Using Themes

A really good book is like plywood—many layers of story glued together to produce an end product that’s stronger than any one layer alone. You have a main plot (say, retrieving the magic stone that protects the kingdom), one or more sub-plots (the heroine’s coming of age and her sidekick’s overcoming his sense of inferiority to a brother who died a hero), and then a thematic layer (resisting the temptation to do evil for a good cause). It’s about that last layer that I’d like to share a few reflections today.

You could loosely define theme as a moral drama played out in the novel that has bigger implications than those of the immediate plot. It adds heft and importance to the story. Universality. Readers may not be able to identify with retrieving this particular magic stone, but they’ve all had to decide whether to do something morally shady in the name of good. Agents or others asking for a description of a book may look for a phrase like “high concept.” And literary novels often have this note of gravitas because it makes the story something deeper than just a good yarn. Wikipedia adds that there is both the theme readers detect (concept) and what the book itself says is its theme (statement).

At what point does the author decide on a theme? Does he insert it deliberately at all, or does it simply develop as a result of the internal struggles of the characters? There’s no one answer to that question. It will depend in part on whether he’s a plotter or a pantser. Someone who likes to know where they’re going might start the whole ideation process with “This is going to be a story about resisting the temptation to use evil means for a good end.” Then he thinks of a story that illustrates that concept. The result can be more or less heavy-handed. At the heavy end, we have bald-faced allegory, and nothing’s wrong with that. But generally speaking, more subtle moralizing that isn’t quite subtle enough can come off as prissy and Victorian.

On the other hand, a pantser like myself might discover her thematic concept with surprise at the end of the journey, much like a reader would. Having once identified it, she can go back in and strengthen its evidence as needed—fluff up the statement a little.

Does a book have to have a thematic layer to be good? As a reader, I would say not. There are certainly genres where we don’t expect any moral takeaway. But the less layered a story is, the more superficial it will inevitably be. The less likely it is to imprint itself on the soul. The good news is, where there are richly nuanced characters making the kinds of difficult choices people really have to make, moral themes will almost inevitably develop.