Jonathan Eaton's Blog - Posts Tagged "theme"
Theme is Bones
Cyndi asked me this morning "So, how does it feel to have finished the novel?"
Strangely (perhaps) finishing a novel feels to me very much like finishing a big project did in my software development days, which I can sum up as follows: "You know, that turned out pretty well, but if I had it to do all over again . . ."
Or to put it another way, writing a novel is always a learning experience for me. So what did I learn this time?
I learned about theme. I came to the conclusion that "theme" is something that is more important to writers than to readers. It gives the writer something to cling to—a way to focus their thoughts about the novel. A theme is a novel's mantra. Without a theme, a novel would just be stuff that happens.
I don't worry too much about plot or characters when I write. If you throw a bunch of interesting people with different objectives and motivations into an interesting and difficult situation, and you let those characters be themselves, they will do interesting things. But without something to hold all those interesting things together, a novel can feel unpleasantly messy, like when you're trying to eat a sandwich with all sorts of great stuff in it but chunks keep falling out of the sandwich into your lap.
Making a sandwich is a form of architecture. So is making a Frankenstein's Monster. So is writing a novel. Theme is buns. Theme is rebar. Theme is bones.
Another thing I learned about theme is that while a theme can hold a novel together as it goes from point A to point B, you still have to have a point A and B. It wasn’t long before I knew this novel was going to get messy. Once I'd figured out the theme, I thought I'd won the battle--I was herding the cats, as it were--but herding cats and getting a herd of cats to a place that really wants a herd of cats are two different things entirely.
That turned out to be the real struggle with this novel, and if I had it to do all over again . . .
Anyway, it's a good novel, and well worth 99¢ for the Kindle version. Read it, and tell me what you think the theme is.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07K5J12FV
Strangely (perhaps) finishing a novel feels to me very much like finishing a big project did in my software development days, which I can sum up as follows: "You know, that turned out pretty well, but if I had it to do all over again . . ."
Or to put it another way, writing a novel is always a learning experience for me. So what did I learn this time?
I learned about theme. I came to the conclusion that "theme" is something that is more important to writers than to readers. It gives the writer something to cling to—a way to focus their thoughts about the novel. A theme is a novel's mantra. Without a theme, a novel would just be stuff that happens.
I don't worry too much about plot or characters when I write. If you throw a bunch of interesting people with different objectives and motivations into an interesting and difficult situation, and you let those characters be themselves, they will do interesting things. But without something to hold all those interesting things together, a novel can feel unpleasantly messy, like when you're trying to eat a sandwich with all sorts of great stuff in it but chunks keep falling out of the sandwich into your lap.
Making a sandwich is a form of architecture. So is making a Frankenstein's Monster. So is writing a novel. Theme is buns. Theme is rebar. Theme is bones.
Another thing I learned about theme is that while a theme can hold a novel together as it goes from point A to point B, you still have to have a point A and B. It wasn’t long before I knew this novel was going to get messy. Once I'd figured out the theme, I thought I'd won the battle--I was herding the cats, as it were--but herding cats and getting a herd of cats to a place that really wants a herd of cats are two different things entirely.
That turned out to be the real struggle with this novel, and if I had it to do all over again . . .
Anyway, it's a good novel, and well worth 99¢ for the Kindle version. Read it, and tell me what you think the theme is.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07K5J12FV
