WRITE YOUR NOVEL: Tips from a NYT Bestseller

Lesson 3: Theme

Write Your Novel:
Tips from a Bestseller

CJ Lyons


NOTE: I’ll be uploading parts of this how-to book every Thursday. If you’d like to buy the complete book it’s available on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004XTWZA2  (and was previously published as No Rules, Just WRITE!)



Copyright 2011, CJ Lyons
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Library of Congress Case # 1-273031561




Lesson Three: Theme, the Intersection of Plot and Character


What is Theme?

Theme is the intersection of plot and character.

Simply put: Theme is what the story is REALLY about.

The Godfather wouldn't have been a powerful drama without it's strong theme of The Family versus family. Instead, it would have been another gangster shoot ‘em up action flick.

Or the Indiana Jones movies. Ever notice how no one mentions or remembers the second movie? What made that one different than the first and third (which were huge successes)?

It had no theme. It was all action—the only question in either the characters' minds or the audience's was: will they make it out alive?

In the first movie, there were always subliminal questions that were all about the theme and not about the action: will Indy show his love for Marion? Which is more important — his work or his love? Will he betray one or the other? What will he sacrifice in the end?

In the third movie, again tons of questions. This time centered on the father-son relationship.

Theme focuses not just the writer's choice of which scenes to include in the plot, it also keeps the audience focused on an emotional level while all the special effects and action sequences are happening.


Why do we need theme?

Theme is what turns action into drama.

If someone says a story was compelling, it's because there was a strong theme that focused every scene and character choice.

Besides understanding WHO your characters are, you also need to understand WHY you're interested in writing this particular story—where your own passion lies. That is theme. Ahh...back to those first three secrets!

If your Vision is what your story is about, then your Passion reflects your theme.

And character should reflect both.

How you create your characters is just as important as the world you place them in and the challenges you set before them.


Some writers are famous for their "character driven" novels. Thomas Harris's Silence of the Lambs is a classic example of this. Harris has not only captivated millions with his work, his Hannibal Lecter has been elevated to cult status.

Clearly, whether you're writing a plot-driven book (such as The Da Vinci Code), or a character driven one, your novel cannot exist without characters.

Not just characters, but characters doing something, taking action towards a goal.

For me, discovering my characters IS discovering my plot. Others do it differently, using plot ideas to create the perfect characters to fit those ideas.

Both ways are right—it's what works for you that counts!

Either way, you'll want characters who appeal to your readers' emotions, who engage them in some way, whether it's love, hate, admiration, disgust or anything in between.

All characters need three things, as so wonderfully outlined by Deb Dixon in her workshops and books on writing. These are: Goal, Motivation, and Conflict.

I use these slightly differently than Deb does. Here's my take on her classic trio of GMC.


Motivation=the past.

Why we do what we do stems from our history, and often is instilled in us during our childhood when we are taught certain values and life expectations. For your characters these values may eventually be proven wrong during the course of the story, but they are there in the beginning—their emotional baggage so to speak.

This past creates the character's Default Action—and is responsible for who that character is on page one, when the story begins.


Outer Motivation is the Default Action: WHAT the character does, the actions they show the outside world. Without understanding your character's Default and how they use it to respond and interact with the world around them, you're lost.

Understand their Default and you have everything you need to not only build a compelling character but to create a fascinating story to challenge them. The all important ingredients to pull your audience into your story, connect them with your character.


If their Default Action is their Outer Motivation, then their Inner Motivation is HOW they got that way—embodied by the lessons/values learned in childhood. It's WHY they chose their Default Action as the best way to live their lives.

Motivation comes from the past. You convey it to the reader by giving them glimpses of the character's history or backstory.

Backstory is tricky. Often my first drafts are filled with chunks of backstory—necessary to me as a writer since I'm learning about my character as I write. People who plot ahead of time or make use of character sketches may avoid this because they already know the character's history.

Backstory is important for us as writers to know. BUT it's not interesting to readers! And definitely not in one long boring chunk.

A reader wants to meet a character in the present, observe them taking action and making choices, and then wonder, why is he like that?

Only AFTER you've established enough of the plot to make the reader ask that question, should you give them the shortest answer possible by revealing backstory.

