What’s Lurking Deep in the Guts of Your Story?
Is your novel about a guy who climbed to the top of the corporate ladder , only to discover it was leaned against the wrong building? So what’s the theme of the story?
10 ESSENTIALS OF A DYNAMITE STORY #7 COMPELLING THEME
Elevator doors open.
Woman gets in.
Elevator doors close.
This woman’s got to be a literary agent! She looks like an agent, has that …. agenty thing going on, you know what I mean. Or a publisher. Yeah, agent or publisher, one or the other.
She glances at your The Only Writing Conference on the Planet That Really Matters nametag, then at the title page of the three-inch-thick manuscript you’re clutching to your chest like the seat-cushion life preserver on a 747. She gets it.
“You write that?” she asks.
The woman’s quick! Knew she was an agent. Ok, act like a pro. Give her a this-ain’t-my-first-rodeo glance.
“Write what …? Oh, you mean this? The book? Uh huh, I wrote it.”
“What’s it about?”
Ding! Ding! Ding! The Big Chance alarm begins to shriek in your head so loud it’s hard to concentrate, but you take a deep breath and …
“This is my first novel,” you say, and thrust it at her like a dead fish on a stick. “And it’s about this guy who … well, he and his best friend are on this boat, see. Only it’s not really a boat but they don’t find out it’s not until after the tsunami wipes out the island. Oh, and the guy’s friend is really his twin brother—they were separated at birth—and they don’t know that part either. But they do know they’re both in love with the same woman. Only, she’s got AIDS, which she tells them in the suicide note she leaves beside the safety deposit box key in her pilot’s seat on the Blackhawk helicopter. Anyway, this guy—his name’s Jonah, which I picked because of the boat that’s not really a boat. Jonah—get it? So Jonah turns to his friend and says in Hebrew—”
Elevator doors open.
“This is my floor,” the woman says.
***
Let’s push pause on this little scenario right here. We’ll come back to it later.
Yes, you must have an elevator pitch. You must be able to describe the plot of your book in under 30 seconds. And I’m of the opinion that plot planning needs to start with an elevator pitch and grow from that. (That’s another blog post. http://bit.ly/4ReaderJourney )
But right now, I don’t care if you can describe your plot in 30 seconds. I’m much more interested in your answer to the fundamental question in this scenario: what’s your book about? What’s it really about? And you shouldn’t need an elevator ride to describe it. A sentence or two, maybe just a word, should get the job done.
Is your book about injustice? Intolerance? Diversity? The theme is the point the book makes about those things.
Is yours a book about courage? Sacrifice? Greed? Intolerance? Does it make a point about the nature of man or the influence of culture? Is it about fading beauty, the futility of chasing fame or change versus tradition?
In other words, what is the theme of your book, the universal message that stretches out across your novel? It may appear in the outcome of the story, or in a pattern of scenarios with the same result within the plot, or in the lessons the story teaches. Often there is more than one theme in a novel, but usually there’s an overarching message that knits them all together. Theme may even be directly stated—almost always as an off-hand remark.
One of the themes in Five Days in May popped out of the mouth of the main character, Princess: “Don’t never underestimate the power of doin’ the right thing, Rev. Sometimes, it’s the only gift life gives you.”
I say “popped out” because even if you don’t consciously put a theme in your novel, chances are there’s one in it because theme arises organically from the story. Some writers even start with theme—and I’m one of them. After the theme hijacked Five Days in May, I began my next three novels with a theme in mind.
Black Sunshine is about the destructive power of lies and the healing power of forgiveness—told with the story of a coal mine disaster.
The Last Safe Place is about internal versus external beauty and real change that comes from a transformed heart—told with the story of a deranged fan stalking a novelist.
When Butterflies Cry (releases this fall) is about forgiving yourself and the power of sacrifice. It’s told with the story of a soldier in Vietnam, a disaster in Wales and a mysterious little girl in West Virginia.
Your novel has a theme. If you don’t know what it is, find it. Nurture it. Theme is your truth. Either consciously or unconsciously you wanted to tell that truth to the world—that’s why you wrapped it in a story.
* * *
The woman leaps out of the elevator as if her skirt’s on fire.
The doors close.
Ok, you blew this one. But you know what you did wrong, so next time, you’ll be ready.
The elevator doors open.
A man steps in. Might be in publishing, might be a taxidermist. But you’re not taking any chances. As soon as the elevator doors close, you reach over and punch the emergency stop button.
“Relax,” you say. “This could take awhile. This is my first novel and it’s about this guy who … well, he and his best friend are on this boat, see. Only it’s not really …”
Write on!
9e
