by “The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we’re uncool.”
-Lester Bangs in Almost Famous
Finding The Theme Of A Story Is A Complex Process:
A lot of storytellers get upset when you start talking about Theme. But I believe that a Powerful Theme is vital to the craft of storytelling.
Sure, you can write “fun” or “cool” pseudo-stories without a Theme, but you can’t transcend medium, genre and culture without a powerful Theme.
Stories with power are stories with a Powerful Theme.
A Powerful Theme is NOT a “moral of the story” like you might find at the end of an Aesop Fable. A Powerful Theme is NOT a propaganda technique. A Powerful Theme is honest, nuanced and universal. Put simply, Theme is complex.
So what IS Theme? How do you find the Theme of a story? How do you write a story with a Powerful Theme?
Because the process of finding the Theme of a story is so complex, it’s actually easier to show you where it’s done well than it is to explain.
Enter Philip Seymour Hoffman…
Finding The Theme In ‘Almost Famous’
I’m about to share some MILD SPOILERS for the movie Almost Famous.
Personally, I don’t think this post will actually spoil the movie for you if you haven’t seen it. If anything, I think it will enhance your experience with the movie. And if you haven’t seen Almost Famous, DO.
It’s great.
Buy the AMAZING Director’s Cut using THIS LINK and 8% of the sale will go to support Paper Wings.
Or you can buy the DVD here (8% will go to support Paper Wings).
A Risky Decision That Delivers:
You risk your story’s credibility when a character actually says the Theme of your story.
But two of my favorite stories take that risk and pull it off – Almost Famous and The Shawshank Redemption.
(If you like this post, I’ll write a follow-up about Shawshank. …but we’ll focus on Almost Famous for now.)
In Almost Famous, we have to wait about two hours until the character of Lester Bangs (the story’s “voice of God”) reveals the Powerful Theme to us. When he does, it knocks us out with a one-two punch of Beauty and Truth and a roundhouse-kick of heartache:
“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we’re uncool.”
But by explicitly (and poetically) stating the Powerful Theme of Almost Famous, this “voice of God” gives us a wonderful gift… insight.
Again, I do NOT recommend this approach. Unless you have a character as amazing as Lester Bangs or Ellis Redding and a story as well-told as Almost Famous or The Shawshank Redemption it’s probably best to keep your Theme to yourself and just let it quietly guide your writing process.
Theme Is Character:
A Powerful Theme is inextricably linked to the main character’s story arc. I would even go as far as to say that the main character is an incarnation of the Powerful Theme.
Almost Famous is about a fifteen year-old kid who lands his dream job writing for Rolling Stone Magazine in the 1970’s. He goes on tour with a Zeppelin-type band and despite his best efforts to remain “honest and unmerciful” as any real journalist should, his desperation to be validated as “cool” by the band could cost him his dream.
Will he become “cool” and go spiritually bankrupt? That’s what’s happening to everyone else around him. Or will he embrace his universal “uncool” and keep his soul (along with his dream job)?
Your story is your character and your character is your Theme.
Theme Is EVERY Character:
Powerful Theme is a universal, human question. “Are you ever uncool? Do you ever expose your uncool to anyone?” If not, you’re probably spiritually bankrupt. If not, you’re one of the walking dead.
Powerful Theme is a real question that every real person has thought about or actively avoids. Powerful Theme can rip a powerful question out of the audience’s subconscious and force them to face it.
If your Theme is universal for us, then it’s universal for all of your characters.
If your main character is going to have to face the human question of your Theme, and if all other characters exist in support of your main character’s story, then all of your characters should, at some point, become and incarnation of your Theme.
In Almost Famous, every character is “cool” except for the protagonist, William Miller and his Mom (the source of William’s uncool). And throughout the story, every important character has their cool stripped away.
Of course, they all respond in different ways and that’s one of the reasons we keep watching.
Seeing all of the characters embody and/or face the question of the Powerful Theme makes the experience of this story nigh-religious.
Every one of your characters has to (or has had to) face the question of your Powerful Theme. When they do, the power of your Theme is validated and amplified.
Varied, honest incarnations of the Powerful Theme are the antidote to propaganda and over-simplification. These incarnations are what make stories nuanced, believable and credible.
Tips For Writing Stories With A Powerful Theme:
- You will probably have to search for your Powerful Theme. It usually emerges out of a story as it forms. So don’t freak out if you can’t explicitly state it when you’re starting a new project.
- After you discover your Powerful Theme, let it serve as a “narrative compass” for your writing and rewriting processes. When you’re faced with plot decisions or the introduction of a new character or whatever, consider your Powerful Theme and how this new element (character, plot device etc…) can embody the Theme.
- Phrase your Theme in whatever way is useful to you. Although I said it is a universal question, you don’t actually have to present it as a question. The Lester Bangs quote is not a question but it begs one. Well, it begs several. Powerful Theme is bigger than any one way you might state it. But you still have to commit and state it in some way.
- Your story will have THE Powerful Theme and other sub-themes that emerge organically. That’s okay, but try to make the sub-themes harmonize with the main, Powerful Theme. Sub-Themes can be powerful or just interesting.
- You might even change your mind about your Powerful Theme while you’re writing. That’s fine, but then you have to go re-work what you’ve already written to embody your new Theme.
A Challenge:
If your Theme is powerful, your story will be powerful. If your story is powerful, your story will transcend. If your story transcends then your story really means something.
If your story really means something then your story will help the world. And if your story helps the world, then your story changes the world. And if your story changes the world by helping us – even in a small way… …Well, then you’ve really done something.
Think about the greatest stories you’ve ever encountered. Didn’t they help you? You’re probably a better person because of those stories, right?
This is challenging stuff. Even though a seasoned storyteller like Cameron Crowe nailed it with Almost Famous doesn’t mean that he has nailed it with every story he’s ever told. I think most people would agree that he has not, in fact “nailed it” every time. But he’s human. That’s part of the deal.
But just because finding the theme of a story is a complex process, doesn’t mean that we can’t try.
And that’s what we do here at Paper Wings. We aim high and help each other get there…
Does YOUR Story Have A Powerful Theme?
Does YOUR story have a Theme? If so, what is it and why?
If not, can you look back over what you’ve written so far to highlight and enhance a Theme?
Share your thoughts in the comments below…
