The silly thing about Theme

The silly thing about theme is that most people don’t understand it, giving you a kickarse opportunity to put your story on a better footing than most.

Ever seen a movie where there’s lots of special effects but little else? How about the book where the story seems to go nowhere and takes forever to let you know? What of the otherwise entertaining story you enjoyed, but never seemed to get around to recommending?

They’re the sorts of stories people tend to forget as soon as they put the book down (or walk out of the cinema).

Why?

Because the story isn’t saying anything worthwhile.

And that’s what theme is – it’s a statement about something.

It’s not a word like Love or Sacrifice or Hope or Despair. They’re feelings! Its not a concept either, or even a metaphor. They may be strong elements of your theme, but they’re not all of it.

Your theme is one side of a debate – its what your story is saying about a given topic.

Here’s how to figure out your theme.

Make a statement about the topic your story is exploring (or could be exploring). For example. “The brain is the sexiest part of the body.” Perhaps its a story about a genius.

Your theme argues for or against that statement. Its that simple. If it doesn’t fit, keep working on it – or change your story to fit. Either way, your theme is in there, you just have to find it.

A theme provides a story with additional meaning that gives value to the plot. It also has to be subtle – try to force it on your readers and they’ll throw your book across the room. They’re not reading to hear you preach. Well, not normally.

On the subject of preaching: “God is great!” There’s a strong statement. Use it if it fits, but your story must demonstrate exactly why the statement is true or false. Illustrate your point with such finess that your readers don’t even realise you’re telling them something important.

“All men are bastards.” Sure, if that’s what’s important to you, but prove it – or prove there’s at least one good man out there.

“Life is cheap.” Again, that’s fine. Just show me just how cheap it is – or show me the true cost of treating it cheaply.

Save the Cat – Blake Snyder

Save the cat Book Cover Probably the best book I’ve ever come across on the subject of structure, Save the Cat is the book you need if you want to write fiction of any variety.

Although  designed as a tool for scriptwriters, most of the information works just as well for novels, and a lot of it could, and probably should, be applied to short stories.

It’s not about the nitty gritty stuff like punctuation, grammar or formatting – it’s about what goes where in your story and why. Think The Hero’s Journey made clear and concise. It’s very easy to read and simple to refer back to.

No matter how much you might like to avoid the subject of structure, your story needs more than just  a beginning, middle and end.

Believe it or not, those broad categories actually have to do something – readers expect certain things from a story – and if you don’t give it to them, they’ll walk away feeling as if something wasn’t  quite working.

Save the Cat teaches you what each part requires and how to make it all work together.

The most useful thing Save the Cat taught me was how to answer to the simplest, most basic question you need to ask before you start writing – What’s the story about?

There’s a pretty simple reason Snyder promotes discovering the answer to this question.

Have you ever taken a thought, concept, image or idea and just ran with it?

Unless you get really lucky, it’s hard to edit ‘freewritten’ stories after the fact. Even with the story on the page, you probably still haven’t defined what it’s actually about.

Save the Cat will explain how to distill your story into a single sentence, and that’s just the start of what it will do for you.

Highly recommended.

Missed out on Manuscript Development Program

I heard yesterday that I missed out on the Varuna HarperCollins Manuscript Development Program. Bit of a shame as it would have been a fantastic opportunity, but there’s always another opportunity. Just got to get myself ready for the next one.

A big cheer for both Varuna and HarperCollins for putting it on in the first place. To have made the top twenty is a pretty good achievement in itself and I’m pretty thrilled about that. It means I’m getting closer.

The winners were:

  • Antonia Baldo  “Hannah and Celeste”
  • Jewelene Barrile  “The Cartography Lesson”
  • Eleni Hale  “Rock Girl”
  • Kathryn Hall   “The Discarded”
  • Megan Jennaway  “The Water Jar”

Congrats to all the winners!

Varuna are offering me a discounted consultation for making the top twenty, and I’m seriously considering taking them up on it. Feedback’s always a good thing.

Making the shortlist was good feedback – tells me the beginning’s very strong (which is what I had to submit initially).

Missing the top five also told me a few things – the ending’s not compelling enough for them to want to take it further (had to supply the entire novel so I’m guessing something in the ‘rest’ didn’t quite work for whoever read it). I’m sure the experts at Varuna could expand on that.