Here are three keys to using backstory effectively:

* Give the reader only what they need to keep them from being confused.
* Never bore them with too much information.
* Always leave them wanting more.

Donald Maass has a rule: No backstory before page 40 or the first 10% of the novel.

This is a good rule of thumb, but sometimes you'd have a reader hopelessly confused without giving them a few hints. So my rule is to use backstory like a strong spice—a little sprinkled here and there.

Motivation and backstory are in the character's past and create their Default Action. What lies in their future?


Goals.

An Outer Goal (what Robert McKee in his wonderful textbook, Story, calls the conscious desire) and an Inner Goal or subconscious desire.

The Outer Goal is easy, it's what your character WANTS. He'll often say this aloud. It will be what the book is about. Once he either achieves or loses that goal, the story is over.

Let's look at two popular thrillers and their Outer Goals: in Da Vinci Code, the Outer Goal is to find the Holy Grail, in Silence of the Lambs, the Outer Goal is to catch a serial killer.

The reader doesn't have to think twice about these. They're obvious. In fact they're the superficial answer to the question: what is the book about?

Notice how the Outer Goal is totally unambiguous. Either the Grail is found or not. Either the killer is stopped or not. Black and white, no grey areas.


If Outer Goal reflects what the main character wants, then Inner Goal reflects what they NEED.

Here's where it gets tricky. Just like in real life, our characters won't actually know what their Inner Goal is for most, if not all, of the book.

In fact, they'll often be working against it as they fight to achieve their Outer Goal. BUT the reader will know there's more to the story.

This is where your characters come to life for the reader. When the reader begins to analyze them, care about them, and wants them to learn the things they need to learn in order to solve their Inner Goals and to discover what they really NEED from life.

Inner Goals are often shades of grey, but should have some tangible element a reader can cling to, to allow the reader to feel satisfied that the character has achieved their Inner Goal.

In Silence of the Lambs, Clarice's unconscious desire, hidden need, Inner Goal, is to face her fears of abandonment caused by her father's death and what happened on her uncle's farm. Basically she needs to learn to trust herself and her abilities so that she can become a leader (her true nature).

It's subtle. She doesn't recognize this need until near the end of the book, and yet Harris clearly planned this additional depth very carefully.

He even named the book after it! Genius!

Clarice has no idea what the title of the book is, but the reader does! And as you read, you keep asking, what does that title mean? So when you figure it out there's an Ah ha! moment that propels you farther into the book and Clarice's life.

As you read, you recognize that Clarice's greatest fear is of being abandoned, of being alone and unable to survive or save anything—not even a little lamb.

And how does Harris use this in the book? She's abandoned by the FBI, alone in the dark with a killer stalking her and the life of an innocent in her hands. Facing her greatest fear. Once she conquers it, that unconscious need is satisfied. She can now move forward, a better person.

The Inner Goal/Need is tied to the character's greatest fear.

These intersect at the moment when the character faces this fear head-on as the worst thing that could ever, ever happen to them. The Black Moment of the story's Act Three.

Immediately following this Black Moment comes the Climax where the character either succeeds or fails in their Outer Goal—based on whether or not they were successful in overcoming their fear.


In other words, the plot and pacing are tied to the character's Outer Goal. Once the Outer Goal is achieved (or failed to be achieved) the story is over.

AND, if you also give your character an Inner Goal, the Inner Goal should also be resolved during the scenes surrounding the Climax.

Think of having an Inner Goal as having a crucible filled with fire and throwing gunpowder into it. Whoosh!

Now, do your characters have to have Inner Goals?

Look at Da Vinci Code. No Inner Goals there that I could discern, yet the Outer Goal and the twists and turns in the plot satisfied millions of readers.

Using an Inner Goal is simply one more tool to make your characters come to life and add depth to your plot.

So our characters now have histories (Motivation) and futures (Goals), but what about the present?


Ahhh…the present, the here and now of your story, that's Conflict.

Without conflict there is no story because nothing stands in the way of the main character from achieving their goal.

Conflict will comprise over 90% of your story. Again, to quote Donald Maass: "Conflict on every page."

Every. Single. Page.

Maybe if you're writing a lyrical, literary novel you can get by with pages of description without anyone needing or wanting something and no one standing in their way, but definitely not with a commercial novel.

