighthearted comedy, instead he received a thought-provoking piece of art that touched him profoundly.

If you’ve written 2500 words and haven’t a clue as to what your theme is, maybe go back and re-read, seeing if you missed something. It is possible that even you, the writer, missed the boat.

The theme is the underlying canvas to which you place the paint. You pick up a paintbrush (that looks an awful lot like a pen) and in a whimsical spin you begin creating art with words. As you feel the artistic flow being created subconsciously you will be spilling part of your sight and wisdom onto the canvas creating …a theme.

1.Don’t force a theme ~ It can’t be done and will come off as preachy or forced.

2.Write what you know ~ Writing what you have experienced in life and the hardships is perfect for the theme setting to begin. In fiction embellish your heart out.

3.Use a psychological approach ~ Think depth when you write. Is there a deeper meaning than what you had anticipated?

4.Try subtlety ~ Being subtle makes the reader do the thinking on many levels.

5.Do NOT struggle ~ Struggling to find a theme or to make your theme work will also assist you in losing the personality of your characters. Writing should come naturally, the theme will surface without your realization. Accept the theme you have and don’t try to change it. Natural flow is best.

Write Right friends!

Consistency

"Like the winding stream, writers need to know where to take the reader, down the consistent path." ~joni

Consistency is another attribute necessary to pulling off a story. We need to be consistent throughout our work so the reader doesn’t get confused. This isn’t the same as staying focused (although that helps a lot.) Consistency is where fact meets fact.

Say you’re writing a period piece of the roaring twenties. You will need to make sure that your scenes fit that era, and don’t accidentally toss in that, "She sat tapping on the keyboard all day." It is things like this that will have your reader doing a double take and say, "I thought this was 1925?"

You should never have cause to make your reader double back searching for birthdays and ages, and times of day. With consistency they will already know the time of the day that she had her first kiss, or the time his dad bought the young boy his first car.

These things might seem minor to you, but to your reader it is giving them a solid foundation of your character to hold onto. Flashbacks help a story, but if you miss the consistency check, you are certainly in trouble.

You need to be consistent in your language, consistent in terms, consistent in style. You can’t write short and to the point one-minute then lapse into a prose style the next. You can’t shift tenses or points of view; instead you need to be consistent throughout the piece.

Now long time published authors, I have witnessed, play with the tenses just to fool you, but they are masters at their trade. It is wise if you are new to the publishing world to write consistently so that your followers know your style, follow it compulsively, and look forward to the next installation of your work.

People have a tendency to like the ordinary and expecting you to write one way in one book and the same in the next and the next. They will become your followers and the ones that will promote you to "The most published author’s" list. Sure they expect the unexpected to happen in your spiritual novel or horror story, but they’ve come to love your consistent writing. That is what is going to carry you from one novel to the next.

When you read Stephen King and Dean Koontz, you know their style (although both are different, they are both extremely good at what they do.) They know what you want as writers. They feed off of knowing you, the reader, better than you know yourselves sometimes. They give you a tiny taste of what you can expect in the very first chapter and what happens, you pig out on the entire meal, over-indulge yourself into some hefty reading and wind up reading the whole book! (This is true of all novelists also, although I am a die hard King and Koontz fan.)

Know the reader; give them what they crave. Remember it is consistency that put the above authors where they are today. Without consistency they would have been shelved (pun intended) years ago.

Setting a Scene

Scene…setting

When I think of a scene I always think of a play. But not unlike the scene in a play our writing needs scenes to fill a novel or short story. A scene takes place with uninterrupted action.

Take for example two people in a restaurant. The scene calls for the pair to be intertwined in conversation. To set the scene you’ll need what it looks like, maybe add some clinking sounds from the table, kitchen and around the room. Aroma’s etc. can add to the scene. Why not give them a taste of pickle so they can scrunch their noses at the sour taste? Or bitter wine? Or maybe the woman tosses a glass of wine into the gentleman’s face and storms out of the restaurant.

The scene changes and new sights and sounds arrive to give the setting. It is possible for the character to change the view of her mind through a flashback, where she’ll set the scene of a past event.

The scene is going to set the stage for your plot (a separate blog.) Maybe it is a period piece and the cars have antiquity as they pass along the street. Maybe a horse and buggy is going to be the vehicle of choice. Whatever the case may be, your scenes and settings will carry your story as much as the plot will.

Brilliant scenes can have a lasting impression on your reader. When something significant happens, you know your are in the midst of building a great scene. A scene isn’t having a man walk to his car. Is that significant? No. The scene should advance the character or theme along. This is when you know you’ve made a powerful scene in your work.

When telling a story every element serves a specific purpose. The scene is going to set the stage for action to take place. It must be action that is pertinent to the story. Redundancy is unnecessary if you’ve made a scene strong enough in the reader’s mind.
You don’t need to take a scene of Mary tossing the wine in her man’s face and keep repeating her tendencies towards anger. Making a strong enough point the first time, the reader can clearly see an angry streak.

Make your scenes have a purpose. Have a functionality of the sbeautiful vista so it can carry the weight of the words, have room for your metaphors (sparingly) and like a spiders web the story will intricately be spun into a tale of the times.