Oh No! Not Theme
Story Steps Two The next step I take in writing a story is to search my idea for a theme. Yeah, I know. Shudder. Shudder. The dreaded theme that we all hated having to know for literature class. I don’t know about you, but my idea of the theme seldom matched the theme the teacher chose. She or he always won though because their theme would be on the test, not mine. The whole experience made me skittish of themes. In the early days of my writing career, there was no Internet, few writers’ groups, and few writers’ conferences. Naturally, I jumped on the chance to attend a one day workshop featuring three writers in a nearby city. I’d written three novels but wasn’t having any luck finding a publisher. One of the instructors (the only female) threw out the word “theme” during her presentation. I mentally shuddered. What, does she think we’re in English class? Although my first inclination was to tune her out, I was there to learn. I listened .