Knowing Your Theme Changes Everything
Knowing Your Theme Changes Everything
It affects your writing, your branding, and your life
It affects your writing, your branding, and your life
Theme.
Yawn.
Sounds like a topic for a dusty old book stored deep in the bowels of the library.
That’s what I used to think. I thought that theme in fiction was important, but I didn’t really want to mess with it. Theme comes out in the writing, I told students as I glossed over the topic. You’ll figure it out.
This was a face-saving way of saying I hadn’t figured it out yet.
And in truth I got along quite well without fully understanding theme. I wrote novels and stories and blogs and posted on social media.
But recently that all changed. Because my eyes opened to the wonders of theme. And now I carry the zeal of the newly converted.
Recently, I attended a writing workshop with Christopher Vogler, author of The Writer’s Journey. He’s best known for his work translating the ideas of myth expert Joseph Campbell into a usable system for story structure.
Your Story Needs Something. How to Figure Out What That Might Be.
When my granddaughter Olivia was a toddler, just learning to talk, she used to suddenly stop what she was doing, say…medium.com
He covered many aspects of writing, and I gleaned much from all of his topics. But the one that stood out was theme. He connected theme to story in a way that made it make sense to me.
“Theme is a tool that can help you focus your work, making it a coherent design organized around a single idea or human quality that is explored in every scene.” ~ Christopher Vogler
He also had some great tips on how to figure out theme in our writing and our branding.
I immediately started applying these concepts to my books. And immediately saw what I’d been missing.
Concurrently, my biz partner hired a social media coach, who asked Debbie to think about her personal brand. I thought that would be a good exercise I could go through as well. And that we should do it for our business. So we invited a wise writing friend over and threw ideas back and forth.
And that’s when it all crystallized for me.
Theme in writing
First, I realized that there’s a similar underlying theme to all of my novels: a character, most often a woman because I write women’s fiction, seeks self-actualization in some way, usually career-related. Because she is strong and vital (though she might be damaged by life events), she thinks she has to do it on her own. But what she learns is that she’ll really only achieve success through connection with others.
Because in stories, you get want you need, not what you think you want. (Just like the Rolling Stones sing.) That’s the lesson stories teach our characters — another thing Vogler crystallized for me.
My character’s want: to be an independent woman of accomplishment.
My character’s need: the support and love of others — connection.
Connection, which appeases the basic human need of acknowledgement that we matter in some way.
Theme in marketing
And that’s the word that came together for me in my branding as well.
When I tried to think of all the aspects of my life that are important to me that I might want to express in branding, I couldn’t figure out how they all came together. Family and friends are at the top of my list, so that’s obvious. But then there’s things like travel (I teach writing workshops in France and other countries), wine, knitting, stitching, weaving, food. In my fiction I write about sassy women who are on a journey to their true selves, small town living, creativity, and entrepreneurship. I’m fascinated with the media, spirituality, self-help, productivity, brain science, France, baking and cooking, surfing, expeditions to far-off lands. (Some things on my list I have no interest in actually doing, but I like to read about them.)
How in the world to wrangle a brand out of all that?
And then it hit me.
My theme is the exact same as that of my characters.
Connection.
Because all of the things I like to do, I do with others. Travel, drinking wine, eating food, teaching. I do most of my knitting and stitching while chatting with family and friends. I’m a member of a spiritual community. There’s nothing I love better than discussing all aspects of a book I’ve recently read.
And there’s the inner aspect of connection as well — spirituality, creativity, the fact that I feel best when I’m connecting with myself regularly through meditation and journaling.
Connection. It’s so obvious to me now, but it’s taken me years to see it.
Theme in life
Your theme emerges from your life, most likely. (I don’t know any writer who writes about things not of interest to them all the time.) But sometimes, as it was for me, it can be hard to know yourself and figure out what your theme might be.
My theme grew out of a list I’d written that detailed topics in my fiction. In thinking about marketing, I’d also written a long list of things I’m interested in. I had already started to group these into themes such as creativity and spirituality. It just took me a while to hone it into one word. If you’re searching for a life theme, I suggest you start with a list like mine. When its finished, you might want to discuss it with a friend or coach or family member who can help you drill down into the core concept.
Why theme changes everything in fiction
In fiction, once you recognize your theme, you can then identify how all the characters in your story act out variations of that theme. In my books, for example, there tends always to be a character with a strong family. And another who’s been a loner — and lonely. Someone else who travels widely, but with the firm knowledge that a loving family awaits him at home. And so on, each showing a different aspect of the theme of connection.
Once you identify a theme in your fiction, you’ll be able to look at each scene with that theme in mind. Does it contribute to the theme? Is there some aspect of the theme buried in the scene that you can pull out more? Did a character take an action that could be tweaked to more effectively show theme?
“If you know the essence of the story, what it’s really about, you know what moods and feelings you are trying to create, and thus what colors to paint the set, what pace to keep, what kind of music to use. The work begins to feel organic, coherent, interconnected, and purposeful, more like a living being organized around a common spine and central nervous system.” ~ Christopher Vogler
What Vogler says above is true in marketing and your personal life as well.
Why theme changes everything in marketing
My social media tends to be all over the place. My Instagram feed is full of pictures of my travels, my grandchildren, knitting projects, my cats and dog, with the occasional writing-themed post thrown in. I despaired of ever having it thematically united.
But now that I know my theme, I can see how it all fits together. And I can write with that lens as my background, tying everything to my theme of connection.
As soon as I figured out my theme, I was able to make a list of topics for my Instagram posts, all centered around connection. Knowing my theme helps me to unify my branding, to give it a strong underpinning. And I no longer feel like I’m just sending ships out into the dark.
Why theme changes everything in your personal life
You can use this in your personal life as well. We’re all overworked and overbooked. We’re all struggling to find time to do all the things we want to do. Sometimes we’re like pinballs, shot into our days with a million different options, not sure which one to choose or where we’ll end up.
But when you know your theme, you can prioritize accordingly. It’s important to me to find ways to connect with other people regularly. It’s also important to me to find ways to connect with myself. If I’m out of balance, feeling off, I can check with my theme and see if I need to schedule a night out with my husband, or reconnect with friends I haven’t seen for a while. Maybe I need to prioritize journaling.
I hope that this information helps you to find your theme in your writing and other aspects of your life. Thanks for reading.