What Every Writer Should Know About Theme

By Laurence MacNaughton, @LMacNaughton  

Part of the How They Do It Series (Contributing Author)

JH: Theme is a useful tool to deepen a novel, but it's often misunderstood. Luckily, Laurence MacNaughton is back this month with a fantastic look at how easy it is to find your theme.  

Theme seems to be one of those angst-triggering bogeymen that writers constantly wrestle with. But when you examine it closely, there's really nothing complicated about it. Theme is simply the lesson the main character learns over the course of the story.

(Or, in the case of a tragic ending, the lesson they failed to learn.)

Every story, from the silliest comedy to the deepest work of literature, delivers a moral message on some level. It basically says “life is like this.”

Think about some of the most famous movie quotes of all time:
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com