Hey, it’s Emily!
Welcome to our new Honeycomb blog series! This series will wrap up our story elements collection that started nearly a year ago in June 2023 with character and has since covered plot, world, and now—our new series—theme! This series is also our first featuring our newest editor, Alayna Drollinger, who will fill in as a blogger for Gabrielle as she spends more time running Honeycomb’s social media! Alayna will write our first blog post for the month of May.
We’re looking forward to our upcoming topics, but we’d also love to hear from you if you have any suggestions for us! In the meantime, let’s jump into our first blog post for theme:
What is Theme?
At the heart of most narratives lies a central message that weaves throughout the story—a theme. But what exactly is theme, and why is it crucial to storytelling? Theme represents the underlying thread that binds together the characters, plot, and world and offers readers a deeper understanding of the story's significance and how it can affect their perspectives.
As a storytelling element, theme is more difficult to articulate than character or world, mainly because it is often intangible. If you were to ask someone to give an example of a character, they could point to Sherlock Holmes, Katniss Everdeen, Pinocchio and describe their roles, personalities, and arcs. For world, they could easily list Middle Earth, Hogwarts, or a galaxy far far away. These are tangible elements that readers can visualize in their mind and watch characters interact with. Even plot, which is technically abstract, is more easily conceptualized than theme; a perilous voyage like in Odysseus brings forth the image of a ship, or a rags-to-riches fairytale like in Cinderella conjures a magical carriage and a fairy godmother.
But what about theme? Theme is like the spice in a stew; whereas character, plot, and world are the beef, the carrots, and the potatoes—hearty and visible—the theme is the basil, the garlic, the salt and pepper. They often go unnoticed upon a first look, but it's the spices that bring the whole dish together, that give it flavor. Like spices, the theme brings the story together and helps make every element cohesive. When character, plot, and world are all working to point to a common message, then the story becomes rich, robust, and meaningful.
Alayna and I will talk more about this concept of cohesion in our following posts, but for now, let’s take a look at some common themes in literature and media to provide a better idea of what theme is and what it can do for your story!
Common Themes
Love
Love is one of the most prominent and prevalent themes across literature and media. Most stories will convey some theme of love, even if it’s a smaller component, and this doesn’t always refer to romantic love. The theme of love can pertain to a blooming romance, but it can also pertain to a failing romance, a struggling family, a building friendship, a new community. The theme of love with often explore the depths of human emotions and connections and sometimes serve as the catalyst for the plot and characters.
For example, in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the plot begins because two characters who are in love run away together. The plot grows more complicated as more characters involved their own motivations—a character who pursues the two lovers because he is in love with the woman, a character who pursues the pursuer because she loves him, a fairy king who uses a love potion to play a prank on the woman he loves, and so on. Shakespeare uses his characters’ feelings of love to set his plot in motion and convey his central message: love can make people blind, foolish, and destructive.
Coming-of-Age
Coming-of-age typically centers on one character or a group of characters as they grow and mature through self-discovery. Oftentimes, this theme will focus on a character transitioning from childhood to adulthood and all the obstacles that come from this journey. Long series like Harry Potter and Anne of Green Gables feature characters who make this journey, but many people’s minds tend to think of contemporary stories when it comes to coming-of-age.
For example, 1985 film The Breakfast Club shows a group of teenagers who each belong to a different social group being forced to interact while in high school detention. Their time together helps them learn more about themselves, each other, and their world, leading them to demonstrate more empathy and wisdom and end the film more mature and more at peace.
Good vs. Evil
The theme of good vs. evil is an especially popular one in genre fiction like fantasy and science fiction. While some classics like The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Lord of the Flies deal with this theme, typically the good vs. evil theme applies to epic stories with a group of heroes battling against a dark force.
For example, The Lord of the Rings shows a group of characters who must stop the dark lord Sauron from reclaiming the powerful One Ring and dominating Middle Earth, and they face many temptations and threats of evil along their journey that force them to decide what path they will ultimately choose: good or evil. The characters who choose good in the series exercise willpower against trials, such as in the cases of Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel when they reject the offer of the Ring and therefore of power, but characters who give into their desires for power, like Saruman and Boromir, end up betraying their companions and falling to evil actions.
Writing Theme-Driven Stories
Focusing on your story’s themes and letting them drive other elements of the story can help you create a really strong narrative. The theme will add depth and meaning to the story, providing readers more of a reason to take it seriously, learn from it, and look at themselves and their world differently. It will also unify the other elements in your story—such as characters, plot, and world—because they will all work together towards a common goal and message that will make the narrative more immersive. Finally, readers will feel the emotional impact from themes as well, relate to characters enduring similar struggles to them, and engage in discussion with others about what they noticed and learned. Themes make your story richer and give readers the opportunity to interact more deeply with the narrative’s elements.
However, this does not always mean that the theme is the most important element of storytelling or even the element writers should focus on most strongly. In fact, it’s possible to write a strong story without considering the theme at all. Every story will convey some sort of message, but sometimes this occurs more implicitly, say if a writer just wanted to write a cool story about a boy discovering he has magical powers and incidentally communicates to readers a theme of self-empowerment. Depending on your own goals for your story, you may decide you don’t want to focus on a theme at all, just write what you love about your characters and world, and see what forms naturally—and this is a perfectly valid way to write!
In fact, there are some consequences to focusing too much on theme. Some writers will delve into didacticism, which means their story only exists for the purpose of conveying a message and can come across as forced or preachy. A heavy focus on theme can also cause other elements to suffer, producing one-dimensional characters or predictable plot developments. It can also limit a writer’s creativity, make them feel like they have to strictly stick to a predetermined theme, and can’t explore any new concepts without ruining their story’s message.
Theme is a very important part of storytelling, but no more important than any other element, and every writer needs to learn to balance these elements and decide which ones are more priority for their own unique narrative.
Help on the Tightrope
When you feel like you’re walking on a tightrope trying to balance your story’s characters, plot, world, and themes, it may be time to take a step back and get feedback on your work-in-progress. Enlisting the help of friends and beta-readers is always helpful, but the editors at Honeycomb would also love to work with you and your story! Each of us has formal training in storytelling, writing, literature analysis, and editing, so please reach out to us over email or our website if you would like to receive edits or schedule a consultation call from any of us!
Till then, bee brilliant!
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