Themes
THEMES:
Any story worth reading is not just action and intrigue, it’s also making some kind of point, or illustrating/delving into a theme or two. For WSP, I had quite a few themes I wanted to explore while the characters ran around doing what they did. Anyone who’s read WSP will realise my list of themes contained the following:
· ‘Moments of magic’ in everyday life
· Mechanics of spellcasting
· Nostalgia
· Answering / filling out unfinished themes/concepts from canon
· How grown up life is different from childhood
· Redemption
· Mid-life crisis – Family vs Work, dissatisfaction
· The effects of past trauma on later life
· What changes over time vs what doesn’t
· Passing the torch
· Course-correcting after The Cursed Child
These were the themes that I wanted to lace into WSP.
Once I had my plot beats laid out in individual cells on the spreadsheet, in the cell next to each plot beat I included as many ideas as possible of where I could organically and believably insert a moment that illustrated one of my THEMES. The best way to do this is ‘SHOW, DON’T TELL.’
Have something happen in the story which a character remarks on to another, or have an argument with opposing points of view. Think of different ways you can bring in your theme under the radar, or loud and proud with flashing lights and all guns blazing. But thread them into the story, don’t force them unless a certain theme is what your fiction lives and breathes on: if this is the case with your work, think around the many different ways you can express a theme.
For example: Harry uses his new Owl to despatch an urgent note. A quick description of Flembert turned into a thought passing through Harry’s head – “Ah, Hedwig.” Touch of nostalgia. Gone, but never forgotten. The weight of one of the many casualties of the Second Wizarding War, achieved with two words. A recurring theme of sadness.
The central theme of the great novel Catch-22 is bureaucratic madness, and how omnipresent in life self-defeating scenarios exist. Every single chapter, from the first to last, either explicitly or implicitly revolves around a Catch-22 (if you haven’t read it, just… read it) . The point of the book is not to tell a chronological tale, but to illustrate a handful of powerful themes expressed with humour, mind-boggling intelligence and a kind of relentlessly cumulative bricklaying effect of point-after-point-after-point-after-point until you can’t help but see the intrinsic ridiculousness in everything. Theme is all, with Catch-22. But it takes an extraordinarily special mind (dare I say unique) to be able to write in such a manner. Themes generally need threading into a tale.
The plot scenarios in Winter Solstice Pact lend themselves to including themes nicely: –
When the trio return to Hogwarts - Bit of nostalgia, torch-passing, and course-correcting will naturally apply.
Harry and Hermione investigating how SpellTrace wasn’t working? Mechanics of spellcasting and grown-up life being different will obviously come to the fore.
This is where “writing” can start to feel mechanical and contrived: you’re breaking your story down into ‘beats’ and inserting thematic elements that weren’t originally there, trying your best not to make them seem forced. But this is also where the depth of your project comes into being, where you are working out how to SHOW and explore not just a series of events, but what the events MEAN. Themes are strongly linked to the next point: themes lead inevitably lead to CHARACTERISATION.
All you need to do is study what is happening in the plot, and imagine how one of your themes might come through. All it takes to Theme-Thread is include a single sentence, or just a few words in the passage you’re writing. Think needle, not hammer. Applying themes can be as light-touch as sprinkling glitter, or you can launch headlong into a theme by making it the driving force of the entire passage. I personally found that I was happier with a light touch, and it is certainly easier to execute – I wouldn’t advise anyone to go full Joseph Heller.
Thematic input can very directly affect your plot, however. The theme of Redemption, for example, was an obvious lead into most of the trio’s interactions with Draco. From entire scenes designed to highlight the difficult path of Draco’s redemption, to one-line inserts (such as Hermione observing Draco didn’t complain once during training with The Volunteers), it’s entirely acceptable to use a strong theme to influence events.
Another theme I wanted to include was Harry and Ginny’s difficult but mature relationship. I wanted to highlight the different ways in which teen love transforms into adult marriage and family. So much Fan Fiction involves altering/focusing on the characters in their teens, and this inevitably involves teenage factors such as angst, pining and burgeoning sexuality. The original books did all of that enough for me. What I was interested in was what a teen relationship turned into in later life: it’s rare for teen loves to become lifelong relationships. So this theme actually coloured a lot of the plot points in WSP: Harry was laid up for Ginny’s birthday, and overreacted badly when he thought she might be in danger. The theme put a colour on how Harry reacted to developments, and the eventual choice that Harry makes about his future.
Themes are gold for plot AND for characterisation, which is why they’re important to layer in once you’ve established the plot and before you go into the next section, characterisation.