I
know I’ve posted on this before, though it’s been a while.
Good
stories have an underlying theme, or themes.
We
know the how-to advice, that strong stories are better born of strong characters,
and the more generic/commercial stories are born of a plot arc.
For
me, almost all stories are incepted from themes, and as I draft, I keep the
theme front of mind.
Pivotal
themes in picture books are family, the nature of nature and other man-made
creations, feelings such as sadness or joy, and concepts such as
numbers/colors/letters.
For
middle grade readers (ages 8-12) central themes are friendship, family, school
struggles and, as the perennial for all ages, the nature of our world, i.e.,
reality and our place in it.
I
got to thinking about it again as I read this
post here.
I
know what themes I want to explore. Then, I choose the persons who would go on
this exploration (protagonist and antagonist) and their side characters usually
emerge as the plot unfolds. Mechanics of plot are so well researched in how-to
books that this is the smaller, less demanding part of drafting.
Most
storytellers don’t follow this order of construction, but I offer it as yet
another way.
5 comments:
I can't imagine not having a theme in mind before writing, even if it changes in the course of writing the story.
There is no one way. Writers have, over time, broken whatever literary rules were set up and created new styles.
Interesting post
Writing with one or more themes and symbols is my great joy, and when I read I'm always aware of the themes of the story. This is probably due to English classes back in the day where we learned to identify themes in writing, our own and others.
Interesting. I can't say I've ever thought of theme since my days as an English Lit university student. Sort of on topic, though, there sure are a lot of kids in MG these days who are either orphans, living in foster care, with a single parent, etc. Including my novel, TALKING TO THE MOON. Maybe that's because it's one of everybody's biggest fears? (both as parent and kid). Nice graphic!
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