(This is a rewrite of a post I made for discovering your story as you write it at @the-wip-project at the beginning of 2025).
Whenever I feel kind of lost in this whole writing thing, I scroll through the almost embarrassing number of writing advice books I have. One thing I turn to, when I'm not sure about the story I'm trying to tell, is the theme. What is my theme? What am I trying to say in this story? That doesn't mean I'm preaching a message, but a story has certain themes, through lines that make the story feel coherent.
K.M. Weiland has written a book called WRITING YOUR STORY’S THEME (https://www.kmweiland.com/book/writing-your-storys-theme/), and that sounds exactly like the sort of thing we need. I haven't read all of it, not yet, I jumped forward to chapter nine "Writing Your Theme in the First Draft" because that, not surprisingly, spoke to me. In this chapter, K.M. Weiland describes a truth chart.
Using a “Truth Chart” to Solidify Your Grasp of Theme The “Truth Chart” is a fast, one-page beat sheet designed to help you get your head around the big picture of theme and character, so you can see at a glance if everything is holding together and progressing realistically. [...]
Story’s Big Truth (Main Theme):
Character’s Specific Truth:
Character’s Specific Lie:
The Thing the Character Wants:
The Thing the Character Needs:
The Character’s Backstory Ghost/Wound:
K.M. Weiland has more points to this truth chart, defining truths and lies in a three act structure. That's actually too specific for me, but I find these first points very useful.
We have the main theme or themes which we're discovering as we write, and the lie or lies the story tells the protagonist and readers about what it is about. These are the emerging themes we discover as we write (if you're a discovery writer, if you're an outliner, you might discover them as you write your outline).
Then we have the characters, the truths and lies they tell themselves and believe. This is where characters come to life, where we show what the characters think of themselves and what they believe they have to do and think. This is where convictions and insecurities come through, where we write interiority. These are the juicy building blocks to show character development and your themes.
If you ever read any writing advice, you've probably came across points five, six, and seven several times. Defining the wants, needs, and wounds of your characters is the best trick to make your characters three-dimensional. You can break these things down further, what your character thinks they want and need, and what they really want and need. This is where the lies they tell themselves come to play again.
As an example: A character telling themselves that they want that high paying job because they need the security, only to find out that they really want to find companionship.
If you're stuck one day, or feel like your characters are flat and lifeless, maybe look at these first seven points of the truth chart and see if you've covered them in your story.
