[Link] How to Develop the Theme of Your Story

by Jerry Jenkins

Without a deeper meaning than just its plot, your story remains a shell of what it could be.

A story with a theme answers, what does this mean?

That’s the kind of a story that resonates with readers and stays with them.

Getting Started: What Is Theme?

Plot is what happens Theme is why it happens. Why you’re telling this story. It’s the message you want readers to take away.

In fact, I urge you to determine why you want to tell a story before you even begin. Know why you’re writing what you’re writing. Don’t just write to write. That’s not a good enough reason to be a writer. Write because you have something to say.

Ask yourself:

What will this story teach my reader about life?

If you write to merely entertain, don’t expect your stuff to be memorable.
Clear Theme Examples

• Aesop’s Fable "The Tortoise and the Hare" (The danger of overconfidence)
• George Orwell’s 1984 (The beauty of individual freedom and the danger of absolute power)
• Lord of the Rings by J.R.R.Tolkien (Love and mercy overcome evil)
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (Endurance and perseverance know no age)
• "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry (The timeless beauty of sacrificial love)
• The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (The dearest things to us are often found at home)

Allowing Theme to Speak for Itself

Resist the urge to explicitly state your theme in the story. That may have worked in a quaint way with Dorothy at the end of The Wizard of Oz, but readers today don’t need the theme writ large. Tell your story and it should explore your theme and make its own point.

Readers are smart.

Subtly weave your theme into a story and trust readers to get it. Don’t rob them of the experience.

Read the full article: https://jerryjenkins.com/story-themes/

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #320 -- Worldview

Do you write with a theme in mind, or do you just have a worldview 

that writes itself into your work through you? Or do you work hard
to keep anything that "meta" out of your work? How so?

It's different each time I put my fingers to the keyboard and begin to write a story. Sometimes I begin with a theme and a tone. I know that can come across as a rather heavy-handed way of telling a tale, but it's a line I choose to walk when I have something important to say. Most of the time, however, I simply start telling a story, and I let the chips fall where they may (to use the cliche). I assume that my work will ultimately have a sort of collective theme because I have a worldview and it will seep out of me into my stories in the same way that if I were an apple tree I would produce apples. I don't, and rightly so I feel, try to keep anything "meta" like theme out of my stories. I think those are important elements in a writer's work, whether put there intentionally or grown there organically.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #315 -- Nostalgia Filter

How much does a sense of nostalgia influence (or inspire, 

and is there a difference) your current body of work?

I'll admit that I'm a nostalgia-filtered person. I can't help it. And it's getting even stronger the older I get. I get nostalgic about my MeMe's house. I get nostalgic about the easy-reader, illustrated classic paperbacks I grew up reading. I get nostalgic about my Childcraft Encyclopedia set (plus the first few years of annuals) I devoured during my childhood. I get nostalgic about things like my Aunt Sarah's salt and pepper shakers that she gave Lisa and me as a wedding present.

And yes, I also get nostalgic about the things that influenced me as a writer.

In short. I'm a sap. Plain and simple.

But if I'm doing my job right as a writer, I'm trying to keep that nostalgia to mere inspiration and not actually influence on my work. A case in point: Reading C.S. Lewis made me want to be a writer. But my first stories were so influenced by Lewis that they are clearly not my stories. They're me trying to be him.

The same could go for all this pulp work I'm doing currently but for me having to constantly reset my nostalgia filter while I create. It would be way too easy to just write these characters the way I envision them in my memories, but that's not fair to my readers, nor is it fair to the characters and concepts. Things grow. Things change. Things mature.

So, yes, I want to write stories that feel like something familiar, but not merely something familiar. I want my stories to go beyond that and say something new, something memorable, something intrinsic to the reader.

Writing through Nostalgia-Colored Glasses

We're all inspired to write, at least in part, by things we've seen and experienced before. It's just human nature. When those experiences are looked back upon fondly, that's the birth of nostalgia. It can influence everything from the kind of TV shows we like to watch to the way we dress -- and even we kinds of stories we tell and the way we tell them.

So, that's what we're going to look at this week, this idea of nostalgia and how much it can influence our work as writers.

How much does a sense of nostalgia influence (or inspire, and is there a difference) your current body of work?

Gordon Dymowski: I would definitely say nostalgia inspires my writing: I want readers to feel the same thrill that I experienced reading certain genres. I don't think nostalgia influences my work - I really work hard to have a modern, contemporary voice despite being set in a particular time period. I'm always thinking of what I would like the reader to experience, but work hard to make sure that my prose has a quality of immediacy rather than wistfulness.

Selah Janel: I think nostalgia tends to influence me a great deal, but it does so in different ways. There’s the obvious ploy of dating stories or writing them around pop culture to speak to readers, and I may do that a little with themes of music and the like, but I more or less gravitate to what I really enjoyed while I was growing up. Theme-wise, I’ve always loved folk and faerie tales, I’ve always enjoyed speculating about what else could be out there, and I still continue to hold to those themes. I also think I’ve had this weird romanticism of mundane life since I was a kid, and I find myself going back to that a lot when writing. Genre-wise, I think a lot of my sensibilities were probably shaped by the eighties in some form or another: you could argue that the rock music that creeps into my worlds comes from there, that the vampires I write are a throwback to being influenced by The Lost Boys, all types of things. Still, I don’t like making anything a carbon copy of those influences…I prefer to let it inspire me than to redo it wholesale. If anything, those feelings I got as a kid of being overwhelmed or feeling in love with life or spooked by what I love influence me as much as what I saw on the toy shelf any given day.

Percival Constantine: I think there's a sense of nostalgia in my work, particularly my current serial, VANGUARD. It was very much inspired by the X-Men/Avengers comics of the 70s and 80s. Lots of done-in-one tales that feature a villain and a story while there are plot threads that carry over in the background from issue to issue. My other stories feature this kind of influence as well--my fantasy novel SOULQUEST was very much inspired by Final Fantasy VII, one of my all-time favorite video games, and THE MYTH HUNTER's Elisa Hill wears the influence of Indiana Jones on her sleeve.

What are the benefits of having a strong sense of nostalgia in your work? What are the dangers?

Selah Janel: I think emotionally, people can connect to a very strong sense of nostalgia. If you make it too obvious, it might as well be product placement, but I think if done well, you can really have a type of conversation with your readers. When I read Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine, it doesn’t feel dated to me. I remember what it’s like to have a friend move away, I used to love getting new shoes, that sort of thing. That whole book is nostalgia, and it works tremendously well and has touched a lot of people.  The danger is that if you load something with too much detail, too much pop culture, or too much of your singular experience, it becomes harder for people to relate to, and they’re picturing a materialistic image rather than what that object or experience may have meant to them. In some ways it’s why all these movie remakes miss the mark so horribly: because people are nostalgic for certain franchises, studios assume it’s because of one or two key reasons instead of realizing that it’s much more of an emotional thing, something that’s much harder to reproduce. In a lot of ways, that’s easier to do in books, but you still have to tread a certain line and give a reader a certain amount of space after drawing them in. Otherwise, you risk turning people off or distancing them.

Percival Constantine: The benefits of having a strong sense of nostalgia is that it gives readers something familiar. As much as audiences say they want something new and different, the truth is the majority cleaves towards the familiar. It's why sequels, reboots, and adaptations are so popular in Hollywood, because that's what audiences will go to see in droves. The downside is that too much nostalgia can make it seem like your work is nothing more than a cheap knock-off of whatever property influenced you. So there's a fine line to walk. You want the work to be familiar enough so that audiences will feel comfortable giving it a shot, but at the same time it has to be different enough to set it apart from what's come before.

Gordon Dymowski: Having a sense of nostalgia makes it much easier to build credibility with a reader - after all, if your tale of a two-fisted masked vigilante is like other tales of two-fisted vigilantes, your work is half complete. The danger (and I see this in quite a bit of New Pulp....especially in my own work) is the tendency to be blinded by nostalgia. Sometimes, it's easy to do variations on a theme without bringing anything new, original, or even distinctive. Nostalgia can only take you so far; the rest is dependent upon telling a good story.

How do you know when it becomes too much and starts to impact the story in a bad way, and how do you remedy that in your work?

