Layering Your Scene -- Theme

The next layer to add to your scene are the all the elements that have to do with the novel’s theme. For those of you who weren’t English majors (there must be a few of you out there) theme is basically the one-word definition of the abstract concept or ideal the book is about. For example, Othello is about jealousy, Hamlet is about revenge, Romeo and Juliet is about love. Often a work can have more than one theme. While Hamlet could be about revenge, it can also be about justice -- or indecision.

The theme is always a moral quality. It broadens the story’s scope, transforming it from a series of incidents that happen to a certain individual during a certain time at a certain place to a fable to which a broad audience can relation. In other words, the theme makes the story universal.

Although the theme itself is a universal quality, what each writer brings to a particular theme can be very different. For example, Titanic, Romeo and Juliet, and When Harry Met Sally are all about love. But they say very different things about love:

• Titanic: Love lasts forever.
• Romeo and Juliet: Love overcomes hate.
• When Harry Met Sally: Friends can turn to lovers.

Every scene should reinforce the theme. But how do you do that?

One way to state your theme is to use the formula put forward by Stan Williams in his book The Moral Premise:

            ___________ (virtue) leads to _____________ (positive
            outcome) but  _______________________ (opposing
            vice) leads to _________ (disastrous result).

Once you’ve stated your theme, ask yourself, “How does the scene support this premise?” In other words, what lesson does the reader learn from the scene?

For example, in the first book of my Arthurian trilogy, The Deadly Peace, the moral premise is “”Trust leads to allies and success; lack of trust leads to lack of allies and failure”. In the opening scene of the sequence in which my heroine, her best friend and her maidservant plot to set a day for my heroine’s coronation, my heroine’s inability to trust men leads her (a) to have powerless allies in the form of her female companions (b) to be reluctant to team up with a potential ally, the hero.

If your scene does not support either the positive or the negative half of your moral premise, your scene is not working hard enough. In fact, it may be totally superfluous. At this point, evaluate the purpose of the scene, especially if you’re running over your target word count. This may be one of those scenes you can omit.

Or, if there are good plot reasons why the scene is necessary, consider the following alternatives:

• Combine it with a scene that does support your moral premise (can you slide the information you need to convey from this scene into that scene instead?)
• Revise the scene to support the moral premise.

Once your scene supports your moral premise, you’re ready to add another layer to your text: symbolism.

In the workshop she gives on Layering Your Scene for Maximum Impact, best-selling romance writer Lori Wilde claims adding this layer made the difference that led to her first sale. Lori adds to every scene a “concrete symbol that represents the POV character’s state of mind or the plot or the theme or the misguided belief or the goal or their vulnerability.”

Often the McGuffin can work as a central symbol.

In the movie Titanic, for example, the gem “The Heart of the Sea” starts as the McGuffin that the treasure hunter (and later Cal) seeks. But it also represents Rose’s imprisonment in a role she deplores, and ultimately as the symbol for her own heart.

 While overarching symbols can contribute to the literary quality of the work, not every symbol has to be carried through the book. A symbol can be specific to a scene. For example, at the beginning Titanic, the porters bring a number of the works of early modern French artists into Rose’s cabin. They’re easily recognizable as the works of artists who are famous today, but back in 1912, they would have been barely known. We never see these paintings again, but they reverberate on several levels. Rose’s recognition of the potential of these undiscovered gems says a lot about the heroine’s artistic sensibility, but her financé’s scorn for the same works also tells us a lot about him. The paintings become the focal point for the conflict between Rose and Cal. They also foreshadow Rose’s relationship with Jack. On a wider scale, the later loss of these potentially priceless works under the sea mirrors the incalculable value of the disaster’s lost human lives.

 Checklist for theme:

• Scene supports the moral premise.
• Scene contains a symbol that “represents the POV character’s state of mind or the plot or the theme or the misguided belief or the goal or their vulnerability.”

