The SECRET to Writing Themes with a Lasting Impact

Heya, TWNers, I am so, so excited to be bringing back my first writing tip post for this new era of Teen Writers’ Nook. So, I don’t know about you, but I have always found themes to be one of the hardest parts of storytelling. And I’m not just talking about a generic theme that’s been used a hundred times and all told in exactly the same way. I’m talking about a strong, impactful theme that stays with you long after you reach “the end.”

I don’t know about you, but when I started thinking about doing a post on themes, I realized I could count on one hand the number of books I’ve read whose message really touched me or still keeps me thinking about it today.

And I think that’s really sad, considering that stories used to be incredibly impactful on the world at large. Books have changed the world, and I’m not being dramatic. Stories are supposed to give us new ideas, make us question topics, or allow us to see the world in another lens. They’re not necessarily supposed to shape the way we think, but they are supposed to challenge our worldview. Even if we don’t accept the theme it tells us, that’s not the point. In fact, a good story doesn’t tell you what to think. It forces you to reconsider your viewpoint, to come up with a reason for why you believe what you do. 

Think about the classics of old. The Scarlet Letter. 1984. Pride and Prejudice. Emma. The Yellow Wallpaper. Crime and Punishment. Little Women. To Kill a Mockingbird. The Lord of the Rings. A Christmas Carol. Y’all I could go on and on of stories we love today that have incredible themes. The sad part is that those stories rarely exist now. 

I’ll never forget the first book I read that actually not only impacted me, it changed my whole perspective on life. That was Fawkes by Nadine Brandes. And it was this part right here, this one little scene that did it:

“My culture had affected my thinking without my consent. How many other things had it shaped without my knowing it? It made me want to examine things – to seek the heart of matters….

How many of us acted and spoke out and fought for beliefs that we held because our environment told us to? As much as I wanted to blame my England, I knew the blame sat with me. I hadn’t trained myself to discern. To examine. To seek the source.”

After reading this book, it was the first time in my life I actually realized I had no idea why I believed what I did, about anything. From my faith to my politics, my worldview had been dictated by the people around me. And that’s not exactly a bad thing when you’re a child, but I was nearly seventeen at the time I read this, and I started to ask myself what even is truth? Of course, I found that answer in the Bible when Jesus says that He is truth (John 14:6). But my point is that this one book that on the outside was just about a fantasy retelling of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and the war between Keepers and Igniters and really cool color powers had so much more on the inside. 

And all I knew was that I wanted to write a book like that so badly. Even if it took me my whole life to figure out how. 

What was the secret?

See, we tend to think that we have to shout the themes from the rooftops for them to have any meaning. Forget subtlety or leaving room for interpretation, nearly all the books I read today in BOTH the Christian and secular markets feel the need to pound the reader over the head with the message. While I theorize this has something to do with the virtue signaling rampant in today’s social-media-driven world (where we are all so obsessed with how we look on the outside, it seems nobody cares a hill of beans about being a good person on the inside, but that’s a rant for another time), acknowledging the problem does little to help create better stories. I could spend an entire post wondering, questioning, trying to answer why stories just don’t land the same way they used to, but I think I have a better way to spend my time.

Namely, I want to share a secret on how you can write a story with a meaningful impact. 

And here’s the funny thing: I didn’t even learn this tactic from writing. Get this, I actually learned it from school. 

Yep, good ole school.

I’m being sarcastic.

So long story short, I have a bachelor’s degree in history, which is actually a writing-intensive degree apparently. Needless to say, I did a LOT of writing in my blogging absence, and none of it was for my novel. But that’s besides the point.

The thing I was told during my studies when preparing to write a research paper was not to start with a thesis. When I had to turn in my topic idea for approval, my professors didn’t want me to tell them what I was going to write. Instead, we were required to come up with a research question that had historical significance. Yep, my biggest papers were started with a question of what I wanted to research. I didn’t learn what I was going to argue in my thesis paper until after I had finished the research. I still had to defend that my question was meaningful or added value to the historical profession, but the answer to it was to come later.

Why don’t we do that with writing more?

I’m not saying you need to come up with a research question and then turn your novels into a 90,000-word-thesis-paper (oh my goodness, please, please do NOT do that. I’ve read enough thesis papers to last me a lifetime.) What I am saying is, why don’t we ever start our themes with a question that the story then seeks to answer?  

Just like with Nadine Brandes’ Fawkes. The book challenged me not because it told me what to think or believe, but because it was asking a question. Is Thomas Fawkes a Keeper because his dad is? Does he actually know what he believes? Are his ideas shaped by his world, his family, his heritage? And how is he supposed to know if his worldview is preventing him from seeing truth?

