Reading assignment:
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
It's a blistering hot day. The sun is directly overhead, the wind refuses to blow, and there isn't a bit of shade in sight. But, luckily, relief is in front of you; two nearly identical pools of water. The same size, the same shape, they both look lovely and cool.
When you get closer, you see that one of the pools is quite shallow, the kind toddlers would use to splash around in. The other...it slopes down quickly and you can't even see how deep it goes. You pause at the edge of the deep one, think of putting your foot in, but hesitate. With water that deep, that dark...how can it be safe?
So, you step into the shallow water and it's good for a moment. Your feet are wet but you quickly realize that they aren't cooling off. The water isn't any cooler than the blistering air around you. Still, you try to hunker down, get deeper into it, but it barely goes up to your ankles and there's no way you can soak yourself in it.
The best you can do is reach down and splash a little water onto your neck and shoulders. But with the sun glaring down onto you, the warm water isn't refreshing. Instead, you feel more like you are basting yourself, like a turkey in an oven.
You look over at the deeper pool. Even after stepping closer, you still can't make out the bottom. You wonder, for a second, if there is something deep in there that you won't like, then the thought pops up...what if there is something down there that doesn't like you?
But, with the sun, the still air, and the basting water behind you, this is your only chance for relief.
You stick a toe in, just an inch. The surface is just as warm as the other pool, but you push your foot in a little more, just to give it a chance. As you sink down a bit more, you feel it. There, under the surface, it's cool. No, it's cold compared to the blistering air around you.
You feel the corners of your lips go up in a smile as you stare down at it. "Whoo!" Your voice is high and loud in your ears as leap forward and crash into the water. You sink, the cool water covering every bit of your skin and the sun and heat are forgotten.
For a moment, you tread water, close your eyes and just soak it in. Then, you look down, into the darkness. Yes, there may be something in deep water that's scary, something you don't want to confront, but the cool water is all that you need right now.
The smile still pulling at your lips, you dive deeper down.
This, dear writers, is what readers go through every day. And often, they have it even worse.
When faced with the decision of what book to read next, they often can't tell how deep the water is and have no idea what they are getting into. The cover doesn't help and the description is supposed to be about how nice the surface of the pool looks. But they don't know the answer to their big question...will the story just get their toes wet, or will they be able to cannonball in, soak themselves and escape from the worries and pressure that surround them in the rest of their lives? Will it be a story that they will remember?
Now, don't get me wrong. Sometimes the shallow water is wonderful. The reader can kick around in it, splash and just have some light hearted fun. Or she may just not be in the mood for all the effort she has to put in to swim in the deep water, because that can be hard work for the reader. These are the reasons we have a lot of action and comedy movies...sometimes we just want to kick back and relax.
But, all of us have another drive, an urge to find meaning. And our ability to find this meaning is amazing. It starts when we are babies and learn to recognize faces and the interpret expressions. It grows as we learn to read and decode the layers of meaning in words and phrases. It even goes so far that we recognize patterns when they aren't really there. We see shapes in the stars and the clouds. In the wind and the rustling of leaves we can hear voices.
This creation of patterns and meaning where they don't actually exist is called apophenia and it's a perfect example of how hungry we are for depth and substance in our lives and in the stories we read. We are willing to imagine depth, to feel a bit cooler, even when the water is only ankle deep. We will even try to find meaning in the most vapid comedies or action fests. Heck, I once thought there was some meaning in a Michael Bay Transformers movie. But I'm brave enough to admit I was wrong.
So, what if you want to make your readers the happiest fans on the planet? What if you want to give them a story that they can immerse themselves in, one that they know they can go back to again and again to find new things in the deep? What if you want to plant something down there that just might latch onto them and not let go? To do this, you have to do one thing in particular. You have to open up the interior world of your story.
Of course we have to put first things...you know...at the beginning. And the first things that readers encounter in our stories, the things that rest on the surface, are elements of plot, setting and the descriptions about the outside of our characters that we call characterization. These are the parts of your story that readers get to splash around and have fun with, and they are absolutely vital! If you ignore them and try to focus exclusively on writing a DEEP and IMPORTANT book, your readers will be miserable.
