The Theme of Your Novel

You’ve assessed your idea for its LOCK potential, you’ve fronted it to a couple of your friends and it seems as if you’re well on your way to the next Harry Potter. Well! It’s time to build that idea into something worth filling 200 or so blank pages with. Of course to make sure your idea is worthwhile you need to make it as unique as possible.  

A good book entertains, a great book inspires – and great books have themes. The theme is the universal message that runs through your entire story. A well crafted story will have a unique and interesting theme that will make people either have an ‘Aha moment’ or question their preconceived notions.  To test your story’s theme, answer this question: What’s your story about? If you answered ‘it’s about a woman who sets off to find her adoptive mother’ only you need to put in some work in. Give a brief of the unspoken message like ‘it’s about the religious and their struggle to conform to societal expectations.’ Of course reading between lines you can figure out that her mother (or father) will be a religious woman who had a child of wedlock.

After you’ve figured out the theme, it will probably feel as if the story is just writing itself. Well don’t let it run away from you. Jot down any ideas you have to add on to your story idea in a notebook specifically selected for that idea. If the ideas are not flowing as fast as you’d like try mind-mapping. A Mind map for the above story would involve questions like: what makes her start searching? What are the barriers she finds as she tries to find her mother? What’s so interesting about her search? What happens after she finds her mother – does she meet her expectations? What does she hope to find and what does she really find? Remember all this has to go on paper.

Try to figure out the basics of your characters and the setting even as you prepare to go in depth in latter days.  If you’re writing a mystery this would be a good time to start thinking of the clues that will help in the solution of your crime. Think of the supporting cast like the villain. If you’re thinking of a science student who’s decided to create the perfect man will it be the mentor who is secretly stealing her research material, or the best friend who is trying to sabotage the project?

If you decide to go with a theme that is considered controversial like sexual liberation or terrorism, think of how you can make your argument look attractive. Let’s say you have an American soldier who steals treasure after an invasion into one of Saddam Hussein’s lost homes. You can choose to explore the argument that ‘freedom to own property must be moderated’ and portray your soldier as a hero who prevented one of Hussein’s son’s (who appeared harmless) from using it to pay his way back into power. Or you could decide that ‘the sins of the father should not visit his sons’ and show how his daughters have been left destitute, ostracized and hunted and instead show another soldier trying to get these treasure back to them.  

In this post alone, we’ve figured out three plots. See it’s all very easy…so I’ll leave you to your thinking.