Gordon Dymowski: My immediate tell-tale sign is when I identify too many plot elements or storytelling tricks that I've picked up from other writers, or I feel conflicted about a particular character's progress in the story. For me, the challenge is to remember that I'm writing within a distinct time and place, and that my writing needs to reflect *now*, even if I am writing in a familiar genre or with a familiar character.

Percival Constantine: That's a tough question. I think if you get to a point where you could replace your main character's name with the name of the character that influences your work without it seeming out of place, then that's a problem. I think nostalgia is good as a starting point, but once you have that template, you have to differentiate it from your influences and help the character come out from under the shadow of those influences. One thing I do is I try to focus more on a tone of nostalgia than nostalgic characters, or to mix and match influences from different characters. For example, if you compared those Avengers comics of the 70s/80s to The Ultimates revamp, there's a clear difference. The Avengers takes a much more hopeful, maybe even idealistic view of the world whereas The Ultimates approaches superheroes with a very nihilist view. I try to keep a similar tone to the former as opposed to the latter. So the world the characters are in, the way I choose to structure my stories, the types of characters I write about, these are all influenced by the Avengers. But the characters themselves aren't just ciphers for the Avengers. You can't point to Gunsmith and say, "that's Captain America" or Paragon and say "totally the Wasp." I may have used aspects of those characters as a starting point, but I built past them in order to stop the characters from being cheap knock-offs. So to answer your question after a very long-winded response, it basically comes down to character.

Selah Janel: For me, it’s not just overdetail, but it’s a certain type of overdetail. If I’m reading something and it’s way too concerned about what characters are wearing and dating every little thing within a certain time period, that’s going to get annoying and slow the story way down, especially if It’s set in the real world.  I lived through the eighties and nineties, I can picture it, I don’t need every little thing to help me live through it again. I think, too, that if people are writing about experiences or time frames that they’re not fully committed to or haven’t lived through and they don’t do the research and really get things wrong, that’s also damning. That just tells me that you were trying to play nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake and not because you care about what you’re writing about. There has to be some sense of emotional connection there and not “oh I’m writing about this geeky thing because people dig it, or this decade because it’s in right now.” People eventually catch on, and will stop reading if they feel that the nostalgia isn’t there for a real reason. At the end of the day, part of nostalgia is not just a love of what’s come before, but a longing for it, a sort of hollowness left by that love, and that’s what you really want to convey. It’s not just “oh, do you remember this?” It’s “Do you remember why you loved that, why you miss it now?”

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #312 -- The Grand Theme

Looking over your body of work, does a cohesive theme seem to be present in it? If so what is it?

I think perhaps the most noticeable theme in my stories thus far centers around redemption, or at least the possibility of it.

I tend to write characters looking for redemption because of some past failure (that in many cases lead to present failure too), but when they have it just within reach, they either falter and make the choice that leads them further away from it -- or they manage to find it, but at some great cost to the person they are at that moment, for example, something physical like losing life or a limb or a lover, or having to admit something crucial to their psychological identity, such as having to face the truth about something they didn't already realize about themselves.

I think this comes from my background as a Calvinist. I'm a firm believer in the concept of original sin (kids don't have to be taught to lie or be greedy, but they do have to be taught not to). I also believe as a religious person that redemption, no matter how hard we fight for it, can't come through our own efforts alone, and that seeking it in and of ourselves will always lead to failure. But, on a hopeful note, that failure then leads to finding true redemption after all.

Sadly, that doesn't always lead to my characters' happiness.

I also tend to share the notion of the existential hero, the protagonist who realizes the universe doesn't care about him, but stands up in the face of it all and perseveres anyway. Just living and trying to eek out some small stake in the world is a profound act of victory and demonstrates the miracle that is humanity.

Both of these, I know, sound like hoity-toity, lit-major kinds of things, but let's face it, even though I'm a genre writer today, I did get my start as a lit-major and a lit-writer. So, I'm stuck with it.

==============================================================

Something to Say -- Writers on Theme

You can't tell any kind of a story without having some kind of a theme, something to say between the lines. -- Robert Wise

Obviously we're talking about theme this week. So let's get to it.

Looking over your body of work, does a cohesive theme seem to be present in it? If so what is it?

