#story theme

[sarajinae]

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[novankenn]

Drunk Marriage Fics…

I wonder why these died out.

Many of them were hilarious and it is s shame that most only got one or two chapters out before being abandoned.

Anyone have any opinions or thoughts on this?

[annarts05]

Theme and Character Development

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. 

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

So just to recap, these were the main themes for the first three MCU Disney+ shows:

1) WandaVision = Grief (Wanda had to learn how to move on with her life)

2) Falcon and the Winter Soldier = Legacy (Sam had to decide if he wanted to become the new Captain America, Bucky had to come to terms with the legacy of the Winter Soldier)

3) Loki = Choice (Loki and Sylvie were literally fighting to regain control of their lives and go against what was expected of them)

And now, with Hawkeye soon to be released, based on what I’ve seen so far of the show, I’m predicting this:

4) Hawkeye = Responsibility (Clint has to deal with the repercussions of his actions, Kate has to learn that there are consequences to being a superhero)

[the960writers]

What is the Theme of a Story? Definitions and Examples

reedsy blog:

In literature, the theme of a story is, broadly speaking, what a book is about. They are concepts that pervade and recur throughout a piece of writing and are often reinforced by motifs.

The theme of your story can be as broad as ‘love’ or ‘loneliness’ (a thematic concept) or as specific as the idea that “greed is the greatest force in human culture” or “human behavior is the product of upbringing and experience” (both of which are thematic statements, because they express an opinion about the main theme).

Learn what a literary theme is and how you can identify it in this post by @reedsyhq

[nothingavailable]

Breakdown of Themes in TFA

Today I’m looking at the story themes in Transformers: Animated. (Spoiler warning if you haven’t seen this series before.)

Here are a few examples:

We see how and why Ratchet, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Bulkhead and Prowl became maintenance-bots and the ways this affected them later on.

A majority of the Decepticons have more powerful bodies and abilities than the Autobots; they were exiled or imprisoned following the Great Wars and given different bodies if they defected. These expectations may have inspired Megatron to start his revolution.

The creation of bots like the Omega Sentinels, Jettwins and Aerialbots as well as the presence of Fortress Maximus and initiation of Project Powermaster shows how far the Autobots were willing to go.

Lockdown and Prowl’s histories of draft-dodging were of a genuine desire to live peacefully. However, while being at the Cyber-Ninja Dojo helped Prowl learn Lockdown was consumed by adrenaline.

Ultra Magnus’s blind strictness nearly led to the surrender of Earth and helped the undercover Shockwave deal a fatal blow. This required Optimus’s old rival and former friend Sentinel Prime to step in which led to something worse.

Ratchet had qualms about being Omega Supreme’s mentor-bot and Project Omega’s very existence. He was also saddened by having to put Omega in stasis lock.

Sari initially felt adrift and detached upon learning of her true origins as a protoform. When she tried proving herself she jeopardized her safety and that of her friends.

While Soundwave and his minions, the Dinobots, the Starscream clones and Dirt Boss chose their purposes upon being brought to life Mixmaster, Scrapper and Wreck-Gar had more difficulty deciding what to do with themselves.

The overarching story is based on real-world concepts such as consequences, inequalities, crises, beliefs, perspectives, accountabilities and responsibilities.

Notes:

The more I think about it the more I realize that Megatron might’ve actually had a point in wanting to overthrow the Autobots. Look at everything surrounding Optimus, Sentinel and Elita-1’s trip to a forbidden planet, Bumblebee, Bulkhead, Ironhide, Wasp and Longarm’s time in boot camp and what the Autobot High Council pulled off before, during and after the Cybertronian Civil Wars. If Megatron really does know Optimus and his crew’s individual stories by now he would certainly realize he had something in common with the one Autobot who stood in his way the most since Ultra Magnus. Optimus definitely recognizes the flaws in Cybertronian society as a whole under Autobot rule but sees that Megatron has long strayed from his intended path.

I think the AllSpark really did have a will of its own in a sense; it and Cyclonus were the closest we got to Primus and Unicron in this show.

[sunnydwrites]

Building Theme in Your Story

What is theme?

Think of the concept of something being greater than the sum of its parts. All the events in your story build to tell the story itself, but more often than not they circle one central idea. This can be something simply said, like love or death or loneliness, or it can also be a more complex idea that takes a few more words to describe.

Let’s build a quick story for this post, about a surgeon working in a hospital. If our story’s theme is something like “accepting things out of one’s control,” then the focus on this story can be the way she might make attempts on several severe cases and not quite making it. At its core, despite doing her best, this surgeon is dealing with things out of her control.

Of course, there are many, many more ways to go about building theme, but at it’s simplest these are some ways to establish a basic idea of a story’s theme.

Do all of my story points need to convey theme?

Short answer: no.

Longer answer: no, but they should be related - at least tangentially.

Let’s return to this surgeon’s story, shall we? Here are a couple of things that may happen in his story:

Surgeon loses a patient.

Surgeon comes to terms with the separation of his parents.

Surgeon’s husband has to go on a trip for their job for a month.

Notice that not all of these things are directly tied to the surgeon’s job in the hospital, but they’re all things at least somewhat out of her control. She can’t control the separation of her parents, and she can’t control her partner’s job, and so these tie to the theme.

Can my themes be accidental?

The answer is probably no. While your story should have a theme, it’s often something that has to be planned out in advance for it to have meaning and impact within the story. As you develop, think about your theme and how you can weave it into your story.

However, if you’re writing your story and you happen to notice a theme developing, make note of it so that you can develop it further in your editing process.

Can I have more than one theme?

Yes! Especially if your story is longer, you have more room and more time to cover multiple topics. If our surgeon story is a short story or even a novella, we may want to keep it to this initial theme of “accepting things out of one’s control.” However, if it’s a longer work, you can work in “love” like we mentioned before, and maybe one other one.

How complex should my theme be?

The complexity of your theme is completely up to you. Let’s take “love,” for example; it’s a pretty broad possibility. Here are just some of the ways you can describe this theme:

love.

falling in and out of love.

the danger of obsessive love, and learning to love others in a healthy way.

love between siblings.

coping with unrequited love.

And this is just a small list of ways to develop this theme. It all depends on how you want to portray the theme in your story, and from there it’s up to you.

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That’s all I have on theme today! If you have any follow-ups or other questions for me, my askbox is always open! Until next time, happy writing! <3

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