LITORE - WRITE STORIES YOUR READERS WONT FORGET

Having written toolkits on character and worldbuilding, I now embark on theme . Of these three, its the one we talk about the least; yet its also the one that can grant to writers the most scope for creativity and the most opportunity for play. And if you are intentional in handling your storys thematic concerns, you will be able to invite a willing reader along on an emotional ride that will tug at their heart and their head, and that will stay with them a long time. Well be talking about how to do that in this book.

When I was in elementary school, my teacher taught me that theme was a matter of answering What does this story mean? As a writer several decades older, I can say that theme is a matter of answering Why does this story matter? That is, why does your story matter to each of your characters, and why does it matter to you ? Why are you writing this story? What specific hold does this tale have on your heart? If you can find the most compelling answer to that questionand write that answer into every scene of your bookthen you will have a story that may matter to many readers, too. You will have a key ingredient to making a story readers wont ever forget. There are other ingredients, too; a story needs to be exciting in a particular way, full of surprises and suspense (I will cover that later in this series, when I finish Write Pacing Your Readers Wont Forget ), and whatever internal journey your character is on needs to be grippingly told (see the book Write Characters Your Readers Wont Forget ). But, besides these things, your story also needs to be thematically rich. It needs to matter .

This is not to say that your story needs to fit into what is generally shelved as literary fiction. Thats a misnomer in any case; all fiction is literary (it consists of letters), and stories are thematically rich to varying degrees and for varying readers. The question isnt what genre the story is, or in what mode it is told or for whom, but whether the story has been told with craft and in such a way as to leave a lasting impression (so that the reader will continue thinking about it, reliving scenes in their imagination, remaining affected by wonder or elation or afflicted by unexpected thoughts, and will want to tell others about the book). A beach read can be thematically compelling and can matter to the reader who is enjoying it, at least for a little while, if the author has done their work well and written a story that makes the reader not only feel deeply but also feel that whats happening on the page is true or real to them. Cherise Sinclairs To Command and Collar is electric with thematically rich storytelling, even though, as a novel of BDSM erotica, it is not likely to be taught in a course on literary fiction any time soon. Less erotic and recently more mainstream, J.R.R. Tolkiens The Lord of the Rings was much derided in academic circles for decades. (Yale Universitys Harold Bloom, invited to write an introduction to a collection of critical essays on The Lord of the Rings , cut the introduction short at barely 150 words, and used most of them to mock one paragraph of Tolkiens prose, offered without context, for failing to live up to Blooms standards for what modern prose in a modern novel should sound like). Yet generations of readers report weeping, laughing, and connecting with that story; they report that the story matters . Some part of this is doubtless an affection for the fictional world that infuses that story with its wonders and remarkable creatures (Peter S. Beagle famously said that, if given the opportunity, he would be off to Middle-earth in a heartbeat), but much of it is due to the books thematic intensity, something Tolkien was intentional about crafting. It is a book that has a lot to say to a reader who is willing to engage imaginatively in the project. For example, consider the iconic moment in The Return of the King when Frodo Baggins has collapsed on the mountainside, so devastated by his burden and what it has cost him that he can no longer remember the taste of water or of wine, nor of strawberries with cream, nor what spring in his homeland, the Shire, smells like. There, as the volcano spews ash into the sky above them, his friend Sam Gamgee declares, Come on, Mr. Frodo! I cant carry it for you, but I can carry you! He heaves Frodo onto his shoulders and carries him up the side of that mountain .

Its an emotionally and thematically stirring moment! Part of what makes it so effective is the sheer contrast between, on the one hand, the apocalyptic setting of an erupting Mt. Doom and of a war for the fate of the worldthe clash of geological and titanic forcesand on the other hand, the smallness of the hobbits, these little people who might be caught in the middle yet who choose not to cower but to act, to do what they can, however small, to make the world less grim. Besides a triumphant expression of friendship and love, Sam carrying Frodo up the mountainside is an answer to the question Gandalf asks earlier in the story: