100 Things #004: Theme is a different beast. Or is it?

[myaru]

So, theme. Cutting the last post off here sort of inflated expectations for the theme post, so prepare to be disappointed. I only have a few things to say about it and none of them are particularly awesome. In fact, I can summarize everything I want to say in one sentence: I believe theme is an equal but separate force to elements of craft like characterization, plot, and setting.

Like I mentioned in the last entry, I often find myself having to choose a theme, or at least a thematic idea of sorts, to direct my choices for a story I'm building from the ground up. The elderly female naturalist studying that alien world will grow differently based on which direction I choose - environmental, feminist, and so on. The conflicts she's confronted with may not be quite the same between one theme and the next, and the audience might be vastly different. (How many average male SF/F fans are concerned about feminist issues? Maybe more than I think, but that wouldn't be too hard.) So in the beginning, theme has a part to play, and functions sort of like a stage for everything else to take place on. But it doesn't end there, because as you write a story, it changes, and the theme you start out with might not be the one you finish with.

In school, we were encouraged to start with characters and plot points, and leave messy problems like theme for the revision stage, after we had analyzed our stories a couple of times and figured out what we were trying to say. But it often seemed to me that other writers already had a set of themes they were interested in, which tended to show up in their stories regardless of what they thought they were writing about. For example, I'm very attached to the idea that what society calls "evil" is the result of being human, a manifestation of our least-admirable traits and desires, not a nebulous, spiritual source of evil. When I look at my most developed original stories, I see this coming up in every one of them. Characters like Krelian, Lehran, or Maglor probably appeal to me so much because of this personal theme, so it shows up in my reading preferences too. While I rarely start with this theme in mind, it's safe to assume it'll pop up in a certain percentage of them and dictate choices I make, and thus be there for me to polish up later.

My original beef with the statement that Miyazaki wrote theme-driven stories was rooted in this: stories often suggest themes (which is why you can find so many to argue when you're writing for a lit class), and part of the process of refining your work is choosing that theme and playing it up in all aspects of the work (character, plot, setting, dialogue) so it seems that single idea drives everything. He may or may not have started out with a theme in his pocket, but he definitely ended with one, so it directed the content of the final product. Maybe it's a sign of more skill than I possess that he can choose a theme from the beginning, write his story, and play the same theme up in the final draft, but if he did that, if his theme directed all of his character choices, all of his setting and dialogue decisions - does that make it any less a character-driven story? Because when I watched Spirited Away, I did not see a theme-driven story; I saw Chihiro's story. Because the theme was so pervasive, it became more than a motor to drive the story. Rather, it was the frame of the car, which contained all the other parts and mechanisms, while Chihiro was at the wheel. (Yikes.)

I said in a comment to someone that I believe Miyazaki is awesome enough to start with a theme and sneeze out an entire story, complete with characters and what they say and do, all in the space of an hour - but if he can do that, it's experience that makes it possible. Starting with theme does often produce stories that are boring as hell when you read them at the workshop level, but I also doubt the stories I read in college workshops were anywhere close to being finished. Who's to say the boring-ass, theme-driven story you just read for class won't turn into a character-driven, seriously theme-y piece in two more drafts? Nothing.

This is probably very different from what I would've said two years ago. I should go back and look.

Anyway, a theme has no story or personality, and is therefore useless by itself. Without other elements in play (say, a character already made), it can't suggest a story to you, and the characters you might create based on a theme like "there's no such thing as evil, only humanity" are probably not immediately compelling. This is why, when I started thinking about it seriously - and that wasn't too long ago, so my views will probably change a lot as I go - I saw theme as a frame or a stage, something that influences the production (you don't want to walk off into the wings when you're still saying your lines), and not something that might drive a story to the exclusion of the other elements.

.

Maybe that sounds like an easy answer. The rote, proper answer, straight out of the writing program, is that you can't have a successful story without any of these things, but there are writers out there proving that wrong all over the place. If you're good enough, you can make a story happen without all the other baggage, I'm sure, and make people grateful for it, too. But that harkens back to another thing they love to say in class: you have to master the rules before you break them.

I can see how that might be a problem. It is for me! All the time.

As for theme, and whether it can drive a story by itself, maybe it's just how you think about it. That'll never happen in my conception of story elements as it is right now, because I just don't view it that way. And if I'm completely honest, I almost never consider theme at all - but it keeps showing up, even when I don't want it there.

