How important is it to be able to sum up the theme of your novel in one word?

I will get an idea, develop it a little, really like the beginning, middle and end but then I examine it to find the 'theme' and I can't put a name to it. It's just a story that I think works but I can't say why. Is this a failing of the story, or me, or both, or neither?

Sometimes I think I sabotage my own good ideas simply because they don't tally with what's written in the 'how to' books.

It's not failing anything, it's showing you what rubbish the how to books often peddle.

Emma

So, Emma, do you think theme is neither here nor there? I read these damn books and some of what they say makes good sense but sometimes they say things I can't get my head round - like this 'theme' business. I think, because they are by so-and-so and because someone chose to publish them, they must know what they're talking about and who am I to argue?

Would you say, then, that if your instinct says its a good story, its a good story?

Another point, about character arcs. I don't doubt that character change is a good and perhaps necessary thing, but how dramatic does it need to be? I have a half-formed character in my mind who I believe will breeze straight through the story I have in mind without any obvious change, perhaps just a flicker across her face, a raised eyebrow, a parting of lips, that sort of level, that I think can suggest quite profound change without spelling it out. This has just come to me: like Al Pacino at the end of the Godfather film where he has his brother killed?

I don't doubt that character change is a good and perhaps necessary thing, but how dramatic does it need to be? I have a half-formed character in my mind who I believe will breeze straight through the story I have in mind without any obvious change, perhaps just a flicker across her face, a raised eyebrow, a parting of lips,

Regardless of character arcs, readers are going to find it very hard to empathise with a character who breezes through a story. The reader feels what the main character feels, and if all the character is feeling is mild amusement or slight distain, it's not really going to get the blood pumping as the action passes round them. It's fine for the occassional chapter, but not the whole book.

- NaomiM

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Unless of course, you're writng an episode of The Relic Hunter which I'm watching right now - she looks completely botoxed. :)

I think the most important thing is to start by writing what you want to write. But launching out onto that sea with no map or even oars is scary, and I understand why people look to most 'how to' books to be told what to do. But learning to write is a continuous process of trying things out and finding what works for you. It's not that there aren't some good ideas in most of those books, but by their nature they have to be offering a recipe, whereas what writers really need is something more akin to a garden and a kitchen and lots of spoons for tasting things.

Of my three all-time 'how to write' books, two are actually 'how to read' - David Lodge's The Art of Fiction, and Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer - and the other is Dorothea Brande's Become a Writer, which doesn't say a word about how to write, but is all about how to get yourself to the point where whatever you should be writing is able to happen.

'Theme' sounds a bit plastic to me, like old fashioned acting lessons where you learn to 'do' anger or unhappiness or joy. Or like an improving tract with a moral at the end. Real fiction, like real life, is much less simple than that.

I think as the writer you need some sort of answer to the question, 'What's it about?' or possibly, 'What am I trying to say?'. But mostly the answer's more like, 'I've been thinking about lost children, and here are some things about it' or 'Well, it's sort of about human beings and machines,' or 'It's what happens when two emigrés from the Russian Revolution meet in London,' even though what happens for the characters is just a few moment of realisation, a slight shift in attitude. For the reader what happens is not much more startling, specially in short fiction, and yet the experience of reading it can be very satisfying.

The other point is that those things - call them themes if you must - you may well not know till afterwards. All those are examples from my own work, and only the 'human beings and machines' one was there from the beginning. And actually most readers don't get it, at least not clearly.

About your character, there's all the difference in the world between a character who's really unaffected by what happens to them in the novel, and one who is but doesn't give much away.

I agree with Naomi that one who's totally unaffected would, as Naomi says, make it hard to love/hate/care about them, or want to go on finding out what happens. But it's a big challenge and makes a terrific character, to write them so that while they might outwardly not show much, the reader knows really clearly what's going on inside them.

Emma

About your character, there's all the difference in the world between a character who's really unaffected by what happens to them in the novel, and one who is but doesn't give much away.

Yes, I should have said that my character appears to breeze through the story - otherwise you and Naomi are right, there would be no empathy and no drama. So that, when she does just part her lips (that was an off-top-of-head example) at the end, there is meaning there.

But it's a big challenge and makes a terrific character, to write them so that while they might outwardly not show much, the reader knows really clearly what's going on inside them.

This is really how I see her. I hope I can do her justice. Sometimes, characters shape up into such 'real' people that I feel I must do them justice or I'll be letting them down. I mean, I feel them looking at me and saying 'you better get this right, lady'.

'Theme' does sound plastic, doesn't it? And my rather slavish following of the concept certainly led to my writing on my pad, earlier today, 'no, too moralising' and crossing the previous notes out, so you've hit the nail on the head there, Emma.

Thanks for the book titles. Will check them out. The ones I've read so far have been somewhat helpful and somewhat angst-making. I need to loosen up, for sure.

I'm sure you're right. I learn more from actually writing than I do from reading about writing although I have to say that, without the books, I would never have pinned down the elements of writing fiction that surely do need pinning down. Perhaps one has to read, digest, then forget and write from the knowledge you have gained but which is now just a part of you. Like learning to use a tool? Or like walking without thinking about it so that you don't trip over your own feet?

Thanks, Emma, for such a considered and helpful message.

You're welcome, lastubs.

Perhaps one has to read, digest, then forget and write from the knowledge you have gained but which is now just a part of you.

This is true of researching what goes into your book, and I'd never thought of it like that, but I'm sure it's true of researching how to write your book too. I think for a lot of writers - particularly the ones who really want to think about their craft, perhaps - there's an ugly duckling stage, where the spontaneous new writer begins to understand new things, and becomes all gangly and gauche and self-conscious while trying to put them into practice. But it passes, as you say, once it's all absorbed.

Emma

Strange thing. I was singing along to a favourite song this morning, part of the lyrics of which I could never make out. Without thinking about it, I found myself singing the words I 'didn't know'. I'm sure there's a parallel here - knowledge moving from left brain to right brain, or is it the other way round??

Laura

(I've just realised my ID makes me sound like some down market diva - La Stubbs )

I read it as 'last tubs'. Cryptic.