ΤHE THEME

“Your manuscript is both good and original. But the parts that are good are not original, and the parts that are original are not good.”
Samuel Johnson


Imagine if Homer had written the whole Iliad showing Helen the Beautiful tossing and turning in bed with a terrible headache because of her desperate love for Paris. It’s quite dramatic, but only if you are Helen the Beautiful herself.
The “theme” of a novel is an anchor that keeps the ship of the narrative on course. That is one more writing cliché, but like many clichés it is also true. The “theme” is a general perception underlying the book that determines the whole flow of the story and its climax. It also determines the atmosphere, the actions and the turns of the plot, and is fully compatible with the main character.
Incompatibility between the main character and the theme is disastrous for the book as a whole. You cannot write a tough detective novel in which the main character is a scared accounting clerk whose only ambition is to buy a little house in the country and die cultivating carrots. Except if your first name is Agatha…
Besides the above, the “theme” also determines the place, time and social context that form the canvas on which the fiction is painted. It is difficult to project and narrate the struggle for equality of African Americans if you choose to do it through the story of a happy couple honeymooning on Honolulu. Your readers will never pick up the book, unless the husband’s name is Mr. Grey…
In addition, the “theme” creates the drama you will narrate, not the other way around. All of other the elements of the novel flow from the theme, and everything else adapts to it. The theme can be a rupture, a perception, a change, a proposal, or just an adventure with interesting perspectives, whether historical or erotic. From it will spring all the dramatic episodes that will support and advance the story you are telling.
No one will keep turning the pages of a story that doesn’t go anywhere, turns around in circles and gazes at its navel. Boredom is the emotion with the fastest reactions, and many times alleviation of boredom is precisely why someone picked up your novel in the first place. There must be some promise to lead the reader on and some interest to keep him or her in place.
All of that is what your “theme” gives you. It is the first and most important choice you have to make, before going on to the main character who will express your myth and bring your story to life.