~~~~

What does the theme mean to a well-written story? I never
really understood the concept and so I hoped I’d managed to incorporate it
naturally and didn’t let it faze me. I guess I figured my editor would pick up
on it if I’d missed it somehow. Yeah – I know – duhhh!!

Recently, I read a report about theme being one of the four
pillars of a story: setting, characters, plot and you guessed it…theme. This
threw me into a total spinout. I mean, have I missed out an important element
in my work?

So I began to research what a theme is. Claudia Welch put it
into words I could understand when she wrote a piece for the June Romance Writer’s
Report. She wrote:

* Is defined by a single word or an extremely short phrase

* Is not manacled to plot, character or setting

* Inhabits the plot, not vice versa

* Is what powers a book, it’s the fuel

And that back in the olden days, basic themes would be:

* Man versus man

* Man versus nature

* Man versus self

Nope – I still didn’t get it. So I checked the thesaurus and
it says subject, topic, idea, subject matter, argument, premise and thesis.
Well that was a big help – not!

So I’m off to do more research.

Any of you want to try explaining it to me in a thousand
words or less?

      ***

Indie Book Blowout – Featuring He’s Her