My suspicions lay in the ending. I basically cut the original novel in half and rewrote the ending. Don’t think I did a good enough job re-working it.

Regardless, the next opportunity for me is the Angry Robot Open Submission 2012. They’re looking for High Fantasy, which is exactly what I’ve got. Not sure if it will fit neatly into their lineup as it’s fairly commercially-orientated, but I’ll never know if I don’t try.

I’ll rework the ending again on the assumption that’s what’s letting me down, and see where it takes me.

After that I’ll be trying the Terry Pratchett first novel contest – a new book this time. Urban fantasy. It’s written, though still mostly in its first draft stage. Will have to polish it up, but I should have the time.

Hopefully by this time next year I’ll have a third book doing the rounds as well. Got one half-written. Just got to finish it. The more I’ve got out there, the better my chances.

Make a decision

Why is it so hard to complete a novel and get it on bookshelves?

It’s not really all that difficult if you stand back and look at it objectively.

  • You write, the word add up, and eventually there’s enough words to call it all a novel.
  • You rework it, get some feedback, fix it further, add a final coat of polish and send it away.

Its a process. Its simple. Repeat it often enough and you’ll eventually hit gold.

Why then do so many people get bogged down?

The fact is, it takes time – a sustained effort over a long period – to complete a novel, and then it takes a whole lot more time and effort to get it published.

Any sort of sustained effort is difficult because real life inevitably throws road blocks at you.

So how do you keep the enthusiasm up?

Make a decision.

“Yeah, I did that, but…”

No! Make a decision. A real decision! The kind of decision that goes like: “I’m going to do this no matter what!”. Not the “I’m going to write a novel” kind, because that’s giving yourself leeway to ‘always be writing a novel’. As Yoda says, “Do, or do not. There is no try.”

The moment you commit to it however, it becomes easy.

Real life stops throwing road blocks in your way because you can see them for what they really are: speed bumps. They may slow you down a bit, but they can’t stop you any more.

Once you’ve made the decision, there isn’t a speed bump out there big enough to stop you. You’re going to get a novel on the shelves no matter what!

Threat Vs Conflict

Everyone says you need conflict in your story, internal or external.

But what about threats? Are they the same thing?

Is the evil overlord presiding from the mountain of doom who wants to rule the world the conflict in the story, or some sort of threat?

Think of it this way: the threat’s coming from the evil overlord. If not stopped, the threat will realised.

A threat is the potential for all sorts of nasty things, but of itself isn’t conflict.

Losing the world, in this case, is the threat.

So what’s the conflict?

Conflict is immediate. It’s happening.

It comes from the minions trying to kill the good guys, the ally who says ‘I’m not helping you today, I’ve got a High Tea to attend’, from the evil overlord (when they finally get face-to-face), and even the self doubts and fears your characters carry.

Conflicts are immediate – threats have potential consequences your heros aren’t going to like.

Read about creating a writing/editing plan for your novel.

Don’t take the piss out of success

Recently I was talking with a bunch of writers about editing and structure, and I used Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight as an example to illustrate a point I was making.

The moment I mentioned the book the room erupted into derision. I can understand that: Twilight’s certainly not for everyone.

However, it did break out of its genre and go global in a big way, selling millions of copies and spawning some very successful movies. The Twilight books provided everything a growing author needs – enough money to quit their day job. The rest, of course, is cream.

If you want that kind of success, why dump on it?

The point I was trying to make was that if you don’t hit all the plot points that your readers are subconsciously expecting, they’re going to walk away with the feeling that ‘something just didn’t work’.

They probably couldn’t tell you why, but they’ll know it regardless. What’s more, they’re not going to recommend a book that ‘didn’t work’ for them. Your book, in this case.

Stephanie Meyer did everything right in Twilight – she hit all the right plot points and made her readers care – very deeply – about her protaganist, and finished it off with a very satisfying ending.

That doesn’t mean your story needs sparkly vampires, but when an author sells millions of copies and smashes through genre boundaries, it’s a good bet they’re doing something right.

Take note, even if its not a story for you. Study what works and emulate it.

Create a writing/editing plan for your novel!

Here’s a few steps that might help you in drafting and editing your novel.

1. What’s it about? Write one sentence describing your story in 25 words or less.

Yes. 25 words or less.

