The Theme is Out There

I smiled when I read Katy’s Monday post about truth. My husband and I are currently watching through the X-Files TV series on Netflix. Mulder and Scully’s search for truth is fraught with lies which, when taken together, lead to truth. How is that possible?

Someone once said that truth is the version of events the majority agree upon.  Especially when it comes to murky events like history (Churchill famously said, “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.”)

Fiction is about telling the truth via the valley of the shadow of lies.

So what sort of truth are we talking about here?

My dad loves to tell me that Louis L’Amour stories are accurate. “If, in one of his stories, he says there’s a rock in such and such a place, if you go to that place that rock will be there.”

Dad tells me this often, using the voice and posture of one truly impressed with L’Amour’s precision. It is, my dad seems to think, important not to mess up a good story by throwing rocks around willy-nilly.

Look around any bookstore and you’ll see heaps of fiction based on “actual events,” or “real history,” or “inspired by the author’s experience.” There’s something enticing about the story being real.

Real is true, but that doesn’t make it Truth.

When we talk about truth in fiction, what we mean is how affecting is the story’s ability to examine strings of small truths that lead up to the unveiling of a singular large truth?

This is theme at work.

As a story swims upstream to its end, the writer endeavors to explore as many facets and versions of the singular truth as possible within the limits of character and story.

Doesn’t that sound lovely?

So, if theme is the exploration of deep truth, why do writers struggle with theme? (And we all do)

In my journey from fly-by-my-pants to full-fledged planner, the one aspect of outlining I’ve resisted hardest has been writing a theme line. A single sentence that encapsulates the life-essence of the story I am creating.

It’s taken me years to surrender to the theme line. Why? At first, I thought it was because theme is supposed to be organic, something that springs out of my characters and their interactions.

Wrong.

Then, I was convinced that theme was too multifaceted to truly be captured in a sentence. After all, why write a whole novel about it if a single string of words does the trick?

Wrong again.

Recently, I discovered the true root of my resistance: theme lines read like clichés.

To quote a famous saying, writers are to avoid clichés like the plague.

Flee from them! Curse them. Expunge them from the sacred carvings.

So, when I sit my writer self in the chair and hammer up the scaffolding for my precious, profound story, writing a pithy theme line feels close to treason.

Insert Valium here.

Theme line is not an end unto itself. It’s a guidepost pointing to the ultimate large truth that lingers with the reader after they have finished the last page.

It is the meeting place for the moral conflict between characters.

It is the high bar the hero must clear (or fail to clear) in order to change from who he is at the beginning of the story.

Cliché though it may sound, a theme line is important (critical?) to your story.

There’s a pile of reasons why, but mostly it’s because the theme line encapsulates the Truth you desire to tell in your story. Without a clear vision of the central truth you wish to convey, you are in danger of writing a story that contains a cluster of small truths that lead the reader nowhere.

I’m working on two novels*. One is a complex story that includes time jumping. I’ve been thinking about this story for about 2 years. The theme line: Only when we accept our true self can we find peace.

Deceptively simple. Hedging close to the cliché line (if it doesn’t just stomp all over it), and it doesn’t begin to reveal the complexity of the story. But look what it does:

1)   Tells me where to start my main character reveal: she does not accept her true self. She’s hiding something specific from herself.
2)   Points toward the protag’s weakness and need.
3)   Guides me toward the ways in which my protag will act (especially the kinds of immoral actions she will take)
4)   Reveals the first point of attack by my opponent and by allies (a good ally will attack the protag out of love and a desire to fix the problem).
5)   Helps me develop all my other characters as variations of the same theme.
6)   Informs the unique method I will use to tell the story and reveal the hidden secrets in the plot.
7)   Gives me a moral ending to the story—something to prove or, in some cases, disprove. It tells me what my hero will learn at the end (to accept herself, and to stop lying to get what she wants)

When it comes to crafting your novel, the theme is in there, and getting it down on paper will help you get the truth out there.

*For interested parties, the theme line for the second novel I’m working on is still in process, but at this point in time it reads: Sometimes a great love must be sacrificed for the sake of the greater good.

