Secrets of Writing: Themes
In addition to the Premise, your story will be much better off when you add themes. A premise is an argument the story is making. Theme are subjects the story deals with. These subjects can be related to the premise or not. But they are never dealt with in an obvious way. They are interwoven into the fabric of the story the way the premise is.
When something happens to us, we don’t vocalize what the theme or premise of that event was, because we’re never seeing it that way. Neither should our fictional characters. The events in a story are carefully constructed by a writer to create the themes and the premise, but they should be a natural component of everything that happens. They can’t be so obvious that the characters themselves would be aware of them.
But the characters can discuss the issues that affect their lives in the story we present, as if they are subconsciously understanding their role in the story.
Examples of themes are: The meaning of brotherhood, the value of love, the price of honor, etc.
Themes give the story more resonance. They can make a generally simple story seem to have more depth and value.
When employing themes you want to create scenes that explore the theme the same way a story explores a premise. The theme becomes the premise of the scene.
You can also use themes as a form of color for the story. For example, you can explore food and cooking, or fashion, or music. This use of themes gives the story more of a light hearted feel, and provides a nice sort of resonance.
Anyway you choose to use themes can help add some depth and literary wit to your story. They’re a nice technique to play with.
REMEMBER: Themes enhance the story and provide depth and resonance.