Conflict, rising stakes, action, drama—these are what make stories compelling.


Conflict on every single page.

What does that mean? That people have to be always fighting? Arguing? Pushing and shoving?

No. It means is that every scene has a goal. The main character wants one thing. Someone or something else in the scene keeps him from getting it. When the scene ends he either achieved his goal or failed.

Sound familiar? Just like the Outer Goal that drives the plot of your main story, each scene is a mini-story. String scenes together by adding consequences.

At the end of the scene, the point of view character may achieve his goal and thus create higher stakes and more problems for himself. In her book, Writing Killer Fiction, Carolyn Wheat calls this the "yes, but" outcome.

OR he can fail and the stakes are raised because his failure adds to his problems…the "no, and" outcome.

Notice the hooks embedded in all this?

Not only hooks grabbing the reader at the end of a scene but hooks strewn throughout the story. This Emotional Velcro connects the reader to the story and characters as they watch the character overcome the obstacles in his path.


Let's look at those obstacles.

The main story obstacle or Outer Conflict is often embodied by a single Nemesis character.

Yes, you can have lots of other obstacles: the ticking bomb, the tsunami racing towards them, the bad guy's minions, even the romantic interest. But you want one main obstacle the reader can focus on.

It's hard to root against a force of nature or inanimate object, but easy to focus on a single character.

Want to have a bad guy that will captivate your audience? Make him the hero of his own journey. Give him reasons just as compelling as the hero's for pursuing his goal. Two forces destined to clash. Can you see the sparks?

Even better, make the nemesis smarter, stronger, swifter, more powerful than the main character—in the beginning.

Have your hero/main character fail and fail again, each failure leading to increased danger, increased value of what will be lost if he fails, and increased need for the hero to discover his hidden strengths, to change from who he was at the beginning of the story in order to succeed. This is the Hero's Journey that so many have written about and we'll be looking at in detail in a later lesson.


We have an Outer Conflict personified by the nemesis. What other kinds of conflict can we add?

There are romantic conflicts—essential to any story with romantic elements. Give the audience a reason to believe the two may not get together. Make them struggle to achieve their romantic happily ever after.

They can't just be separated by a mere miscommunication. The stakes must be so high that by the Black Moment, the reader fears the romance is doomed and there will be no happy-ever-after. Then, through the power of love, (and often a sacrifice by one of them) together they face the Outer Conflict during the climax and earn their happy ending.


Then there is the main character's Inner Conflict.

Inner Conflict is essential to a hero's growth. It's symbolized by the hero's greatest fear. Notice how this ties into the hero's Motivation and Inner Goal?

That fear will stem from something in the hero's past—after all, we're not born fearing anything.

It's often the WHY behind their choice to create their Default Action when they were young. The need to overcome the Inner Conflict is the unconscious desire of the hero's Inner Goal.

The main character often knows a little about their Inner Conflict—may even label it as a phobia. It will be something he's avoided most of his life—until the events of this story force him to confront it.

Go back to Clarice and Silence of the Lambs. Her Default Action is to go it alone. Why? Because her greatest fear is being abandoned, helpless. This has led her to forge a life where her Default Action is her greatest strength...until the Black Moment when she discovers it's also her greatest weakness.

By facing her greatest fear/Inner Conflict (fear of being helpless) she finds the strength to survive and defeat the Nemesis/Outer Conflict character and achieve her Outer Goal (catching the killer). She also fulfills her Inner Goal (she needs to learn to trust in herself) and learns a new Default of being a Leader. Note how in the final scene she is with her peers, gaining their admiration, compared to the first scene of her running alone.


Clarice's character arc:

Outer Motivation/Default Action = Go it alone. Revealed in opening scene.
Inner Motivation = Abandoned as child, left helpless (backstory)

Outer Conflict/Nemesis = James Gump (serial killer)
Inner Conflict/Greatest Fear = Abandonment, helplessness

Outer Goal = Wants to stop the killer
Inner Goal = Needs to learn to trust herself in order to become a leader (new Default)


Knowing and understanding her original Default Action sets up everything else.


Feeling like you're weaving a spider web where everything is connected? Good! Because that will draw your readers in as well!

