How to incorporate themes

Theme is one of those vague, elusive terms that every writer hears, is generally told they should have, and is then forced to reckon with in the writing process. But what is theme actually supposed to do for your story?

One of the first things I like to clarify is that themes are best thought of as exploratory rather than didactic. A story’s theme is not about telling your reader what they should think. If you do that, you risk breaking the immersion of the story by showing your authorial hand.

Rather, think of theme as opening up a question, a problem, a phenomenon, and exploring the complexities of that thing.

The two best ways to explore a theme are through your plot and characters. 

With your plot, you get to curate events and conflicts that bring your protagonist into contact with the theme you’re exploring. The plot will make some sort of statement by the end (good wins in the end, love can endure anything, justice doesn’t exist, etc), but the events along the way become opportunities for your protagonist to experience the themes’ complexity (what affects our relationship to love? Or why does justice happen sometimes and not others?).

Likewise, your characters are a perfect place to add nuance to your story’s themes. Your characters should already be approaching the events of the story differently from each other (otherwise they’re just the same person), but focusing on your characters’ responses and relationship to those events creates story-relevant ways of deepening your exploration. What different perspectives do characters have about the problems, their sources, or solutions? How do their previous experiences shape those perspectives?

The goal here is to intertwine your plot, characters, and themes to create that exploratory experience without the need to overexplain or insert tangential side scenes or plots that don’t connect back to the main storyline.

Through your plot and characters you can let your story’s themes speak for themselves by exploring them from multiple angles as the story unfolds; that’s how you invite the reader to experience your theme through the story rather than reaching your authorial hand through and grabbing them by the shirt collar. 

A great example of this is Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House. To show you how she explores the theme of power through her plot and characters (and in celebration of the fact that Dead Beat is officially out!) I’m pulling out an old video from the archives (read: my old Substack) for you to watch below!