Okay, so. Ranting time. How to find a theme, my personal run-down of what a theme is, character arc discussions, etc.
Theme is a pretty major part of a story. Even in plot-driven stories, there’s gonna be some underlying theme or lesson that an author is trying to show to an audience, even if it’s unintentional. The most basic good vs. evil, totally plot driven story will still have a theme...good vs. evil. Which is vague. But it’s enough, technically speaking, to be classified as a theme.
Stories are built to convey meaning, as well as to entertain. It’s totally fine if you put the majority of your focus on developing interesting and unique plots and characters, because that’s what’s going to hold your readers’ attention.
But your story will carry the most meaning for both you and your readers if you give your characters arcs and have a theme running through your story.
What is a theme?
The simplest way of explaining a theme that I’ve found:
The theme is the lesson or idea you’re trying to teach an audience through character development and change, without being preachy.
If all the characters are obnoxious, perfect angels who talk way too much about love and joy and sunflowers, you’ll probably just end up annoying readers. And, we don’t want to be too on the nose with it. Often, characters won’t even be able to identify their own issues and what they need to fix, but the plot will provide them with a good opportunity for them to take matters into their own hands and fix it (or make it worse, if you want to write a negative arc).
How to find your theme?
Pick whatever lesson or idea you want your audience to see. If you have a few ideas, write ‘em all down and roll with one, or even multiple if you want to tackle that.
Pick something you’re passionate about, you feel like you could improve on, you want others to come to understand, whatever you want.
Positive, negative, and flat arcs
For example, a theme could be standing up for yourself. You could have a main character who lets themselves get pushed around a lot, and through character arcs and the magical plot, they come out better and learn how to stand up for themselves. That’s a positive arc. Goes in bad, comes out better.
In How To Train Your Dragon, Hiccup learns to let go of what others expect of him, and to do what he believes is right. He blatantly disobeys his father, whom he desperately wants to please, all for the sake of doing what he believes is right. The dragons don’t deserve to die, and Hiccup learns to stand up for that.
Or, as a negative arc, a theme could be standing up for and defending yourself, but the character could, through the events of the plot, become so afraid of being hurt again that they take self-defense too far and turn to “the dark side.” Negative arc. Goes in bad or good, depending on your story, and comes out worse.
I would say Azula from The Last Airbender is a pretty good one here. She’s the perfect princess. Talented. Smart. Beautiful. She has her father’s approval, and he literally crowned her as the new Fire Lord. But it’s not enough for her. The emotional abuse has left her permanently scarred, and she can’t take it anymore. She loses her sanity and is defeated. No matter how many terrible choices she’s made, the audience still feels pity for her because of her sympathetic background.
You’ve also got flat arcs, which are less focused on personal growth within the character and more on the events around them. The character’s morals and ideas don’t shift much over the course of the story.
Basically, it often results in boring characters. Everybody likes to see their characters change, and flat arcs just don’t do it for me most of the time.
Character arcs can be as complicated or as simple as you want.
When it comes to character arcs getting complicated, that’s...the plot. So, your arc can be as simple as the plot, or it can be as complicated as the plot. They go hand-in-hand.
So if you want a simple, clear-cut character arc and a nicely packaged theme, you can keep the plot simple. Or you can make it complicated if that’s your cup of tea.
Simple. Does. Not. Mean. Boring.
If your characters are good and have interesting arcs, trust me. It won’t be a boring story. Look at Pride and Prejudice. I have no idea who first said it, but “it’s basically just a bunch of people going to each others’ houses.” It’s true. But the characters are interesting and have good arcs, and you root for them no matter how boring the exterior plot may seem.
How to know if your character has a good arc?
Compare your character at the start to how they are at the end. Have they changed in any way, either growing as a character or becoming worse in some way? Character arc. Boom. That’s it.
How to avoid being too on the nose while trying to write your theme?
Show your theme. Don’t tell it.
And story structure! We want to see a character at a low point in a story, the disaster right before the climax, or perhaps they’re offered everything they ever thought they wanted. This moment tests them to the extreme, and they have to make the choice to change in some way, either negatively or positively.
The character makes the realization and has to pick themselves up and defeat the antagonistic force in the story, whatever it may consist of, or perhaps join the antagonist force if the arc is negative?
Get creative with it.
This way, the audience gets to see the theme, the lesson, the thing the character learned, and you don’t have to be preachy. By watching that character go through everything they’ve gone through, we can see the change and learn with them.
And even if the audience can’t see the arc clearly, they know something is there. They know something about this character has changed, even if they can’t put their finger on it.
I’m not saying you should be super ambiguous with theme, but it’s okay if it’s not the clearest thing ever. The audience will still appreciate it, and those who want to can dig deeper into an analysis of the character.