So, make sure you create fascinating characters (more on this in the next chapter) and have a plot that wows the reader. But, to pull them in for read after read, where they discover new things every time they go through it again, then you will have to pull out a couple of techniques. Your characters will need to make big decisions with visible motivations. You will need to show not only the protagonist's goals but also the things inside her that need to change. You will need to raise some big issues and ask questions that only your reader can answer. You might even start to create a secret code to send messages to your readers. This is how you start to dive down and see how deep you can go into your stories.
And, trust me, this water can get pretty deep.
When we plunge into the depths of our stories, we run into a number of possibilities. We see the inner emotions of our characters, symbols emerge, subtext becomes apparent, the backstory and motivations of the players appear...all these different interior elements light up like glow in the dark fish...but the big one, the one to really go after, is theme.
You've heard the term before. Most literature teachers pull it out and talk about it at least a little bit. But what is theme, really? When do we see it? And most importantly, how do we use it and work it into our stories?
As we mentioned in the first chapter of this book, theme is an underlying statement or question that you want your readers to keep thinking about after they finish your story. That's a great start, but you are going to need more detail to turn it into a useful tool.
In a few chapters we will talk about the central question or problem of your story, the one that relates to the protagonist navigating the plot, or exterior level of what you are writing. But for now, let's focus on the interior side and work on the thematic statement or question for your story. Let's say you know that your main character is a thief. You could think about a theme that has to do with theft. The most basic level would be to say something like, "stealing is wrong."
Wow. That took a lot of thought, right? Well, just as with the other elements of your story, you want to spend some time on this, let it evolve and grow. Soon, you might come up with something a bit more interesting, like wondering when stealing might be the right thing to do. Or, you could begin to ask yourself what the character thinks of herself after stealing. When you let the theme evolve from the first simple statement or question into something bigger and more complex, it gives you several very big benefits.
First, it will take you deeper into your character's emotions. Your protagonist might feel bad about stealing, but what if through exploring the theme you find out there was another layer of emotion below that, one that influenced her, but she wasn't really aware of. With this, you begin to move beyond the character's plot oriented decisions. Instead, what you are working is really the subconscious itch that your characters don't even know they are scratching, but it's something that your readers will notice. Showing a character's inner workings to the audience, even when the character doesn't know about them is an incredibly humanizing tactic you can use.
Think about this one...who do you know that is fully aware of all of their motivations all the time? Lots of people pretend that they are aware and in control, but isn't that a bit delusional? Isn't it more common that people spend some time on autopilot, barely aware of what they are doing, let alone why?
A character that has his emotions all figured out is unrealistic, and very boring. So, instead, give him some room to grow, something he needs to figure out and change that he just might not be aware of at first. He doesn't need to see all his own problems in the beginning. This approach gives you lots of great room for your characters to grow, which, in turn, will make your readers very happy.
The second big benefit to working on your theme takes you back to the external world of your story...how it interacts with the plot. When you pose the problem or question of your theme, you are presented with a great opportunity. You get to ask yourself, "how do I show that?" If we go back to the example of a protagonist who is a thief, what actions would show that she feels bad about stealing? What situations would show that there are times when it's the right thing to do?
These are questions that can help give you ideas about what needs to happen in your story. Forcing your character into situations and decisions that are based on theme can help get the story moving when you feel stuck. Working this way, the interior world can drive the external world of plot to create a story that is richer and more connected. And, once again, with all of the growing connections between emotions and what is happening in the plot, your readers will be very satisfied.
Now, let's get more into what theme is and isn't with a big, classical kind of example...Shakespeare. Some people identify the theme of Romeo and Juliet as love. Ummm...what? Yeah, sure, there's a lot of love stuff in the play. We might even say that the topic of this story is love. That's makes sense. But the theme...is it just the abstract concept of love that Shakespeare wanted us to talk about after watching that play? Is that all? Or is there more?
Think about Romeo and Juliet. What is Shakespeare saying about love? What is he saying about family? It's a big discussion, isn't it? Huge. Ask your friends what they think. Does everyone have the same opinion about what the old bard is trying to say? Probably not.
That's one of the most interesting things about a story's theme. You, the writer, can have a definite idea of what the theme of your story is...but that idea really only applies to you. Once it's in the reader's hands, then their own experiences color and change how they interpret the theme. If one of your friends has just been arguing with her mother, then she'll probably think the theme in Romeo and Juliet is about how families are destructive. If another friend just met the girl of his dreams, he might think the theme is about how wonderful and eternal love is. Another might center on the masks and the sleeping potion and decide that love is all about deception. Or, you might think about it and decide that Shakespeare is telling us that love can be just as deadly as hate.
That's a lot of ways to think about one play. And here's the thing; not one of these interpretations of the theme of Romeo and Juliet is actually wrong. It's this interaction between the writer's intent and the reader's interpretation that provides such unique perspectives on one story. And, once you dive down into the interior of a story this way, the thoughts about theme can end up being more important and interesting than the play itself, and we're talking about a story that is overflowing with romance and murder. That's how powerful theme can be.
But don't stop here, because this theme stuff is about to get even deeper...and cooler.
What we run into when we really get into theme are paradoxes. In this case it's the ability to tackle two (or more) opposite functions at once. And the first of these paradoxes deals with WHAT you are saying.
Imagine a story where you have a theme, perhaps something to do with the thief example from earlier in this chapter. But...you don't pick a side. Instead of showing how stealing is wrong, you don't show any negative consequences at all. She steals, and then basically nothing happens. It doesn't work very well as a story, does it?
For there to be an interesting story, you need to make sure that you have something to say in your writing. Take a position on your theme. You aren't a neutral journalist, and even though you want to show how well rounded the story is by having flawed heroes and understandable villains; you need to take a stand to have a theme. In our theft story, you could show a host of negative consequences for the protagonist and those around her to show your position that stealing is wrong. Taking a stand like this will definitely keep your story from being wishy-washy. Taking a stand is the first side of this paradox.
But the other side of the paradox...that's the exception to the take-a-stand rule.
Sometimes, as a writer, you will run into a problem or question that you don't know the answer to. You work on it through a story, but you still may not reach an answer. In that case, it's okay that your theme is a question.
And, think of our example story with a strong anti-theft theme. Does it get a little moralistic? Kind of heavy handed? Shallow? For an example of a theme like this, go back to Grimm's Fairy Tales. Remember those? One theme stands out pretty universally there...stepmothers are bad!
But are they really? Does such a black and white theme cut it today? Will readers roll their eyes at our thief story if it has a similarly simplistic theme?
Instead, what if you show a range of consequences, both good and bad? What if you trust your reader to form a sensible opinion about what the answer is? This can actually help your theme feel less bossy and overstated to the reader.
These two positions can seem at odds. One tells you to give a definite position on your theme and one says leave it up to the reader. But, maybe the best answer involves looking at these two dichotomous positions through the paradox...where you stand up for more than one position on the theme and leave the question open for your reader to come up with the final answer. And there are a lot of great methods to help you do this.
But, before we can get into some specific tools, we have to talk about the second paradox, which deals with HOW you talk about your theme.
Those poor maligned stepmothers in Grimm's Fairy Tales...they never seem to get a break, do they? And, when you think about it, we don't get much of a choice in how we think about them. There is nothing subtle about how we are presented with this theme, and once again, this doesn't fly very well with readers today.
This paradox deals with the fact that while you need a theme, you have to try your best to keep it a secret. In this chapter, we've skirted around the reasons why the theme needs to be kept quiet...we don't want to be too pushy, we want our readers to figure things out for themselves, we want to show our fictional world (even a fantastic one) in a realistic way. But, one of the biggest reasons to keep quiet about your theme is to keep a sense of mystery in your story.
No matter what genre you write in, you want some surprises for your readers, and keeping quiet about the exact nature of your theme is a great way to hold onto that mystery. Instead of blurting out how stealing is either all bad or justified in some situations, let it unfold slowly as the plot develops. As an added bonus, this is also a good way to make sure that you are showing things to your reader instead of telling (remember that wonderful rule?). Show us some of the negative consequences and the positive ones as the story goes along. By the end, the reader will have plenty of information and you won't have had to shout from any rooftops, which is very nice for everyone.
And, double-super bonus, keeping the theme under wraps ensures that you have time in the beginning to focus on characters and plot. Remember, the readers want to splash around in the story for a bit before diving deep. Give them the chance to get their feet wet with the fun stuff.
Now, let's dig in and work on a few specific ways you can show (and hide) a richer theme in your stories.
We talked about how theme can give you insight into the emotional side of your characters, but we can also turn the tables and use characters to develop and show theme. Remember that your characters must have opinions and must act in order for your story to progress and be satisfying. Also, their opinions and actions should generally conflict with each other. This of course applies to the protagonist and antagonist being in conflict, but also to the hero's allies being in conflict with the hero and each other. If the protagonist's team all get along and agree on how to solve their problems, then not only will the story be boring, but you will have missed a great opportunity.
Because, each of these different characters can be the perfect tool to show your readers the different sides of your theme. To show this point, let's talk about a few characters and a possible theme from The Hunger Games: that we must stand up to the powerful, any way we can.
In the beginning of the novel, Katniss and everyone around her lives under the thumb of the District One President, and she has what appear to be two choices, to resist it by running away with Gale or to stay and slowly die. Faced with this, she doesn't know what to do. But when she replaces her little sister and goes to the hunger games, she knows she has to fight, but the real question is how. Will she fight the way Gale, her fellow hunter, would? Or, will she choose a more peaceful method, like Peeta?
Suzanne Collins doesn't take the easy way out of this problem. She doesn't come down and say that one or the other of these approaches is best. Instead, she shows us that each has its merits at certain times. Katniss is sometimes a hunter and at other times, it is compassion that saves her. Through this, Suzanne gives us insight into dealing with a complicated theme. We get lessons that can apply to our own world and learn how to deal with those would oppress us.
With Gale and Peeta as opposite examples of how to handle a problem like oppression, Katniss gets to see both sides of the theme and the readers are able to experience the different approaches alongside her. These two characters compete not only for her heart, but for how she can interact with the world. And again, Collins doesn't tell us which guy is better. Instead, at the end of the first book both men are still in her life and we are left to work out which approach is better.
In the end, after she survives and comes back home, we see that Katniss becomes a more complete person because of these two characters. The fact that we don't have a clear cut statement of how to handle something as serious as oppression means that she grows in complexity. This is smart work on the author's part, because the readers get more out of the book, and also end up very eager for sequels.
Now, as you dig into using characters to show your themes, you'll see that they get intertwined with another tool that you can use to deepen the waters of your story: subplots. On its surface, a subplot is any kind of significant question in the story that branches away from the main action. We will go into them in detail in chapter 14, but for now, just know one thing about subplots...while they diverge, they must also return and feed back into the main storyline.
Again, The Hunger Games is a great example. While the main plot is obvious...can Katniss survive, the subplot of which boy she will choose gives us a little break from the looming death, but then ties directly back in, because it is her growing relationship with Peeta that ends up saving her.
And while subplots are often tied to supporting characters, they don't need to be. They can be used to more directly give depth to your protagonist. In many cases, they deal with a secondary problem that your hero has to solve before finishing the main story. This is a perfect opportunity to show the inner life of your characters, because these side problems can so easily be about internal issues that the character has to deal with and they can result in changes that help the character solve the main plot.
All you need to do to use this tool well is give your main character an inner problem that will keep them from completing their main goal, then build a subplot around it. Katniss is frozen with an inability to commit in The Hunger Games, and this actually turns into a problem that takes three books to solve. But, by working on it, she is given the new skills she needs to fight oppression and survive. Your characters can do the same.
Before we move on, there is one key to theme in stories: it doesn't have to sit alone. Along with the multiple ways theme can be interpreted, you can aim for several themes in one story. If you have a lot to say, or a lot of questions to ask, then go for it. Just remember that a growing pile of themes shouldn't overshadow character development and plot. That would be like having something rise out of the depths, splashing through the surface and waving its slimy tentacles around before the reader can dip a toe in. Nobody is going near that pool!
But, if you can keep the surface inviting, there are more tools you can use to build the interior of your story. One of the more subtle approaches you can use is symbolism. Remember, with symbolism, you attach extra meaning to something more mundane. In a way, this is like developing your own secret language in a story. A door or a coin or even a color can stand for something bigger, for some kind of idea that relates to the deeper, internal elements of the story.
The danger with this tool is in making your symbols and images too obscure. If you develop your secret language in such a personal way that no one else can understand it, then you haven't really added any depth to the story. You have to find that fine line that will allow people to get the hint, without rubbing it in their faces. Plus, even recurring symbols can be trouble if they aren't understandable. If your reader wonders why you put a penguin figurine in every chapter, but can't figure out how it relates to your theme of vampire divorces, then you have a serious symbolism problem. But, if the penguin figurines in that story were all broken and leaking blood...not so much.
Another tool to be aware of is subtext. Remember it from the chapter on dialogue? Not only can it save your story from flat, horrid conversations, but the hidden meanings from subtext can bring richness to your story by expanding the inner lives of characters. When readers can tell that your characters say one thing and mean another, they get a glimpse at the levels you are building in your writing. But subtext has its limits in terms of internal development. You can build subtext motifs (where certain elements of it reoccur over and over), but other than that, subtext is kind of a one-shot deal. Unless the line of dialogue itself is very memorable or catchy, then subtext doesn't stick with readers for very long. They read it, hopefully enjoy it and keep going. It's the bigger elements like theme (that subtext can feed into) that usually pull the reader in deeper.
One final tool that can add to the interior side of your story is the decision making process that your characters go through. As we mentioned earlier, characters don't have to be aware of all of their motivations in the beginning of the story, but that doesn't mean they, and the readers, don't think about what they are doing.
We will go over this much more in the next chapter, but decisions are what define characters. They shape the plot, show us how the character changes over the course of the story, and they give us a lot of insight into her or his interior life. When the point of view is close enough that we get to see decisions being made, we can directly see the thoughts and emotions of the character. And...these feelings are made doubly important because they are then tied to a plot-driving action.
Being tied to action is an important part of this. Random thoughts that don't tie into action are just as meaningless as unrelated dialogue. Don't go Tarantino-monkey style with your character's inner life. Connect it and make it count.
One of the great parts about working with these inner aspects of your story is that it can be a lot of fun. Along with exploring the inner thoughts of your characters, you can discover new things about your story as you plan out and plant symbols, subtext and theme. In a way, it's like hiding Easter Eggs in your writing. They can be great surprises for those who keep their eyes open. Sadly though, there is no chocolate involved.
Luckily for us, all of this is natural and relatively easy to do in stories, especially after you practice it just a little. We gravitate toward stating a position on our subject and having a theme. We give our characters decisions that reveal who they are inside. We unconsciously add in recurring symbols that have meaning for us. The key is to do it all without being obvious about it. Readers want to walk into the water at their own pace, feel around and get used to it. They don't want to get blasted by a fire hose! So, keep the characters and plot in the foreground, but quietly explore the story's inner landscape (and your own) as you work on your next story.
Homework:
Think of a few of your favorite books or movies. What theme or themes do you see in them?
Do you find any symbols popping up over and over in your stories? Are there symbols that you didn't know you had put in there? (I for one had a motif of locked doors (with something nasty behind them) pop up in a lot of the things I wrote.) If you find any, what do you think they mean to you?