Rework the story to reflect this sentence, or change the sentence to reflect the story.

I’ve seen several publishers asking for this sentence in their submission requirements.

2. What’s the theme?

This is the point of your novel, and arguably the most important aspect of it. It’s what you’re trying to say – one side of an argument.

Without a theme your story’s just explosions and pretty sunsets. Pointless.

The theme itself is a statement. For example: “Behind every good man is a greater women.” Your story is the argument supporting either the positive or the negative side of that statement.

Think of your story as one side of the debate.

3. Separate the Threat from the Conflict.

Conflict is immediate, while the threat is the potential. Work out the difference in your story.

4. Need Vs Want.

What does your character(s) want? What are they actively pursuing? This is an external goal.

What does your character need? This will be something internal, something they aren’t likely to be aware of – a lesson to be learned, perhaps. The moral of the story.

For example, a high school student wants to be part of the ‘in’ crowd, when what they really need is to be happy with themself first.

Getting what they need will affect how they see what they want, while getting what they want before getting what they need won’t fulfill them.

What they want drives them. What they need completes them.

Getting what they need may make what they want even more worthwhile or it may render it totally obsolete. They may even have to sacrifice what they want entirely if it gives them what they need.

When they get what they need they can finally see what they want in its true light.

5. Identify the main plot points and transitions – beginning, middle, end, inciting incident, midpoint, etc.

If you don’t know what these are, and there’s lots more that I haven’t listed, I’ll be writing another post (or several) in the future covering them. For the moment though, I’ve drawn a diagram.

  • Do they work to best effect?
  • Can they be made to work better?

6. Chapter outline – write a brief sentence describing each chapter.

This will help you identify weak chapters or chapters that do nothing for the story.

You need to justify each chapter’s existence. Each sentence should:

  • State what the chapter’s trying to convey
  • Show how the chapter moves the story along.

7. Write a Cause and Effect. “Because of this, this happens. Because this happens…”

Start big, Ie:

  1. Beginning: Bella moves to Forks – meets Edward.
  2. Middle A: She’s attracted to him – discovers he’s a vampire which is part of the attraction.
  3. Middle B: They hook up – she becomes involved in the ‘vampire world’.
  4. End: Bad vampires come after Bella – Edward and family try to protect her.

Each cause has an effect, which leads to the next cause. It’s a logical progression. If you can’t find the logical progresssion, your story has a problem.

Once you’ve got the big steps down, break them into smaller steps.

Your breakdown for the beginning might be two or three pages long (although it can be much less or more). And like the big steps, it needs a logical progression. Find it.

Everything outside the cause and effect must be essential to moving the story forward in some other way.

8. Identify the big structural changes you need to make.

For example: ‘the ending isn’t satisfying enough – must rewrite to ensure the main character struggles more to achieve their goals’.

Like the example, write a list of big points that need fixing. Make these changes before going on. There’s no point in polishing text if big swathes of it might be cut or largely altered.

9. Identify the smaller but important changes you need to make.

For example:

  • Make outer space/ocean/sword/city/weather more of an influential ‘player’ in the story
  • Make the main character more sympathetic
  • Make the antagonist appear nice at first [misdirection].

Write a list of things that need to be done, and make the changes before going on.

10. Edit the words.

Only after you’re happy with the overall structure should you start playing with words, sentences and paragraphs.

Do a complete pass from beginning to end, and once you move onto the next chapter, don’t go back until the next full pass. It’s too easy to get bogged down in the process of polishing something to imperfection. Set some sort of goal and stick to it.

11. Finally, figure out when its ‘good enough’ and get it out into the world.

If you found this post helpful, subscribe to Fandelyon.com to receive more useful posts on the craft of writing.

Camping week

Last Monday I was waiting for Varuna to post the winners for the Manuscript Development Program on their website before I went camping for the week. I was going to be completely out of range so I couldn’t even use the phone to dig up the details – I had to know!!!

After a very tense morning, they finally announced the results would be delayed a month until the end of February. They didn’t give a reason why, but I expect that with the holidays HarperCollins were probably short staffed and having trouble either getting through the manuscripts, or nailing down the Powers That Be for a decision.

At least it means I’m still in the running. Fingers crossed for the end of February.

Follow

Get every new post on this blog delivered to your Inbox.

Join other followers: