Thematic writing enables your readers to enjoy your story on a deeper level by encouraging them to think about big issues, to reflect on their lives and beliefs. By selecting a theme, and then integrating symbols and allegory that support the theme, you’ll add dimension and vitality to your writing.
For many writers, though, identifying your theme isn’t easy. Sometimes, of course, your theme is clear and purposeful—you set out to write about family values, bullying, independent decision-making, or another big idea. Other times, the theme only becomes apparent as you draft your story, or even after it’s finished. Occasionally, even after you’re done, you have no sense at all of your theme or whether you have one. If that’s your situation, ask yourself if this lack of clarity comes from a forest-trees conundrum. While you’re slogging through the metaphorical woods, tripping on plot roots, forging streams alongside your characters, actually writing the book, you don’t have a sense of the forest, the larger picture. Only after you’re out of the woods, looking at the scope of the forest through a wider lens, does your theme become clear—because that’s what theme is: the overarching story arc.
Broadly, there are two kinds of themes: a unifying principle or a dominant idea. A unifying principle refers to a structural element that serves as a through-line for your story. A dominant idea encourages deep thinking about a universal issue, be it an idea, an attitude, a belief.
The unifying principle in Irwin Shaw’s , for example, is the transcendent power of reinventing yourself. In the book, we follow also uses the unifying principle of self-determination to share a larger story—in this case, finding your place in the world. We follow Charlie, a “wallflower,” as his life unfolds in a series of firsts—first dates, first viewing of , first friends having sex. We’re with Charlie as he straddles the threshold between adolescence and adulthood and understand his struggles to figure out where he truly belongs.
