A story theme is a personality hole

Short stories are the perfect way to grow as a writer via fast feedback. But as I often give and receive feedback I have discovered that I really don’t have a simple way to explain how to create a functional theme in a story. Let’s fix that.

Writing is a talent you develop. When someone tells me to not write on-the-nose dialogue I know what that means, but it’s hard to implement the advice unless you have dialogue replication skills in your repertoire. There is no faking it without seeming fake. But fortunately being a bit fake and over the top is part of storytelling as you do need to compact natural tales. And there are a few rule-of-thumb rules that are simple shortcuts to understanding bigger points.

So what about theme?

Theme is the moral message of the story. All stories have some message about how one should act in society and the local group. It’s a question you as a writer ask and then later answer about the world. This is also why the good guy wins in movies. In real life winners are people with talent, luck and a good work ethic. While a moral story needs to be about how the moral choice is the most profitable choice. So it’s not the most handsome and ruthless guy who wins the princess. It’s the kindest guy. The jocks only win out in real life, not in stories.

Theme is even harder to get right than dialogue. But there are ways to develop this skill fast no matter your talent.

Your moral theme comes from characters lacking something internally. They most likely try to get this need fulfilled by following some negative cultural norm. The lesson/theme is often how they learn to fulfill this need at the end of the story in a morally correct way.

Here is an image you can have in your head before writing down the story goals in your outline:

Unfulfilled needs are also: goals, theme, idea behind story, main story element, the thing that starts and ends the story, the meaning of the story, the point, the essence and why the story is even told.

The simple thing about that image is that you just need to give the main characters something they lack and seek to create a theme. A fault that creates a need. From then on your story will get a deeper meaning automatically and feel semi-important. You don’t need to overthink it if you just plan to entertain on the basic level. But if you want to dig deeper into the theme you have to be an expert on life itself. There is no simple guide for that.

Learning from life experience is what you make of it from day to day. At some point you may even learn enough from life and writing to at times be able to break the theme rule-of-thumb rule. I hope that happens.