Get Your Writing Noticed: Theme – the most important part of writing!
Theme is, in my opinion, the most important part of writing.
Theme is your argument, your central idea, your subject matter, your tune.
For me it doesn’t matter how well you write, if your theme is boring, if your story is about an afternoon in an apartment, as your hero argues with himself about whether to make dinner for his wife, I’m just not that interested.
Ok, I’ll read two pages, if your prose totally sparkles, but I’ll soon lose interest. Shiny, glistening literary baubles lack substance for me. I want a strong theme.
But, you say, other people may be interested in that apartment story. And you’re right. Theme is personal. Which brings us to the central point of theme, it’s all about choice. What you love, I may hate!
And theme is about genre too. Crime fiction, thrillers, erotic fiction, romance, fantasy, science fiction, they all embody theme at their core.
And theme is related to commerciality as well. If you write and extend one of the popular modern genres listed above, you are simply more likely to get published. Why is such a cruel trick perpetrated on writers? Because publishing is a commercial enterprise. Publishers want to publish books that people are more likely to buy.
And they have found out, over many years, that books written within the above themes, in the above genres, sell well and then some more.
Literary fiction is almost impossible to get published now. Why? Because a work of literary fiction, exploring the world of your apartment on a rainy afternoon for instance, might sell 1,000 copies in a year, where a crime novel in which a body is found in that apartment on the opening page, could sell 20,000 or more in that year. Which would you publish?
I am in awe of writers who are willing to spend decade after decade emulating the literary giants of their youth, writing the great novel of our generation, in the sure knowledge that it will never be published. Never ever.
Knowing your writing will never be seen by anyone beyond a small circle, yet writing on year after year, takes an extra ordinary Buddha like selflessness.
Bur for all those who retain a desire to get published, think long and hard about your theme. If you truly do write uncannily well, you may pull off that story about an afternoon in an apartment, but if you like genre fiction yourself, and would like to be published this decade, pick a popular theme, please! And extend the theme, make it sing, like that old canary never sang before!
That, for me, is a suitable goal for a 21st century writer.
This post is the third on a voyage exploring the world of getting your writing noticed. Here is a link to the previous post in this series, on grabbing your reader’s attention. And here is a link to the next post, on pace, what keeps us reading.
Please leave feedback, make suggestions and engage. This series of posts needs you to get involved to make them fly.
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If you would like to discuss this post or for me to review your writing and give brief feedback without charge (page 1 of your MS only please) contact me via the comments below or by email: lpobryan@googlemail.com
Here are some links to useful information for writers:
socialmediaisdynamite.com for my blog on using social media to get noticed.
The reality of being published – 2 months after my first book came out all over the UK I wrote this post
The Accessible Author – how the author’s role is changing
Frantic Editing – a post on the editing process my first novel went through in the summer of 2011
And if you are intreested in a Social Media Promotion Services for Authors go here: http://bit.ly/YwsGiB
Finally, a big thank you to all my readers, everyone who comments and everyone who visits. I hope you find this information useful on your journey to getting your writing noticed.
Please reblog, link to, Tweet, post or mention this post. There are links to do that above and mainly below.
- Image from The Jerusalem Puzzle cover art. TJP is arriving 3rd January 2013.
Get Your Writing Noticed: Pace – what keeps us reading!–Laurence O’Bryan–No 1 Best-Selling Conspiracy Thriller Author http://bit.ly/QWtsCW
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I find this very helpful. Thanks for posting.
Excellent insight to different genres and the nuances the publishing world wants to “guarantee” success. I still love literary fiction and read something from almost every genre over the course of a month. As an editor, I am fascinated to watch the same basic stories across all genres and how writers change-up the words and tension to meet their readers’ expectations. Good series.
Thank you, Mahala. What an interesting observation about how writers tell the same story in different ways.
Thank you for the post. I find it sad that we as a society, a culture if you will, are so driven to those few genres that they are just about all publishers will buy anymore. And it’s not for lack of trying on the publisher’s part, (bless their souls) it’s simply that “Fifty Shades of Garbage” (sorry) will sell millions of copies when literary fiction will not. Your point. But does that mean writers should throw in the proverbial towel and write only those things that sell? I hope not. We have sunk so low in mass media already, please let’s not give up the power of the pen!
Kathy, Kathy!
I really don’t see writing what people want to read as sinking low. This is a matter of perception. We have all had notions that something slow and difficult is somehow more important. But most so called “literary” fiction is passing into oblivion just as much as genre fiction. And I am NOT saying people have to stop writing what they want. Please, go ahead, write difficult and slow paced fiction, but be aware that your readership will be small, like poetry’s is. And poetry/literary fiction are still important, for their use of words mainly. This is just what’s happening. People are reading what they want to read. We couldn’t stop this if we wanted to. Thank you for posting. I feel your angst!
I didn’t mean it quite that way! There is nothing wrong at all with writers writing what people want to read. Of course not. I love to read a murder mystery, or the latest novel by Anne Rice, for example, but by (what I consider to be) good authors. I was trying to express the concern that if these are the only things that get published than we may run the risk of missing out on great literature and great writers. I have recently been published (non-fiction) so I understand the way things work and have respect for the industry and those who work in it. I just hope that publishing houses continue to look for works to publish based on the merit of the work itself, and not just based on “what sells.”
tiene razon en lo que usted comenta, lo que para unos es un gran placer, deleite, simpaticen con el o simplemente les gusta para otras personas tal vez en el mismo país, o al otro lado del mundo sea una motivacion de rechazo o de desacuerdos simplemente; pero hay algo que siempre estara o deberia de estar presente es el respeto y la aceptación de la forma de pensar o creer del otro sin que esto sea motivo de un desagravio, es necesario el respeto a las ideas de los demas que si uno este o no de acuerdo debe haber el entendimiento entre esas personas y el respeto de mutuas creencias por que merecen ser escuchadas pues nadie tenemos la razón absoluta
Hi Laurence. You didn’t really explain what you mean by theme (exactly) and “extended” theme. Also, why not let us into the secret of what was the theme for your own book?
Hi JJ, Couldn’t find any reference to extended theme, but theme is defined on the second line of the post as your argument, your central idea, your subject matter, your tune.
It’s a slippery concept and I think you can have a couple of themes going on too. So, in The Istanbul Puzzle we have a murder mystery, an adventure and a discovery in a foreign land as themes. The real life adventure is the key theme, I think. What themes do you use?
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Theme is important. You want to tap into what makes people tick, what makes them laugh, what worries them, frightens them etc. what they care about it. However, I think you have to write about what you care about. I think you have to write for yourself based on the assumption or hope that others feel like you do.
Yes. I suspect that theme and good writing work hand in hand. Each inevitably leads to the other. Good article. Thanks.
There´s not a single murder in The Catcher in the Rye or Anna Karenina or Catch 22 or most of other classics – and those books will always be with us. And all the pulp fiction will soon be dead and gone forever. And this is a fact.
I tweeted. This is great. Thank you!
To Allie K. Adams. Thanks! It´s nice having a friend in viewpoint, not being alone on things. And to the discussion above: theme is not the story, theme is the meaning of the story. Read a Hemingway short story, and maybe you´ll get it. Try “Hills Like White Elephants” or “Indian Camp” or “Big Two-Hearted River”. The last one is quite tricky, so check it up in Wikipedia.