Stephanie Osborn: I don't know that there is a cohesive theme in my work. I don't set out to put a message in, but to write a good story. There are some books/series that do have loose overarching themes, but in general I guess my thought is that "There is always more going on than meets the eye," or, said a different way, "Things always work out the way they're supposed to."

Rebekah McAuliffe: As I've been looking back at Gears, and even now while I'm writing ALPHA, there's always been this theme of acceptance and sticking up for "the least of these," no matter the cost. This issue is very close to my heart, not only as a woman of faith ("Whatsoever you do for the least of these, you do for me"), but as someone who has witnessed poverty, and the hardships that many people go through, and the crap that they get from other groups of people.

Logan Masterson: I consider theme to be pretty damned important, and I pay it a lot of mind. Sometimes, when I begin a new story, I'm not sure quite what the theme will be. More often, it makes itself known early on in the process. My favorite themes are all very human. Justice, freedom, love, despair. And I do tend toward the darker side of things.

Percival Constantine: I don't think there's really a cohesive theme in my entire body of work. Redemption seems to occur a bit, though. So does escaping the past.

Bill Craig: Sometimes the stories determine the theme, sometimes the theme emerges with the writing of the story.

H. David Blalock: My last series (The Angelkiller Triad) appears to have been the most blatant example, although I can now see it through much of my past work as well. I have to admit, then, there is a great deal of truth in the adage that a writer puts him or herself in their work, whether by attitude or inference. I would like to think that stubbornness and courage my characters show in the face of adversity is a reflection of my own worldview even if I would doubt my own courage in their circumstances.

Rose Streif: The most obvious theme is that of being an outsider, often in a hostile world.  The outsider status is often bestowed by birth or by fate, and it is up to that character (or those characters) to survive when their very existence unnerves or even causes a violent reaction in those around them. It is also up to them to (somewhat paraphrasing Nietzsche) not become monsters themselves, however monstrous they may feel, or however monstrous the world perceives them to be.

Desmond Reddick: There are a few that crop up. Coping with legacy is a big one, and so is kicking against the pricks, usually apocalyptic circumstances in that aspect. 

Do you write with a theme in mind, or do you just have a worldview that writes itself into your work through you? Or do work hard to keep anything that "meta" out of your work? How so?

Stephanie Osborn: I'm a licensed Christian minister, so I do have a worldview that I try to ensure that the good guys don't violate, or at least realize as a mistake when they do. Bad guys by definition are gonna violate that, and I'm not going to pull punches in my writing to soft-pedal that. Drama is all about conflict, and the conflict between good and evil is about is dramatic as it gets. But the story always comes first.

Of all the books, I think my Displaced Detective series comes closest to "writing with a theme in mind," but that theme is one of parallelism. The books come from the concept of multiple universes, and if I am actively writing about these alternate realities, as I did in the first 4 books in the series, I keep in mind that concept of parallelism -- as for instance Skye Chadwick is her universe's Sherlock Holmes, etc.

Rebekah McAuliffe: Sometimes I may start with a theme, but then as I write the story, the theme will shift on its own. For instance, Gears of Golgotha was originally meant to be a commentary on the science vs. religion debate (get it? science (Chemists) and religion (Mages?)). That was even where the name came from: Gears for science, Golgotha for religion. But then as I kept writing, it evolved into something greater.

Logan Masterson: Themes can become too heavy, but I find that focusing on the characters and plot when actually laying down the words keeps me from getting preachy. I hope that's true, anyway.

Percival Constantine: I don't write with a theme in mind. I focus on the characters and the story and through that, a theme will kind of develop by the time I'm done with the first draft.

Bill Craig: I deal with certain themes in different series because I seem them as real world problems that need to be kept in front of the public eye, human trafficking being one. I dealt with it in the Jack Riley title the Child Stealers, dealt with it again in Decker P.I. A cold and Lonely Death, And in Marlow: Mango Run, and touched on it slightly in Chandler: Circle City Shakedown.
     
H. David Blalock: Looking back at my work over the years, there does seem to be something of a theme. I would call it "Resist the inevitable". Refuse to give in, no matter the odds. Stand up for yourself and others even when it seems futile. I can't say I've used this theme deliberately. It does seem, however, to be the driving force.

