Please don't skip this article, because it's important if you want to handle theme in fiction with any subtlety.
Start by reading this quotation about themes in novels by Robert C. Meredith and John D. Fitzgerald. I'll talk about it afterwards...
"All traditional novelists wish the novels they write to have thematic significance. Too often we find the would-be novelist believing that the way to achieve this is to begin with theme. This is the worst mistake he can make."
Now, the quotation isn't designed to confuse you, but I appreciate that it might.
Having taken many pages in this section to talk about how important theme is in a work of fiction, and telling you how to handle it during each stage of the writing process, am I now saying that placing too much stock in theme is a bad thing?
Yep, that's exactly what I'm saying!
As a matter of fact, I've been saying it all the way through. I just wanted to write this final article to drive the point home.
Please don't think that everything I have said about theme isn't 100% true, because it is. If you want your novel to be the best it can be, you need to follow all of the advice here on theme - simple as that.
But what you also need to do is follow the advice with a light hand, not a heavy one.
We all want our novels - whether they are genre, literary, or mainstream fiction - to be important, to say something that will stay with the reader long after they have closed the book, to be profound even.
For that reason, theme in fiction is important.
But the way to achieve this deeper layer of meaning without ruining the story is always to put theme second. Making the people and the events fit some message you have worked out in advance is definitely the wrong way to go about it.
Character and plot must always come first. Yes, you must select characters and situations during the planning stage in such a way that the events will be "about" your theme, and not about some other aspect of the human condition altogether.
But don't be heavy-handed about it - subtlety, subtlety, subtlety.
And once you have laid the groundwork and you move on to the actual writing, let the characters and the events go where they will.
Just as theme should remain beneath the surface of your story - there but not there - so it should not intrude on your conscious mind when you write the story. Achieve that and you are well on your way to mastering theme.
Next Step: Now it is time to look at an element of fiction that is very closely related: Literary Symbolism...