And the theme of Silence? The magic thread that ties all of this together?

Trust. How's that for a primal, universal, powerful emotion?

Which means a large chunk of the book must be devoted to the opposite of Trust: Betrayal. How many people betray someone in Silence? Quite a lot, even the good guys!


How does theme work?

Let's look at another popular book/movie, Patriot Games. What is it really about?

Not terrorists on US soil. Not the heroics of a middle-aged ex-CIA op. Not about saving the country or the world….Patriot Games is really about saving a family.

Rather, two families—the good guy's and the bad guy's.

Every scene deals with family. Will they live or die, will they be left behind, will they be proud of the hero's actions, are they neglected, are they worthy, do they love him…Every scene is focused, chosen, crafted around that theme.


Theme is a pair of high-mag binoculars that zoom your readers into the heart of the story, its emotional essence. It's subliminal but without it, you'd have another generic action thriller instead of a compelling story.

Not sure what your theme is? Try looking at your main character's greatest fear.

What's Jack Ryan's greatest fear? Losing his family. What's the bad guy's? Losing his family.

Instant conflict.


On a practical note, just like understanding your central story idea, knowing your theme keeps you focused.

Go back to that original story idea I threw out in Lesson One: A blind girl from Sulawesi learns to fly.

What's our theme? Well, that depends on why we want to write the story.

Are we passionate about Sulawesi culture and exploring the impact of modern technology on it? Interested in illustrating the challenges of the blind?

No? Then, let's use the theme of women's rights. Better yet, make it more universal: equality. That's something pretty easy to be passionate about, right?

If our theme is equality, then a subplot involving the heroine's sister being sold into prostitution is relevant to the story.

But the chapters about the cricket-field prowess of the heroine's great-grandfather probably aren't.


Zooming in on theme.

Knowing your theme will not only focus your story, it will also help you to focus each scene, to bring it to an emotional climax that drives the story into the next scene and the next.

How? By tying theme to our character's Inner Conflict or greatest fear.

What is our blind heroine's greatest fear? She'll always be dependent on others, which resonates nicely with our theme of equality. Hard to be treated as an equal if you're dependent.

(Anchoring your theme in these universal primal emotions makes a story compelling to almost everyone—imagine the power!)

Take every scene and fine tune it so something threatens her independence or reveals how she is dependent on others (giving us hints to future obstacles she will need to overcome).

Think how much richer, more evocative a scene can be when it has both the overt action and dialogue focused by your theme AND a more subtle subtext woven through it that reflects the character's inner conflicts.

Once you start thinking this way—either while picking and choosing your scenes initially, or while re-visioning your book after the first "discovery" draft—deciding which scenes to include and which to cut becomes easier than ever before.


Back to our blind girl. You want to show the heroine reveal a weakness that forces her to be dependent on her father, so you write a scene where she argues with her strict, religious, traditional father about taking flying lessons.

To illustrate your theme, you know you must stage the scene in a way that her blindness costs her all the points her intelligent and cogent debate has won.

Knowing this, you realize that staging the scene as a phone conversation or at a cricket match won't work because those settings don't offer the same opportunity, so you discard those ideas, save them for another day.

They could be arguing because she's blind and therefore shouldn't fly, or because they're poor and have no money for lessons, or a host of other barriers she must overcome to reach her goal.

How to wring the most reader impact out of the scene?

You do this by returning to your theme of equality. They argue that she can't fly because she's a girl and must stay home and cook and serve her family, help her mother.

Add flavor by having the argument take place during a meal where the girl and her mother are serving the men in the family, standing behind them, having not eaten yet themselves.

Increase impact by having the climax of the argument occur when the blind girl becomes so impassioned that she overturns a bowl of food and the father partitions out the remaining food to himself and her brothers, leaving the girl and her mother to go hungry, losing her mother as an ally and thus raising the stakes even higher.

Feel the intensity theme brought to your scene?


Chicken or the egg?

If you know your character first, you'll probably find the theme of your novel by exploring their inner conflicts (deepest fears) or challenging their most deeply held values (their motivations) ingrained from their past.


If you know your plot and theme first, then you'll want to build your characters around them. What kind of character from what background and value system (motivation) will undergo the greatest transformation (conflict) when forced to question this theme?