Next week:
Layering the Ending and Language

 

 

 

Linking Character Arc and Theme – Part 2 (Revisions to my worksheet)

I’ve been working my way through Stan Williams’ book The Moral Premise. This week I finally got to the part where he explains how it’s done.

 

As I see it, Williams’ concept of a Moral Premise takes theme a step deeper. Theme can be described in one or two words. For example, the theme of Titanic is love. But that’s also the theme of The Notebook, Shrek, and even Lassie Come Home. What makes these movies different is how the theme of love is handled, and that’s where the Moral Premise comes in.

 

The Moral Premise is the author’s take on how the universe works. In the case of love, it’s the author’s take on how the theme of love works.

 

Williams gives a formula for how to describe a Moral Premise. It goes like this:

 

[Vice] leads to [defeat], but
[Virtue] leads to [success].*

 

Williams gives some of his own examples of how this works, but let’s takes the examples of the love theme I gave above. In Titanic, the Moral Premise would play out as:

 

Controlling love leads to death, but
Liberating love leads to a fulfilling life.

 

In Shrek, the Moral Premise is,

 

Self-loathing leads to loneliness, but
Self-acceptance leads to love.

 

Same theme, but see how different the approach to love is?

 

But if you look at both these Moral Premises, you see in them the core of the protagonist’s character journey. The character starts from the position of the vice (being controlled/hating himself) and through the experiences she/he undergoes learns enough to move to the position of the virtue.

 

Williams points out that the Moral Premise always has two parts. One is the virtue and its consequences; the other is the corresponding vice and its consequences. While in writing a proposal or synopsis, it’s possible to shorten the premise into one part (for example, Titanic’s moral premise could be shortened to “Liberating love leads to a fulfilling life”), ultimately, in developing the structure of a novel or film script, you need to have both. While Williams gives his own reasons for this, for me there’s another reason that’s equally compelling: describing the consequences of the vice, shows the cost of failure. In other words, it makes clear the stakes.

 

A vice, by the way, doesn't always have to be a vicious trait.  In a comedy or a romance, it could be some character quirk.  For exmaple, in Shrek, Donkey has his own character arc.  His vice is not only that he constantly runs off at the mouth, but that he rattles on with whatever he thinks will please the person he's talking to.  In other words, he's not sincere.  In the end, he changes and tells Shrek what Shrek needs to hear, even though it's not what Shrek wants to hear, "because that's what friends do."  Donkey's own Moral Premise could be described as:

 

Insincerity leads to loneliness, but

Honesty leads to friendship.

 

Two weeks ago, in my blog on Tips for Creating a Character Arc, I described the chart that I use. After reading Williams’ book, I now see how I can expand that chart to a deeper level. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

• Original wrong world view – This is the Vice.
• How this keeps them apart – This is how the Vice leads to Defeat.
• Beginning – What does it look like when they’re “doing their thing?” (i.e, practicing the Vice)
• What happens to force them to do it differently (“Differently” = the Virtue) 
• They try the different thing and begin to become confident
• What’s the reward for doing the different thing? (This is the Virtue leads to [temporary or partial] Success)
• Major setback in doing it differently (because they haven’t applied the Virtue fully or learned it completely)
• Go back to doing it the old way (which leads to renewed conflict between the hero and heroine and a sense they’ll never get together) (This is a return to the Vice with accelerated or expanded defeat consequences.) 
• How does this cause them to fail in achieving their non-romance goal? (This is the crisis)(This is the consequences of the Vice).
• What causes them to take a chance, and do it the new way (This is reapplying the Virtue, only this time with new understanding and awareness.) 
• Success (this is the climax) (and the consequences of the Virtue)
• New world view (This is how they’ve changed to incorporate the virtue in other parts of their life and the resulting success in other parts of their life.)
• How this allows them to get together (dénouement) (In other words, Virtue leads to a happily ever after ending.)