We’re so scared to ask questions today, but how do we expect to have answers to some of life’s hardest topics if we don’t first ask the question? Why do we see wrestling as a bad thing? (Okay, I must blame my pastor for that last question, but he’s had the whole story of Jacob wrestling with God in the Bible on my mind for the last year. What in the world does it mean when the “man” says to Jacob, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome” [Genesis 32:28, NIV]. It’s a topic for another day.)

All right, I’ll leave another book that does this idea fabulously. I know you’ve heard of this one before. It’s no question that The Hunger Games was a massive global success when it hit the shelves in 2008, but the coolest thing about this book is that people still debate its themes and meaning even today. The Hunger Games is both my favorite book and one of my biggest inspirations in my writing. I could gush for hours about Suzanne Collins’ literary genius skills, but what I really want to point out is how she uses this same tactic I’m talking about. 

If you’ve never heard of the “Just War Theory” and its connections to the Hunger Games series, it’s definitely something to look into. (If you would like me to do a post just analyzing this in the future, let me know in the comments below!) But I bet you didn’t know that much of the love triangle and the final book in the series as a whole is actually tackling the question of the “Just War Theory.” If you’ve never heard of it, this theory basically asks what the justifications are for going to war and what the justifications are for how it should be fought. 

The whole conflict between Gale and Peeta is the question of whether total, unrestrained warfare against the Capital is not only justified, but if it is morally allowed, as Gale would believe, because of the Capital’s crimes. Or if Peeta’s attempts at pacification are morally right in order to protect innocent victims caught in between and the terrible consequences that come from war. But here’s the interesting thing. Suzanne Collins presents this question, forces us as the reader to confront and tackle this idea, and then never actually answers it. We have little to no idea about what Collins’ viewpoints on it are based solely on the text. Yes, Katniss chooses Peeta at the end, but this does not indicate she chooses his worldview. In fact, the book shows the problems with the extreme opinions both Peeta and Gale have. And it just kind of leaves it at that, demonstrating what these two opinions are and then leaving it for the reader to think about.

And boy have I thought about it. In fact, this book still keeps me up at night more than any other novel I’ve read. And it’s because Suzanne Collins is asking a question, and it’s up to me, as the reader, to answer it. 

Even though these are movies and not books, the Spider-Man movies (from Tobey Maguire’s to Tom Holland’s films) are another story that has been on my mind a lot lately. Even though its whole theme is laid out pretty clearly from the beginning with the whole “With great power comes great responsibility” line, it’s stayed on my mind for the last two months. We know Spider-Man has the responsibility to save the world because he has superpowers, but what about us? What role do we play in this theme since, last I checked, I have no web-shooters and wall-crawling abilities? (*cries*) But this is the question that’s been on my mind, and what I would pose is the actual message of the movies.

If “with great power comes great responsibility” is true, does this not also mean that if we have the ability to do good, then do we not also have the moral obligation to do it? I think so, but I never even thought about this until these movies. See, maybe stories really can have an impact in changing the world!

That’s the secret we’ve missed in writing. We don’t ask ourselves difficult questions. We prefer to tackle nice, easy topics that we have already pre-formed the answer to before we even type the first word.

What if we were more honest in our writings? What if the questions we’re struggling with in our own daily lives formed the themes of our next stories? What would our books look like then?

And, most importantly, what impact would they have in our world?

Even if the answer is obvious by the end of the story, that isn’t the point. I’m not saying we should always write mysterious themes. I’m just saying that our themes would be a lot stronger if we were willing to first ask it to ourselves as a question, listen to what other sides say, and then let our characters come to the conclusion naturally. Fawkes very much answered the question Thomas asked himself by the end of the story, but it gave us a character who felt real because he was asking questions and struggled to find the answer. If we want the theme of our story to stay with our reader past “the end,” we have to give them the journey of answering it. Or else it will be tossed aside as another basic element in another book just like the last one they read and the one before that and the one before that.

So what’s my secret to writing themes? Ask yourself deep questions, and then use the story to answer it.

So I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this. Do you struggle with writing themes? Do you ever use the tactic of presenting your theme as a question? What’s a book you’ve read that has made an impact in your life and why? I want to hear all about it in the comments below!

ALSO, the winner of the giveaway of a free copy of Into the Lamp goes to… *drumroll* Anna!!!!!!! Congratulations, Anna, be on the lookout for an email from me soon!