Whichever works for you is your right way.

By knowing two out of the three before you begin (and this doesn't mean necessarily making an outline) you take most of the work out of your writing and can simultaneously increase the "zoom" level or impact of your work.

This simple approach allows you to separate the powerful, emotionally charged possible scenes from ones that might be great scenes but would not really work as well.

Your decisions, your choices. They're what drives your story and separate it from the rest.


Here's one last example from Hollywood.

In Star Wars, Luke's motivation/default action is to rebel against the confinement of authority, his goal is to break away from his backwater existence on Tatooine, his inner conflict is that he fears he's just another ordinary farm boy who could never be a hero, and his outer conflict is the Empire personified by Darth Vader.

What theme does this character embody? Rebellion against authority.

Look at Star Wars from the other direction (which, honestly is how George Lucas probably did it).

The theme: Rebellion against authority.

Who's the best character to exemplify this? A farm boy who yearns for the excitement, adventure that he's never known in his mundane life (goal). One whose authority figures keep him reined in with rules and expectations (conflict), and whose greatest fear is that he's just like everyone else.

This is a fear shared by every adolescent, isn't it? Notice how this makes the theme universal, primal, so it will resonate with everyone.  A key ingredient in any blockbuster movie or book.

It can go either way. Play with it. See what works best for your own style of writing. As always, have fun!



CJ's Bottom Line:

* Theme is the intersection of plot and character. It taps into universal, primal emotions to reveal what the story is REALLY about. It turns action into Drama.

* Characters reveal theme and drive the plot as they take action and change over time.

* Their first action on the page is their Default Action. This comes from their past and is tied to their Motivation.

* Their future Goals are what define the end of the story. They either achieve or fail to achieve their Outer Goal (what they WANT) and/or their Inner Goal (what they NEED).

* 90% of the story is the present, the here and now of their struggle as they face their Outer Conflict/Nemesis and confront their Inner Conflict/Greatest Fear.

* By knowing and understanding the story theme and the character's Default, plot is unveiled and every scene can become more compelling and engaging to the audience.


Sample Themes:
*Love v. Hate
*Betrayal
*Vengeance
*Lust
*Greed
*Family
*Survival
*Truth
*Redemption
*Sacrifice
*Honor
*Pride
*Patriotism



HOMEWORK:

Find the theme of your own story. Or look at several of your favorite books/movies and find their themes. How does theme make the story more compelling? How does it impact the character? The plot?

—Now identify as many of the following as possible: the main character's Outer Goal, Inner Goal, Outer Conflict, Inner Conflict, and Motivation/Default Action, and the same for his/her nemesis and love interest if there is one.

—How are these two characters (hero and nemesis) brought into conflict to increase tension and drama?

—Where do the characters' Motivation-Conflict-Goals (MCG) collide? Is this the same theme you initially identified? Does it give you an idea for a better theme? One that resonates in each and every scene?




TEACHING POINT: THEME IN THE REAL WORLD


The first crime fiction novel I ever wrote was a romantic medical thriller, BORROWED TIME.

Before this, I'd been writing science fiction/fantasy and had finished three novels during high school, college, and medical school.

Why the switch in genres?

Because something happened my internship year while I was working at Children’s' Hospital of Pittsburgh. Something horrible, life changing.

Pediatric interns are really just kids themselves—I was the youngest at 25, the oldest of the twelve of us was all of 29. We'd spent the last twenty years of our lives in school, but here we were holding the lives of babies and children and their families' futures in our hands. Living in a world apart from the rest of society with strange hours, insanely long hours, and facing decisions no one else understood. So of course we became very close—our own family.

Then one of us was killed. Murdered in a fashion so horrendous it made national headlines.

Everything changed.

As always, I turned to writing as a way to cope, to understand and make sense of the chaos. SF/F—while fun escapism during the grueling years of college and medical school—just wasn't cutting it.

I no longer wanted to escape. I wanted—I needed—to change the world. To remake it in a way that made sense, to put things right again.

I couldn't do that in my real world. But I could by writing a thriller. One where good guys won and bad guys got their comeuppance and where I was in control again.

