Erik Bork

“Theme emerges by examining competing priorities in life through the specifics of a story, which ultimately reflects a point of view about the best way to be in the world, and the most effective way—at least in a situation like the one at hand. I’m not talking about facile, obvious arguments, like whether racism is good or bad or whether one should be selfish or giving. A good theme weighs competing goods or competing evils against each other, and dramatizes why it’s so difficult to make a choice sometimes, or to change. It doesn’t offer easy answers. Any thematic outcome or judgment in the end is earned, gradually, over the course of the story. It’s not just thrown out there in a quick and easy way. Theme”
― Erik Bork, The Idea: The Seven Elements of a Viable Story for Screen, Stage or Fiction

“The legendary Broadway writer/producer/performer George M. Cohan is supposed to have once said: “In the first act, you get your main character up a tree. In the second act, you throw rocks at them. In the third act, you get them down.” The nature of what that tree is, and what those rocks are, is key. You could even say that “story = main character + tree + rocks.”
― Erik Bork, The Idea: The Seven Elements of a Viable Story for Screen, Stage or Fiction