Rose Streif: I do write with themes in the back of my mind, and inevitably my worldview and interests are going to color what I write.  I try to blend them in as seamlessly as possible, and I try to be understanding when people just don't "get it".  Sometimes subtlety works against you, and you always run the risk of running into that person who is so wrapped up in their own worldview that they can't possibly see yours, even when they think they do.

John Morgan Neal: I don't have a conscious theme. Mostly my stuff is born from the stuff 12-year-old John Neal really liked and wanted to see more of. 

Desmond Reddick: No, absolutely not. The themes are common, but they spring up on their own. 

When writing, have you ever had so strong a sense of theme occur in the work that you felt it overpowered the story? How did you remedy that?

Stephanie Osborn: No, never have had that happen. Like I said, the Displaced Detective series has the strongest ongoing theme of any of my books, and I think the parallelism theme only makes the whole thing stronger, personally. I think that you have to be so involved with theme that you become fixated on it, for it to become overpowering of the story. And if that's the case, you need to back off and lay down the theme and gain some fresh perspective before you try to write on it again.

Rebekah McAuliffe: The original ending to Gears. I'll admit, that first ending was complete s**t. I edited it, and the new rereleased version will have the new and improved ending.

Logan L. Masterson: As an author of genre fiction, I never want theme to be the focus of the readers' experience. I want them wrapped up in thrilling events and captivating people. A good theme is like air, ephemeral and ubiquitous.

Percival Constantine: Yeah, but it wasn't when I was writing the story, it was after I had finished it. Years after, in fact, I felt that I was far too heavy-handed with the theme of my first book. After that, I decided I'd focus more on the story and the characters and worry less about the theme in future works.

Rose Streif: I maintain an awareness at all times, and I try not to let the theme take over the story, to preach and pander, because that yanks the reader out of the flow of things and puts them at the mercy of a person on a soapbox.  We get enough of that in real life.  In any case, if you want to get a point across, it's best to put the reader in the shoes of a sympathetic character and show them by example what it is to live that character's life.

Desmond Reddick: That's interesting. No. But I'm not sure how I would resolve that situation. If I felt it was getting "preachy" (ie: a lesson versus a theme) I'd have to change it.

New Pulp Writer

By Jim Beard (based on "Paperback Writer" by the Beatles)

With sincere apologies... ;)

New Pulp writer, New Pulp writer…

Dear Ron or Tom, will you read my pulp,
It took me hours to write, all in one big gulp,
It's based on a novel by a man named Dent,
And I need a job, so I want to be a New Pulp back writer,

New Pulp writer!

It's a dirty story with some dirty fights,
And a man slinking `round in the dead of night.
His girl remains clueless without fail,
It's a cliché, I know,
But I want to be a New Pulp writer,

New Pulp writer!

It's 60,000 words, give or take a few,
I'll be writing more in a hour or two,
I can make it rougher if you like the style,
I can change the genre,
And I want to be a New Pulp writer,

New Pulp writer!

Even if you like it, I want to keep the rights,
It could make a few bucks for us overnight,
If you must return it you can send it here,
But I need a break,
And I want to be a New Pulp writer,

New Pulp writer!

The Watson Report: Whose Afraid of Mary Sue?

by I.A. "Ian Sue" Watson

In 1973, Paula Smith published “A Trekkie’s Tale”, a parody of fan-written stories. In it, Mary-Sue, “the youngest lieutenant in Starfleet – only fifteen and a half”, joins the crew of the USS Enterprise, and proves to be essential to the survival of the ship, demonstrating a remarkable competence and claiming a place in the hearts of Kirk, McCoy, and even Spock. The wish-fulfilment character represents the fantasy of a series enthusiast entering and interacting with the series they love.

Since that time, “Mary-Sue” has become a byword for non-satirical author-inserted characters who seem to be fulfilling the writer’s own fantasies, often but not always in an ongoing series that did not originate with them. This character often speaks with the author’s voice, correcting what the author feels are problems with the ongoing story, addressing long term situations and earning the gratitude of regular characters, and even displacing romantic leads to win the heart of a favourite cast member.

We see the phenomena in books and comics. For example, Brian Bendis has faced “Mary-Sue” accusations for his use of Jessica Jones, retconned into Avengers history as a “dear old friend” who has now become an essential staple of the series and romances an established “cool” character.