Comments

[amielleon]

It seems to me that some things are fundamental matters of a person's worldview (the nebulous, human nature of evil within a story), which is a different thing than something being the theme of a story, which is more active (say, the evil within humanity makes all bad things happen). Like the difference in agency between 気にする and 気になる, haha.

That said, I suppose if one favors revision and redrafting it might be best to come up with characters and plot, more tangible elements, and getting a sense of the story before rewriting it with the theme in full. But it seems to me that beginning with theme will shed some insight into the course of the plot and the kind of characters that you might want to stir into the mix, and so long as you continue to add to them after such a conception it seems to me that they wouldn't necessarily turn out shallow.

Although you could argue that there are pitfalls either way you begin. Start with them and you have that and might forget the rest. Start with the characters and you might have trouble with what you're saying. It would be easy to agree with the proper answer.

That said I might take a broader view of theme than most. In your example of Spirited Away, for example, I did not see the film as fundamentally about Chihiro. She is a full character and we are attached to her, yes, but I saw it as more about her development than her by herself. That is, it was about a coming of age rather than about the girl, and it wanted to be generalized, to universally human strengths and coming-of-ages. Which I think could be played in a plotty way or a thematic way, depending on who's writing it. As a fandom example, I'd pin Barefoot King as a plot-driven coming of age story, without hesitation.

Or maybe I'm shitting myself re:Miyazaki. I haven't watched Spirited Away in ages. But I often get this feeling with "character-driven" coming-of-age stories.

Themes do need actors and stages. More than the other elements, it needs something else there to reside in. It is a ghost, or maybe a parasite. Maybe I'm a little weird for finding nothing wrong with building a house for a ghost, rather than letting the ghost find the house.

Actually this is totally irrelevant, but this reminds of Ollivander's approach to wand-making.

[anon_jrpg_fangirl]

When I was writing my own stories I started with characters and plot points just like you were told in school. I think it helps me get started writing even if everything changes as the first draft is actually being written out. I find that I like starting with characters because I read to find characters I like and read their adventures. I'm more likely to enjoy a story with interesting characters that just banter versus a event-driven story with no characters I care for.

I like the idea of the theme as a frame. I'm sure if I had a theme in mind my characters' motivations would be stronger in my mind. Instead they spend all their time bantering and I rarely finish long stories...

[samuraiter]

I never consider theme. Ever. Or, at least, not consciously. If I look back at a story long after it's done, I might see a theme there and go, "Okay. Huh. Well. Moving on!" I think it's yet another one of those things that springs naturally from the characters, though I'll admit that's not the most mature point of view.

[myaru]

Hahahahaha, that was almost always the case with my stuff too, especially the fanfic. I think with fanfic, too, you get some of your theme from the original work, although there are writers out there who do a great job of creating their own. I personally never bothered, excepting that Mildain/Cecilia story.

All the English classes can be blamed for me starting to look for theme, though. It's a foolproof way to not fail, so it became a habit.

There was also this one instructor who loved you to bits if you wrote about nothing but dramatic irony. I shamelessly took advantage.

... tl;dr

[myaru]

I do love banter, though - reading it, I mean. It's not a bad place to start. But I suppose it does demand something (a theme or deeper thinking about character history, or other attempts to develop) to push it into becoming meaningful dialogue that's aiming to move the story along. A good conversation can be an event all in itself.

I'm pretty sure I remember a few Hemingway stories that were nothing but dialogue. I guess that's worth exploring, but I hate Hemingway. /heretic

[myaru]

I think you're probably right. You can start with or without it, and I see no reason why either way would be invalid, but it does seem like using a theme for direction at least makes it useful at the beginning stage. Otherwise - if you say, ~I want to explore human nature~ and then start typing - you do end up seeing empty stories, the sort Queenlua mentioned as appearing in workshop. I saw them. If you're still learning, chances of spitting out good characters on the first try are slimmer than if you've been writing and animating for forty years, or something.

That's why I personally favor drafting - because I'm not that good. Eating my words like that is extremely unpleasant.

Hm, I think my thoughts on Chihiro aren't actually that different from yours. Her coming of age IS her story, and since that's what the movie follows, I see it as her movie. But if you look at the coming of age as a universal theme instead, then it is and isn't about Chihiro. However, even if her story is supposed to have that universality, I don't think that makes it less character driven necessarily, because the whole idea of something in a story being universal is that it's also very specific. I don't relate to a big idea, but I do relate to this specific girl who is going through things I might have gone through.

Theme, a parasite? I like that. XD