Thinking about theme
I had a great conversation this week with The Christian Science Monitor about ALICE’S FARM, A RABBIT’S TALE. You can see it here.
We talk about vulnerability, bravery, and hope, and how these ideas are expressed in the book.
In short, we talk about theme. Which got me thinking: Where do the themes of our books come from? At what point in our creative process does theme coalesce?
Do we put theme in on purpose? Does it bubble up on its own? Is it even our responsibility, or are readers free to decode our themes however they like?
These are interesting questions, and they’re far from academic. When our books fly the nest and wander out in the world, it will indeed be their themes that people want to talk about, and that will attract or repel readers.
All storytelling ends up expressing theme whether we put it there intentionally or not. In this talk I invite you to explore how we can think about theme in a way that serves our creative process and our readers.
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Maryrose Wood
I’m the author of fourteen published novels, including ALICE’S FARM, A RABBIT’S TALE (Macmillan, 2020) and the six-book Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place series (Balzer + Bray / HarperCollins). I founded Path of the Storyteller in 2020 to offer serious writing craft training for writers who’re ready to take their work up to pro level. Here’s where I blog about writing craft, publishing, and the writing life in general. Learn more at pathofthestoryteller.com.
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