Fiction 128 [M] [1] [2] [3] [4] - Classroom A - Classroom B

Lesson 4: Does This Relate?

We'll focus on unity of theme for this final lesson. Theme, as Gary Provost describes it, is a junk detector. It tells you what to leave in and what to leave out. Leave in the stuff that relates to your theme. Take out everything else. Look at your scenes, your chapters and ask yourself, does this relate to the antagonist and his or her quest.

If you know your theme, you will know when you have violated its unity. A good theme has walls around it; it has limits. Provost gives us examples: "Growing old is better than the alternative," "A man grows old in a single moment," or "Three old men plan a bank robbery."

A bad theme is one that imposes no limits on the writer. Example: "Growing old." This is so vague that it's worthless.

In the same vein, your theme is not a message or a moral. Forget the old clichés like "Virtue is its own reward." Theme does not have to deliver a message. Provost gives us another example: A notice says, "the theme of tonight's discussion is 'Should beach balls be outlawed in Hudson?'" You would have enough information to decide whether you wanted to go. So, if all you can say about your story is, "It's about a town that outlawed beach balls," that's enough.

Assignment:

On-line reading:

The Three Abouts
http://www.caroclarke.com/threeabouts.html

Exercise:

Using the theme or one of the themes you settled on last week, select a scene or a partial chapter from your manuscript and check it for unity of theme. Show the before and the after where you have made omissions to clarify the unity. Post to the classroom board.
 

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