When writing, we desperately look for a theme. When I say that I’m writing a novel, people often ask, “What’s it about?” Isn’t that a strange question? They don’t ask, “What’s the plot?” or “Who’s the protagonist?” They don’t ask “When is the story set?” Nor “Which genre is it?” They ask, “What is the story about?”
They’re referring to the theme. Theme exists between the lines of prose. It is the ultimate goal of story, a meaning for its existence. And, theme-wise, all stories are the same.
I mean that all stories, regardless of plot, setting, character, atmosphere, genre, and aesthetic, are about a small and specific array of possible themes. These themes are limited because they emerge from questions that we have on our daily lives. There can only be so many themes.
Life is simpler than it seems. And, we are simpler creatures than we think. Even with our incredible modernity and complex society, we are still the same as our ancestors from the Stone Age. While the Neolithic man was hunting mammoths to survive, he was also worrying about the same things that we worry today: love, meaning, food and water, comfort and safety, the security of our loved ones, potential enemies, debts, and other ordinary, daily-life problems and questions.
Life… Life never changes. Superficially it transforms drastically, but underneath the airplanes and modern medicine, we still have the same longings and fears that the people from the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Middle Ages had. As such, story themes are always the same since before the written word. When humans were telling tales around the camp fire, about monsters that lurked in the dark, they were talking about themes that we still talk today.
Everything else is superficial. It doesn’t mean that its less important, though. But, it means that every other aspect of story, such as characters, genre, plot, setting, atmosphere, ambience, aesthetics, medium… All those things are a vehicle to theme.
A good writer must understand this and ask himself: what are the universal themes? What does he have that every other human being from past, present, and future, also has? Because, whatever worries him, whatever motivates and scares him, is shared by humanity.
The writer will then realize that all stories are the same, in the sense that they are all about these universal problems
I spent years digging through my own life, reading, and thinking about these questions. I came to the conclusion that the list of possible themes is large, but finite. And, I also that the list of possible themes is large, but finite. And, I also learned that a writer doesn’t need to talk about every little theme, answer every question, and address every single problem in the Human Condition.
Writers, instead, specialize in a handful of themes that they keep talking and reflecting upon throughout their careers.
For example, H. P. Lovecraft spent most of his writing career exploring the theme of “cosmic horror.” This theme is the experience that we have when we look at the sky at night, and realize how small and insignificant we are, and how massive, dangerous, and anti-human the universe is. We face the dread of not knowing what exists out there, lurking in the darkness, just waiting to emerge and devour our planet like it was nothing.
Meanwhile, Alan Moore spent many years developing comic books that explored the realistic implications of “being a super-hero.” We, as humans, seem to have this urge to have someone powerful coming down from the sky and solving all of our problems for us with magic. For many, this figure can come as a hero, a king, or a god. There’s nothing like a Superman to fix our own screw ups. But, he argues that this thought is childish and absurd, dangerous, and fascist. “Who watches the watchmen?” This is the question he evokes with his comics. “What if your hero is as mad and blood thirsty as the tyrannical government he wishes to take down?” Or, “What if Superman is so powerful that he distances himself from humanity to the point that he no longer sees how humans even matter?”
To me, one of the most important themes, and the one closest to home, is the violent relationship between parents and children. I realized quite early in my life that parents, sometimes, can only communicate through violence, whether it is economical, physical, emotional, psychological, and even medical violence. If they are obsessed with controlling their children, they have the power to do that. Escaping their sticky tentacles is one of the hardest things anyone will ever do.
As such, rotten parent-children relationships, familiar estrangement, and living without a proper support, are my main themes. I live these things. They’re from my own experience, and speak close to my heart. As such, I explore them, and talk about them. I question, for example, the idea that children owe unconditional obedience to their parents. I openly talk about how children are individuals that don’t come “from” the parents, but merely “through” them—as mentioned in the poem by Khalil Gibran.
I have other themes close to my heart. For once, I live in Brazil, an extremely violent, hypocritical, unjust, toxic, ugly, and crumbling country, where life is expensive to live, but human beings are cheap like trash. I know what is it like to live in a wretched hive, and I know the implications. It’s terrifying when you can’t afford medical treatment to save the life of someone you love. It’s horrible living in a country where people with a bit more money than you can screw you up legally and illegally so easily.
Theme comes from a lot of things: affinity, experience, reflection… Every author must search for the themes he’s best at, the themes that are closest to his heart, in order to talk about them. Otherwise, his stories will be meaningless. Otherwise, they will not resonate with the audience. Being a writer is this insane, sometimes painful exploration of the misery, the pain, and the inevitable hopelessness of being human.