Hey, it’s Emily!
Last time, our newest blog post writer, Alayna Drollinger, wrote about using characters to convey your story’s theme, so this week we will continue the conversation but focus on plot and structure. For those of you who know me personally or who follow my work, you know that I adore both plot structure and theme as storytelling elements, so I’m excited for a chance to explore with you how they converge!
Reinforcing Your Theme
Like Alayna said in her blog post, often writers will fall under one of two categories when it comes to theme: either they know their theme from the beginning and write their story with it in mind or they discover their theme along the way and allow it to develop organically.
Whether you fall more in the first or the second category—whether you’re what’s called a “plotter” or a “pantser”—once you pick a theme, you’ll need to reinforce it. While individual scenes can have themes of their own, an overarching theme for your story will, of course, need to be recurring so readers can notice the pattern and deduce the meaning in a natural way. Unless you thoroughly planned your story ahead of time or unless you’re exceedingly lucky, you will need to return to your drafts and revise after discovering your theme and deciding on the thread that weaves all the story elements together.
The plot of your story is a vital part of this. Plot need not be the primary focus or strongest element of your story, but it will almost always be the foundation of your story because it is the events that occur—the plot points—that form the narrative and reach an ending. The results of these events will communicate meaning to your readers. For example, a story that has a theme of holding onto hope in even the darkest of times will likely begin in disparaging circumstances but end in optimistic ones. And typically the main theme will be communicated through the main conflict and all of its ensuing beats.
Using the Main Conflict
As first mentioned in the blog post that started this series, “The Truth About Theme,” theme is the element that unifies all the elements of a narrative—such as character, plot, and worldbuilding—and gives the story depth. The same is true of individual plot beats in a story; without theme, these plot points can sometimes seem random and unrelated, but with theme, plot points flow together naturally and point together towards a common message, making your narrative resonate with readers.
Of course, in order to do this, writers must first identify their theme—whether before the writing process begins or during the revision stage—and then make sure the story’s main plot points are answering the theme’s question.
Last time, Alayna used Lois Lowry’s The Giver as an example and explained how its main questions revolve around beauty, pain, and the value of life. Jonas begins to ask why his utopian world—one that is devoid of war but also devoid of love—is the way it is. However, Jonas can only begin asking these questions because of the main conflict of the story, that being his journey to becoming his community’s new Receiver of Memory. It’s from this conflict that the themes of life and the dichotomy that makes it, individualism, and freedom emerge.
Let’s examine some of the main plot points of The Giver and see how they each support the story’s theme in order to get a better idea:
Introduction
The opening scene of The Giver establishes the protagonist’s ordinary life before the conflict truly begins. Jonas rides his bike home as he ponders the upcoming Ceremony of Twelve, the day the Committee of Elders will decide every twelve year old child’s career for the rest of their lives within the community. Through this, readers learn how well organized Jonas’s home is, but also how regulated and stiff it is as well; citizens don’t have the freedom to choose their own individual paths. Even within the opening chapter, Lowry is already beginning to convey the story’s themes of life, individualism, and freedom because she introduces readers to a situation in which characters do not truly possess these things.
Further into the first chapter, Jonas’s father assures him about the Elders’ choices and explains how he came to be a Nurturer in the community, someone who takes care of the children:
“I always participated, of course, because as children we must experience all of those things. And I studied hard in school, as you do, Jonas. But again and again, during free time, I found myself drawn to the newchildren. I spent almost all of my volunteer hours helping in the Nurturing Center. Of course the Elders knew that, from their observation.”
Jonas nodded. During the past year he had been aware of the increasing level of observation. In school, at recreation time, and during volunteer hours, he had noticed the Elders watching him and the other Elevens. He had seen them taking notes. He knew, too, that the Elders were meeting for long hours with all of the instructors that he and the other Elevens had had during their years of school.