Lessons on Truth from Novel X

What a great start to the year--a guest post by Ariel on Monday that reflected what we intuitively know about a great book but she put into words: "Character and Plot and Setting and Theme slip away with time. But I can pull any book from that shelf [of keepers], dust off the cover, flip to a favorite passage and tell you exactly how it made me feel. And really, that’s all that matters in the end." If you missed Ariel's post, backpedal a few days to enjoy her passion for a good read. And then, there's Katy's post on Wednesday that left us gob-smacked as she gave voice to her astonishment, the true calling of the novelist, according to Annie Dillard. Thanks, Katy.

At the end of Katy's post, she said, "Truth is what happens underneath, and how it resonates like a great voice through a vast impossible mouth." And that's our job as fiction writers, to tell the truth.

I gave this a lot of thought. I know excellent fiction is truer than life, but what goes wrong when it isn't?

It just so happens I finished reading a novel for my book club a few days ago, and I couldn't quite put my finger on why it left me flat. I'm not going to tell you the title or author. The Novel Matters writers are looking forward to reviewing novels in the coming months, novels that matter for their craft and for "the way it made [us] feel." This novel (Novel X) was a worthwhile read, to be sure, but not one that gob-smacked me, so I'm only using my reading of the novel as a jumping off point for our discussion.

I must say that the author did an amazing job of plunking me into a landscape and culture of intense contrasts and unequaled beauty--the mountains of Kentucky--with exceptional skill, so much so that his words set my heart longing for a place I'd never been. And his descriptions--oh my.

But the read was dissatisfying, despite the plethora of 5-starred reviews the book received. (The novel read more like a memoir, which should read more like a novel, but that's a topic for another day.) I think my dissatisfaction came down to the question of truth. John Truby says in his book The Anatomy of Story: "...You must give the hero desire. Desire is what your hero wants in the story, his particular goal...Desire is the driving force in the story, the line from which everything else hangs."

In Novel X, the hero wants what she already has, and that would be a fine desire to structure a story around, if the author had created obstacles to the hero keeping her family and home, but there weren't, not really. And that's not truthful. We are all driven by desire, and we all fight against an army of obstacles to obtain those desires. This is the very reason we read novels. We want to see the hero struggle toward their desires, just as we do, sometimes failing, perhaps being betrayed, always being sidetracked, and frequently a bit misguided.

What I'm suggesting is that a big part of "the truth that happens underneath," as Katy said, is desire, and the stronger the desire the stronger the obstacles and the more satisfying the story when that desire is met, or traded in for something higher, more noble, or holy.

Perhaps Novel X's hero's lack of desire hit me because I'm guilty of this flaw. Not that I lack desires. I'm a zoo of desires! But it's scary to embue my hero with a desire that will take him or her places that make my skin itch, or toward a thicket of obstacles with no discernable path. It's a process, for sure. Here's a recent conversation I had with my latest hero-in-the-making to demonstrate my point:

Me: So, Reece, what do you really, really desire?

Reece: For the last year to go away.

Me: That's not going to happen. I wish it could, for your sake, but then we wouldn't have a story to tell. Think about it. What do you desire? What are you willing to die for?

Reece: I want my family back.

Me: Your ex-husband is married to another woman. Maybe you should desire something else.

Reece: You asked me what I would die for.

Me: So I did. What's your first move?

Reece: Isn't that your job? I could use some direction here.

Me: Well...uh...you probably shouldn't have had the affair.

Reece: Are you sure you're qualified to write this story?

Me: This isn't getting us anywhere. Tell me about your parents. Why are you back home?

Reece: My mother's crazy, always has been, and she's finally driven my father away. She can't live alone, just can't.

Me: Let's see, you're a divorced adultress who wants her married husband back, and you're trying to save your parents' marriage. I suppose there are kids involved. This is getting messy.

Reece: You're the one who asked about desire.

Me: So I did. Let me get back to you.

As you can see, Reece and I have some work to do. This piece of the story--the hero's desire--is so very important that I'm willing to revisit it many, many times. Without a strong desire and plenty of obstacles, I don't see how we can say our fiction is truthful. This is where our heros find their motivations, after all.

What about you? How important is desire when conceptualizing your hero and his/her story? Are there other story elements more important to establishing truth in a novel? If you've read a Novel X--let's be nice and not name it--what was missing?