Williams goes into more detail than this, in showing how to fit the Moral Premise into the plot structure. I’ll blog on that next week.

 

*Location 1784 of my Kindle copy of The Moral Premise by Stanley Williams.

Character Arc and Theme

I’m currently reading Stan William’s The Moral Premise on my new Kindle (Phil’s Christmas present to me.) It’s a book that was recommended by veteran literary agent Natasha Kern at the 2009 RWA conference, and thanks to Kindle, finally accessible to me in New Zealand at an affordable price. (I’ve already blogged on the ridiculous price of books here in New Zealand.)

The Moral Premise is about the core of every book: its theme. Actually, Williams says the Moral Premise goes beyond theme to the message the writer wants the reader to carry away with them about how the universe works. I’m only a third of the way through the book, so I’ve just begun to scratch the surface of William’s ideas. But, as I plot out my new novel, it seems to have come into my hands at just the right moment.

 

When the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear.

 

Williams is writing for filmscript writers, but his work, he assures us, is equally applicable to novelists. He has a totally different approach to planning your book. According to Williams, the first thing a writer needs to think about is what message he/she wants the audience to come away with in the end.

 

Every scene, then, becomes one more piece of evidence that draws the audience to the author’s inevitable conclusion. I’m not talking just about mysteries, and their ilk. According to Williams, the same process works for every genre.

 

Take the movie, Titanic. Its message is “True love frees you to be yourself.” When we first see Rose, she is being forced into a marriage she deplores in order to save the family fortune. But beyond that, she is forced to live by a code that is uncomfortable and restricting. We see the effect on her when she almost commits suicide and realize solving this problem is a matter of life and death. (Evidence No. 1). When Jack comes along and shows her a new way of life, she throws herself into it. Her dancing on the table – on her toes in bare feet – shows us she is ready for that life. (Evidence No. 2) But there’s also other bits of evidence thrown in – the art pieces in the cabin, which are the early works of then unknown but now great artists. It shows us that she can see and appreciate things her rich peers can’t. (Evidence 3.) And so on. By the end, she is so changed that when the survivors are picked up by the rescue ship, she chooses to stay on the lower deck among the lower class passengers, rather than take advantage of the comforts she could enjoy if she admitted to others who she is (one of the final pieces of evidence.) And the final pan across the photos in old Rose’s cabin is the last piece of evidence that shows Jack’s love has changed her so much she had the courage to live out her dreams.

 

Williams says this message has to be universal and credible. Universal means it must appeal to all, no matter what nationality. Well, Titanic came out the year Phil and I went to China to teach English. My students there were as crazy about the movie as young people in the US. Why? Because life-changing love is a universal theme. The idea goes beyond the circumstances of a rich girl and a poor boy on a doomed ship and hits something deep inside of us. Everyone dreams of experiencing that kind of love.

 

The theme lifts the story beyond its time and place and circumstances and puts it into a plane to which we can all relate.

 

The “credible” part of the author’s message has to do with how the story is constructed. I haven’t gotten far enough into William’s book to verify this, but it looks like he says this begins with characterization. The characters are the core of your evidence. It is their experience within the book and the internal change they undergo that proves your message.

 

So character and theme are inexorably linked. In planning Me and the Alpha Jerk, I need to start with considering  

• what message do I want my readers to come away with,
• what kind of change(s) are possible to come to that conclusions (there are many possible ones, which is why there can be so many novels about the same theme), and
• what kind of characters would/could undergo that kind of change?

A couple of weeks ago, when I blogged on "Tips for Developing a Character Arc", one of the first points I suggested defining was the character’s mistaken or faulty world view. As I think about theme, I see that the mistaken world view needs to somehow be linked to the theme. This is the character’s starting point. But unless the character starts from a point that can lead them to the conclusion I want, the story isn’t going to have what Williams calls credibility.

 

So I’m back to looking at the character arc with fresh eyes and seeing how it relates to a theme.