Elements of Story: Theme
Hi everyone, sorry it was so long since my last update. I've been doing things and lost track of time, ahhh! That's how things are sometimes! Anyway, this will be the last in our series of Story Elements, theme.
A lot of people will say, that theme is essential when writing. That you'll need to figure out theme in order to finish your story properly because it covers an essential truth about life or something like that. This isn't true, it doesn't mean theme isn't important, it can be very important and integral to your story if that's where you're taking it. But it isn't an absolute must. Why? Because theme usually occurs naturally in the story.
Take Evangelion, no anime is more central to theme than it, and it even points this out during several of it's ending sequences- but there is more than just one theme to Evangelion- and like that story, yours too can also have more than one theme and but significant while writing and taking part in your story. It can even be almost in your face and meta as it is in some movies and other stories, like the Matrix for example. A lot of what makes theme fun to play around with can be it's infinite possibilities- but it's not essential to the story you absolutely need to decide a theme.
Theme doesn't haven't to be decided either, if your story is about something it can easily become a theme for your story. If your story is about someone going out to see churches in a valley for example, theme that naturally would occur to that would be religion, or maybe nature depending on how you write it. So unless you absolutely want a theme in your story, then maybe you should focus more on the story itself than theme. However, I find that just skirting around the message of your story with metaphors and symbolism kind of corny unless you live in a authoritarian regime of some sort and don't have much of a choice.
If people want to tell a story with one message while really saying another it could be neat but it could also be “Why not just tell a story that tackles your actual message rather than make it full of symbolism?” This of course is my opinion, I can't tell you how to really write a story or force it upon you. You've really ultimately have to solve it yourself.
Another example of a theme driven story is Watchmen, but it doesn't sacrifice itself towards endless symbolism and metaphor. Like I said earlier, theme can come naturally depending on how your story is told, and Watchmen is a good example of that. Of course, you shouldn't be too worried about what others will think of your story, or comic because of future implications and what people will think of it in so many years or whatever- you don't really have control over that. It might not really matter honestly either, but let's say it does- you can't really say to everyone “this is what it is about” when it will have a different message for everyone who reads it.
In short, don't worry so much! If this is something that is plaguing you, don't go and spend dozens of hours focusing on it. Write the story you want to write and theme will come. But if you're having issues with your story and you already have a theme you can use that by implementing some of your ideas from your theme into your story.