Other authors write their own primary character as a “Mary-Sue”. This criticism is sometimes aimed at Ian Fleming, for example. James Bond, whom “men want to be and women want”, might be an idealised version of his own younger self. There are many omni-competent and always-right characters in adventure and pulp fiction of whom a similar charge might be made.

But are “Mary-Sues” always a bad thing? Dorothy L. Sayers tended to write versions of herself into her stories. Early Lord Peter Wimsey stories occasionally feature Marjorie Phelps, a young independent woman living a Bohemian life in Chelsea, who occasionally assists Lord Peter with his investigations. Sayers herself had lived a similar life. The strong-willed Oxford graduate Miss Meteyard from “Murder Must Advertise” works at an advertising agency just as Sayers herself did for a decade. Meteyard penetrates Wimsey’s cover and solves the murder before him, but says nothing because “it’s none of her business”. In “The Nine Tailors” fifteen year-old Hilary Thorpe wants to study at Oxford and become a writer. She is “striking looking rather than beautiful”, whip-smart in helping solve the case, and by the end of the novel Lord Peter is her trustee.

Of course, all these pale into insignificance against Miss Harriet Vane, a detective novelist graduated from Oxford, who lived with a poet who claimed he did not believe in marriage then left him when he offered her marriage anyway “like a good-conduct badge”. Sayers herself graduated from Oxford, lived with a poet, and broke from him for the same reasons. Of course, Sayers’ ex-lover was not found murdered in the same way as the victim of her latest book, but Mary-Sues must be allowed some wish fulfilment. Miss Vane’s former inamoratas did perish in such a way, leaving her facing death by hanging unless rescued by Lord Peter Wimsey – who falls desperately in love with her.

Miss Vane appears in four of the Wimsey books. Her debut in “Strong Poison” leaves a powerful impression, but her “screen-time” is limited because she is behind bars. Her second appearance begins with her actually discovering the body in the case. “Have His Carcase” is mostly told from her point of view. “Gaudy Night”, her third appearance, might properly be described as a Harriet Vane mystery with Lord Peter Wimsey appearances. The narrative follows her throughout, with the detective overseas on government work for two-thirds of the book. “Busman’s Honeymoon” describes the discovery of a corpse on the morning after Wimsey marries Harriet, and was described by Sayers herself as “a romance story with detective interruptions”.

From these summaries, a reader not familiar with the Wimsey corpus might conclude that the appearance of Miss Vane wrecked the series, robbing the central hero of the spotlight in favour of an idealised ego-trip character. But this is simply not true; hence my citing it in such detail as an example of Why Mary-Sues Don’t Necessarily Have To Be Bad.

In fact the Vane/Wimsey novels take on a fresh life. It’s clear that Sayers was far more engaged with them than some others she wrote merely to fulfil a publisher’s contract. Even Wimsey’s absence helps the story. We get impressions of him from other cast and his eventual appearance comes with added impact. Harriet is fleshed out in all her tormented complicatedness, and if based on Sayers must have been painful to write. “What does pain matter if it makes a good story?” Wimsey asks Vane at one point. If there’s wish-fulfilment in Harriet’s eventual happy ending with Sayers’ greatest literary creation then it’s paid for in the author’s naked analysis of herself to tell a powerful narrative.

Writers are often advised to “write what you know”. What does a writer know better than themselves? Are not many of our characters drawn from some exaggerated aspect of ourselves, or of whom we would like to be? Who would not like to believe that the best of our personal traits should win us success, love, or acclaim? Which of us does not have personal tragedies that we could mine for story material if only it did not hurt too much?

So, while “Mary-Sue” characters are typically seen as juvenile, amateur, or series-spoiling, I wonder if there is a role for such personally-invested creations in their proper context. Can and should an author project themselves so fully into a character – and what happens then?

[Link] 25 Things Writers Should Know About Theme

by Chuck Wendig

1. Every Story Is An Argument

Every story’s trying to say something. It’s trying to beam an idea, a message, into the minds of the readers. In this way, every story is an argument. It’s the writer making a case. It’s the writer saying, “All of life is suffering.” Or, “Man will be undone by his prideful reach.” Or “Love blows.” Or, “If you dance with the Devil Wombat, you get cornholed by the Devil Wombat.” This argument is the story’s theme.

2. The Elements Of Story Support That Argument

If the theme, then, is the writer’s thesis statement, then all elements of the story — character, plot, word choice, scene development, inclusion of the Devil Wombat — go toward proving that thesis.

3. Unearthed Or Engineered

The theme needn’t be something the writer is explicitly aware of — it may be an unconscious argument, a message that has crept into the work like a virus capable of overwriting narrative DNA, like a freaky dwarven stalker hiding in your panty drawers and getting his greasy Norseman stink all over your undergarments. A writer can engineer the theme — building it into the work. Or a writer can unearth it — discovering its tendrils after the work is written.

Continue reading: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/09/26/25-things-writers-should-know-about-theme/

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now (#230) -- Recurring Themes

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

First let me state that I agree with author John Gardner concerning theme:  "By theme here we mean not a message -- a word no good writer likes applied to his work -- but the general subject, as the theme of an evening of debates may be World Wide Inflation."

Themes is the word, it's got groove, it's got meaning...

I have a shallow well of only a few common themes from which I draw typically, including :

• marriage vows ("Posthumous," "Death Imitates Art")
• betrayal ("Die Giftig Lilie," "Lucky Strikes")
• perseverance ("Dance with the Devil")
• righteousness like filthy rags ("Death with a Hint of Bronze," "Farewell")
• self sacrifice ("Limits," "Fishnet Angel," "Sin and Error Pining")
• living a lie ("Pleasant Valley Sunday," "How Does One Know")
• the quest for family ("Cherry Hill," "It's Christmas, Baby Please Come Home," "Angels of our Better Nature," "Farm Fresh")
• true learning only comes through loss ("Once Upon a Time," "Take My Hand, Take My Whole Life Too (A Love Story)," "The Other, As Just As Fair")
• redemption ("The Ghost of Christmas Past," "Nor Doth He Sleep")
• the female as hero ("The Most Beautiful Dream," "Foolish Notions," "The Other, As Just As Fair," "Lake Jennifer Blair")

Even so I don't typically approach a story with a theme in hand and try to beat it into place with a hammer.

I prefer to let it develop naturally as the story progresses because the characters lend themselves to it and because of who I am as the writer creating the tale as it filters through my imagination.

So, somehow, these are the issues I guess that define me as a writer, and I guess they always manage to sneak into my stories in spite of my trying to write around them.

[Link] Raymond Chandler, "The Simple Art of Murder" (1950)

Editor's Note: This is perhaps the single finest essay on the art of writing pulp detectives, and I'm thrilled to have found it available online. Enjoy! -- ST

Fiction in any form has always intended to be realistic. Old-fashioned novels which now seem stilted and artificial to the point of burlesque did not appear that way to the people who first read them. Writers like Fielding and Smollett could seem realistic in the modern sense because they dealt largely with uninhibited characters, many of whom were about two jumps ahead of the police, but Jane Austen’s chronicles of highly inhibited people against a background of rural gentility seem real enough psychologically. There is plenty of that kind of social and emotional hypocrisy around today. Add to it a liberal dose of intellectual pretentiousness and you get the tone of the book page in your daily paper and the earnest and fatuous atmosphere breathed by discussion groups in little clubs. These are the people who make bestsellers, which are promotional jobs based on a sort of indirect snob-appeal, carefully escorted by the trained seals of the critical fraternity, and lovingly tended and watered by certain much too powerful pressure groups whose business is selling books, although they would like you to think they are fostering culture. Just get a little behind in your payments and you will find out how idealistic they are.

The detective story for a variety of reasons can seldom be promoted. It is usually about murder and hence lacks the element of uplift. Murder, which is a frustration of the individual and hence a frustration of the race, may have, and in fact has, a good deal of sociological implication. But it has been going on too long for it to be news. If the mystery novel is at all realistic (which it very seldom is) it is written in a certain spirit of detachment; otherwise nobody but a psychopath would want to write it or read it. The murder novel has also a depressing way of minding its own business, solving its own problems and answering its own questions. There is nothing left to discuss, except whether it was well enough written to be good fiction, and the people who make up the half-million sales wouldn’t know that anyway. The detection of quality in writing is difficult enough even for those who make a career of the job, without paying too much attention to the matter of advance sales.

