How to Write a Novel: Theme

Theme is what the story is really about. Not the surface events of the plot, but the underlying concepts or principles that you want to underscore as part of the novel.

My crime thriller Desecration opens with a murder in an anatomy museum and, on the surface, it’s a detective story about the hunt for the killer. But that’s just the plot. The theme is how the physical body defines us in life — and in death.

Some authors start with theme.

Some authors discover theme after they’ve written the first draft or later during the editorial process.

Still others may never understand their theme consciously, but find readers comment about things in reviews that reveal an underlying theme after all.

Start with the theme in mind

Some authors are clear on the theme from the beginning. For example, the impact of racism is clearly an important theme that resonates with many writers.

You can then construct characters and plot to fit the theme, making sure they echo the important points along the way.

But remember, readers are smart and they don’t want to read a lecture in novel form. Beware of overstating theme through character monologues, or info dumps. Find ways to evoke theme so it emerges from the story naturally.

Discover your theme along the way

Desecration was inspired by visiting the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. I had a visceral reaction, a churning in my gut, to the body parts in jars and the brutal instruments used to harvest them as I wondered about the people whose organs lay there.

But my reaction puzzled me.

I’m an organ donor and I don’t believe my physical body holds anything of me once I’m dead. I’d love my body parts to be useful after my death, either through helping others to live, or for scientists and doctors to learn from. I don’t think physical disability, deformity, or illness should define everything about a person.

So I wrote an opening scene where a young woman is found murdered in the center of the atrium, surrounded by body parts in jars. The story — and the theme — developed from there.

Your themes become part of your author voice

Your obsessions have power, and you will likely return to them again and again in your stories.

One of my recurring themes is good versus evil on the supernatural level. It underscores so many of my stories, and it’s the theme of my favorite and most memorable books as a reader. The Stand by Stephen King is an epic tale of good versus evil, and I love John Connolly’s Charlie Parker series for the same reason.

As a teenager, I was obsessed with stories of spiritual warfare, angels and demons, and the forces of light battling the realms of darkness. Although I have a master’s degree in theology, I am not religious, but these things still shape my fiction. Even when I try to write something that is not supernatural, with no religious elements, I just can’t help myself. My Muse loves what she loves, and I cannot deny her.

As readers, we return to authors we love because their themes resonate with us at a deeper level, so lean into the themes that come up for you because it’s likely that your readers love that about your writing.

“The moment that you feel that, just possibly you’re walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself, that’s the moment you may be starting to get it right.”

—Neil Gaiman, Make Good Art

You’re writing a story, not a lecture

You don’t need to be explicit about your theme. You don’t need to state it anywhere or insert obvious monologue into the voice of a character. Readers are smart and they understand how story works.

Desecration is not a lecture on how the physical body defines us in life or in death. It’s a murder mystery with engaging characters and a fast-moving plot, but along the way, I hope readers end up considering those deeper questions.

“The more you wish to describe a Universal, the more minutely and truthfully you must describe a Particular.”

—Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write

Deepen your theme in the editorial process

Your first draft is often about getting the story down as best you can. When you return to it in the editorial process, consider how you could deepen your theme by adding specific details around setting, or use symbols and metaphor to underscore theme without being obvious.

For example, say your story is about a teacher fighting corruption in a small town. She wants to give her students a chance to escape to a better life, a chance she feels she has lost. You can show corruption through the character of the police chief when he takes money from a criminal gang to turn a blind eye to their deeds, but how else could you underscore theme?

Perhaps the teacher takes her class outside to sit in the shade of an old apple tree one hot day in the autumn. The heart of the wood is rotten and there are maggots crawling in the fallen fruit, so they can’t stay in the shade of its branches. Perhaps the teacher loves gardening and tends to the tree after the school day is over, working to restore its health and carve out its rotten heart.

In Desecration, one of the clues is an ivory Anatomical Venus, a carving of a beautiful woman with her body opened up as if on an anatomist’s table. Such sculptures were used as teaching aids, but are also valuable art pieces, and fetish objects. The Anatomical Venus underscores the theme of the meaning of the physical body, as the viewer is drawn in by its beauty, but also repelled by the gruesome display of the cadaver’s organs.

You can also use repeating images to underscore theme. In Destroyer of Worlds, Morgan and Jake have to find the pieces of a statue of Shiva Nataraja, depicting the god surrounded by flames as he both destroys the world and renews it. In my scenes with the antagonist Asha Kapoor, I use flames multiple times in her character arc to reiterate the theme of destruction by fire.

Questions:

•   Do you know the theme you want to write about already? Don’t worry if you don’t. You can figure it out later.

•   Think about the books you love. What are their themes?

•   How can you evoke theme in your novel without lecturing the reader?

•   How can you deepen your theme?

Resources:

•   If You Want to Write — Brenda Ueland

•   Make Good Art — Neil Gaiman

•   On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft — Stephen King

•   Writing Your Story’s Theme: The Writer’s Guide to Plotting Stories That Matter — K.M. Weiland