Themes in Stories
This week’s Story Club, my workshop for young writers, had the theme of … themes.
What are the overarching themes of our story? Love, loss, friendship, moving to a new town, family are big ones in young (and older fiction). Knowing the themes we wish to write about helps us keep our story together. It helps us convey heartfelt topics that are important to us and our readers.
Themes that the young writers came up with, and wanted to write or read about, were some heart-warming ones like love, family, friendship, fitting in, overcoming self-doubt and personal growth. Spirituality and the ocean came in. We had some strong themes too such as anger, loss, rivalry, betrayal and the holocaust.
Writers young and old sometimes apologise before sharing a piece of work. “It’s quite dark,” they will say. “Are you sure you want to hear it?” But so-called “dark” themes are part of our human experience, part of our world. Rather than shutter them away and never speak of them, I am all for communicating our experience, what we are thinking about and feeling. What we are dealing with.
Most stories that really resonate and stick with us have darkness along with light. Hard times along with how to overcome difficulty. So let’s write about what we care about, not worrying if it’s too dark or too light. After all, what would J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings be without Gollum and Sauron? What would Lisa Thompsons’ The Goldfish Boy be without Matthew’s crippling OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)?
So whether it’s a heartwarming theme about a family adopting a new pet, or a heartbreaking theme about lost friends, let’s connect with what we care about, and communicate it to the world through story.