The detective story (perhaps I had better call it that, since the English formula still dominates the trade) has to find its public by a slow process of distillation. That it does do this, and holds on thereafter with such tenacity, is a fact; the reasons for it are a study for more patient minds than mine. Nor is it any part of my thesis to maintain that it is a vital and significant form of art. There are no vital and significant forms of art; there is only art, and precious little of that. The growth of populations has in no way increased the amount; it has merely increased the adeptness with which substitutes can be produced and packaged.

Yet the detective story, even in its most conventional form, is difficult to write well. Good specimens of the art are much rarer than good serious novels. Rather second-rate items outlast most of the high velocity fiction, and a great many that should never have been born simply refuse to die at all. They are as durable as the statues in public parks and just about that dull. This is very annoying to people of what is called discernment. They do not like it that penetrating and important works of fiction of a few years back stand on their special shelf in the library marked "Best-Sellers of Yesteryear," and nobody goes near them but an occasional shortsighted customer who bends down, peers briefly and hurries away; while old ladies jostle each other at the mystery shelf to grab off some item of the same vintage with a title like The Triple Petunia Murder Case, or Inspector Pinchbottle to the Rescue. They do not like it that "really important books" get dusty on the reprint counter, while Death Wears Yellow Garters is put out in editions of fifty or one hundred thousand copies on the news-stands of the country, and is obviously not there just to say goodbye.

Continue reading: http://www.en.utexas.edu/amlit/amlitprivate/scans/chandlerart.html

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now (#143) -- Why Pulp Heroes

As a writer, what is it about pulp heroes that drives you to write them?

If you ask the average pulp writer, you'll get an answer like this most likely: "I love to write pulp heroes because they're the clear-cut good guys who face the clear-cut bad guys and they have all this straight-up action without all the self-doubt and meandering introspection and flowery narrative."

My answer is slightly different. I do agree about the adventures of pulp heroes not being bogged down in flowery narrative and meandering introspection, but I don't mind a little self-doubt and shades of gray in my heroes from time to time.

It's precisely those opportunities and luxuries that the original writers didn't have with them that makes me love to write them. That's why I love new pulp. Because it takes the ideas of classic pulp and allows us to see them and write them through modern eyes and modern techniques.

I think the idea of dealing head-on with the racism and sexism of the 1930s makes for a great pulp story, especially for a character who has never had to accept its existence until now (with the benefit of a modern writer). I think writing a typical "good guy" into a situation where he has to choose between two "bad" options to win the day (and then deal with the repercussions of his choice) makes another awesome story idea. I think that creating new heroes in that setting with more visible feet of clay and shades of gray (hey that's a cool title for a pulp book, isn't it, FEET OF CLAY AND SHADES OF GRAY) to inhabit the dark and dingy world of the true 1930s is a great deal of fun.

And that's what I like about writing pulp characters -- not the legacy but the opportunity to explore that legacy with fresh, modern eyes.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now (#42) --Theme

Do you plan your story's theme before writing or does it take shape as you write?

I have a shallow well of only a few common themes from which I draw typically, including :

• marriage vows ("Posthumous," "Death Imitates Art")
• betrayal ("Die Giftig Lilie")
• perseverance ("Dance with the Devil")
• righteousness like filthy rags ("Death with a Hint of Bronze," "Farewell")
• self sacrifice ("Limits," "Fishnet Angel," "Sin and Error Pining")
• living a lie ("Pleasant Valley Sunday," "How Does One Know")
• the quest for family ("Cherry Hill," "It's Christmas, Baby Please Come Home," "Angels of our Better Nature")
• true learning only comes through loss ("Once Upon a Time," "Take My Hand, Take My Whole Life Too (A Love Story)," "The Other, As Just As Fair")
• redemption ("The Ghost of Christmas Past," "Nor Doth He Sleep")

Even so I don't typically approach a story with a theme in hand and try to beat it into place with a hammer.

I prefer to let it develop naturally as the story progresses because the characters lend themselves to it and because of who I am as the writer creating the tale as it filters through my imagination.

So, somehow, these are the issues I guess that define me as a writer, and I guess they always manage to sneak into my stories in spite of my trying to write around them.