That book was BORROWED TIME, which recently became a #1 Amazon Bestseller. It was also the first book where I used theme—subconsciously during the first draft, then consciously when I went back and revised.


In BORROWED TIME, a police officer tracks a cop killer. The only problem? He's already killed her once.

Good hook, great idea with lots of possibilities. But where's the passion?

Is it the idea of a cop dying, laying down her life to protect and serve others? Is it about the ways serial killers are created by our society? Is it about returning from the dead and how that changed everything?

I chose the first. I decided this story was about a cop raised in the tradition that the best, most honorable, greatest thing you can do in this world is to protect and serve.

That was her driving force. Her motivation. Her reason to live.

And on page three, her reason to die. That's right, she's killed in the first pages.

She's resuscitated by a handsome trauma surgeon and wakes to find that not only is she physically maimed by her encounter with the killer, but she's also psychologically damaged.

She has terrifying visions of people's deaths and so begins to think she's crazy. A belief confirmed when she learns that she actually was dead for several minutes and that she might have brain damage.

Now I've taken a character whose default action is to take action and what have I done? I've immobilized her, stripped her of her power, made her helpless.

Even more, I've made her fear not only for her physical recovery, but also her very sanity.

Then I make things worse.

Her visions begin to come true, but in a way no one believes her, even when more cops begin to die and she tries to warn them. Now the cops think she's crazy. Even worse, being the paranoid creatures that cops are, they wonder if she's working with the killer. How else could she know in advance who will die next?

So what's the theme of BORROWED TIME? It's about trust.

Trusting yourself, trusting your partner, trusting your surgeon, your lover, your father, your comrades, your best friend—every scene focuses on a relationship built on trust.

And in that relationship, the main character's underlying assumptions about her life before the shooting, and her new life now that she's been "reborn" are called into question.

All of her assumptions—things we all hold so dear, consider the basis of our existence. I force her to take a long hard look at them all.

At every turning point, I increase the stakes, placing more and more pressure on her until her new-found belief in herself and her abilities gives her the strength to overcome physical disability, the skepticism of her surgeon, the suspicions of the police, and most importantly, her own fears that she can no longer trust herself, that she will never be able to protect and serve again.

By pairing my initial plot idea with a strong, universal theme, I've taken a magnifying glass and increased the emotional context of every scene. 

To continue the optical metaphor, it's like going from your own vision to high-powered binoculars. You zoom in on the essential, but everything else is also bigger, brighter, bolder.


The reader doesn't have to know you're doing this. In fact, far better they never see the zoom effect. But they should feel it. After all we're dealing with primal forces here.

In BORROWED TIME, we're dealing with trust as well as its opposing forces: doubt and betrayal.

By playing opposites against each other and placing the main character in circumstances where she's forced to make decisions (does she believe and accept her visions, or doubt and fight them, let the doctors give her stronger drugs?) you create a tension the reader feels. It builds and builds until finally, with your conclusion, it is released.

That's the Ah-Hah effect. The reader sighs when they finish the book and shelves it in their "keeper" pile because it was so satisfying. Focusing on a theme is how you get that.

Just don't tell the readers that by using that theme, you also cut your workload in half! Keep them believing that this really is work, not fun.

That's why I call these writing secrets—not because they're secrets from you, but they spoil the reader's enjoyment if they know what's going on beneath the surface.

Know your passion.

Am I passionate about precognition and near-death experiences? No, not at all. But I am passionate about trust and all the issues that arise around that concept.

Theme drives character and character drives theme.


Could I have used a man instead of a woman as the main character in BORROWED TIME? Sure, and the theme wouldn't have been changed at all. In fact, if I made the surgeon a woman, almost none of the story would have changed.

But, could I have used a character who didn't have a driving force based on trust?

No. My character's need to protect and serve—that's trust personified, isn't it? Trust in your partner, trust in your physical abilities, trust in your equipment, your instincts, yourself. You can't put yourself on the line in the defense of others without that innate, unconscious trust.
 
Once you know either your character's driving motivation (their Default Action), or your theme, then half your battle is won.

You'll know exactly how to challenge that character to their utmost, how to torture them, to push them to their limits and beyond. Heck, the book practically writes itself!

Have fun playing with Theme in your world!