Though Jonas’s father was pleased with the Elders’ choice for his career, this situation already begins causing readers to consider their own lives and the choices they have the freedom to make compared to the people in this society. And this reflection in the readers will only be increased once the conflict truly starts.
Inciting Incident
The inciting incident, when the Elders select Jonas as the next Receiver of Memory, sets the main conflict in motion. Firstly, Jonas becomes an individual—essentially the only one in the community. While every other child receives a career in which they are one of many, like being a doctor or a teacher, Jonas is the only one who can now store unwanted memories.
“Such a selection is very, very rare,” the Chief Elder told the audience. “Our community has only one Receiver. It is he who trains his successor.”
Soon after, Jonas visits the previous Receiver of Memory—not called The Giver—and receives his first memory, that of sledding down a snowy hill. Prior to this, Jonas had no knowledge of sleds and snows, and this memory opens up a new world to Jonas and he wonders why he and the Giver are the only ones to experience it.
“But what happened to those things? Snow, and the rest of it?”
“Climate Control. Snow made growing food difficult, limited the agricultural periods. And unpredictable weather made transportation almost impossible at times. It wasn’t a practical thing, so it became obsolete when we went to Sameness.
“And hills, too,” he added. “They made conveyance of goods unwieldy. Trucks; buses. Slowed them down. So—” He waved his hand, as if a gesture had caused hills to disappear. “Sameness,” he concluded.
Jonas becoming the Receiver of Memory and then soon after learning about the pros and cons of having snow highlight the themes of individualism and the dichotomy of life in The Giver. For the first time, Jonas has to consider if the good things outside the community—snow and sleds and fun—are worth the bad things that may come with it—food shortages, transportation difficulties, and, as he learns later, injuries. And these thematic questions delve deeper once the narrative reaches its climax.
Climax
Spoiler alert! The climax hits once Jonas asks the Giver to show him the “releasing” ceremony for a baby Jonas’s father had been working with as a Nurturer recently. When twins are born in this community, one of the children is “released”—which Jonas soon learns means killed—because the Elders decided that it would not be in the utopia’s best interest to have two identical people in one community.
Jonas stared at him. “Release is always like that? For people who break the rules three times? For the Old? Do they kill the Old, too?”
“Yes, it’s true.”
[...]
Jonas wrapped his arms around himself and rocked his own body back and forth. “What should I do? I can’t go back! I can’t!”
The Giver stood up. “First, I will order our evening meal. Then we will eat.”
Jonas found himself using the nasty, sarcastic voice again. “Then we’ll have a sharing of feelings?”
The Giver gave a rueful, anguished, empty laugh. “Jonas, you and I are the only ones who have feelings. We’ve been sharing them now for almost a year.”
In this scene, Jonas learns that the citizens of his community don’t truly understand or value life because they can kill an infant so easily only for being a twin. Because he and the Giver are the only ones who truly understand the value of life and the individual, and understand the importance of accepting the good and bad together in life, he and the Giver are the only ones who truly feel. Through the climax, Lowry communicates the theme to her readers, showing them the importance of life, individualism, and freedom and how the absence of these things can cause people to become hollow to what truly matters.
I won’t spoil the resolution by using it as an example because those of you who have not yet read Lois Lowry’s The Giver really should! I would also recommend paying attention to its plot points and how each one advances the theme as you read as well; it’s excellent practice for writers!
Conclusion
While not every story has to have one clear cut theme and you can definitely write a fun story without focusing on theme, using it as a tool to connect your plot points together will make your narrative stronger. Readers will appreciate the cohesiveness and richness of the story as they follow along and see the concepts building, and they will have a deeper meaning to interact with as they reach each story beat, from inciting incident to resolution.
If you would like to discuss your story’s plot structure and theme and how the two interconnect, head over to our Services tab on our website to take a look at what tools and revision help we offer as certified editors! We would love to work with you to help strengthen your story and prepare it for publication so that it will resonate with many readers.
Till then, bee brilliant!
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