Mining for Theme in Children’s Books

Today’s post is by author Susan Fletcher.

I write novels for children and young adults, and one of the hazards of my profession is the temptation to craft stories as expressions of something we want to teach to young people. In other words, having a “message,” a “point to make,” or wanting to impose a “moral” as the core of the novel. Don’t be a bully. Think for yourself. Share your (metaphorical) toys.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with those sentiments—far from it. But in my opinion, the best novels—for kids and for adults—are much more than the thin chocolate coating around the nut of a central “message.” They are richer, deeper, and more organically crafted than that.

On the other hand, some novels don’t seem to have any larger themes to impart, at all. Or they attempt to impart a larger meaning, but it comes out muddled.

At both ends of the spectrum, the authors have failed to find their novel’s true and vital theme.

Granted, this can be tricky.  But over the years, I’ve found a way to mine deep below the surface of the novel I’m writing and discover its proper theme. More often than not, I find that the theme is in there already; I’ve put it in subconsciously. Now all that remains is to bring it to the surface and buff it to a high gloss. I’ll show you how this works for me, in four steps.

But, first:

If theme isn’t a “moral” or a “message,” what is it?

I like Janet Burroway’s take:

A story…speculates on a possible truth. It is not an answer or a law but a supposition, an exploration… In any case, while exploring an idea the writer inevitably conveys an attitude toward that idea.

—Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft

Here’s how I like to put it: What is this story about, on a deeper level? On the level of the universal, rather than the particular? What abstract issues or ideas are being explored? And what is the story’s attitude toward those issues or ideas?

The first step: Don’t think about it.

Early on, I try not to think about theme at all. I think about whatever it was that attracted me to the story—a situation, a character, a setting, or a confluence of any of those things. Then I begin telling the story. What does my main character want? What does she do to try to get it? How does she fail, and then try another way? Thoughts about theme will arise—I can’t help it!—but for a while, I try to set them aside and just get on with the story. I’ve found that if I think about theme too much, too early, I’m likely to go careening off in a wrong direction.

The second step: Seeking out repetitions and obsessions.

Later—maybe just before the book’s climax or when the whole first draft is done—I look over what I’ve already written, seeking out repetitions: repetitions of images, of particular words, of ideas, of motifs. I search for similarities among characters and for similarities in the events of my main plot and my subplot. What is pushing up toward the surface of the story from underneath?

Often, when I go back over my drafts, I’m amazed to find that I seem to have developed obsessions: things I have put in there over and over, without realizing what I was doing.

Once, while I was teaching at Vermont College of Fine Arts, we had a student who was brilliant at finding subconscious obsessions that had slipped into the workshop manuscripts. In one novel, she noticed that a bunch of things were red. In another, she noticed a bunch of things that were turgid—full to bursting. In another, she noticed a bunch of people who had trouble speaking. Somebody had a speech impediment, somebody had a sore throat, somebody didn’t speak the native language of the place in which she lived.

We should all cultivate the ability to discover things like that in drafts of our own work.

The third step: Brooding.

John Gardner says that the writer:

…broods on every image that occurs to him, turning it over and over, puzzling it, hunting for connections, trying to figure out…what it is he really thinks.

—The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers

When, in your own work, you notice repetitions like the ones I’ve described above, it’s possible that your subconscious mind is sending you a message. And you owe it to yourself to ask: What could that mean? Could the red hint at an undercurrent of blood or of violence? Could the overfullness have a sexual connotation or have something to do with the birth of something new? Could the speechlessness have something to do with repression—either from without or from within? There might be many possible meanings, depending on context. And maybe they mean nothing at all. But it can be instructive to brood on them, to ponder and mull.

The fourth step: What am I saying here?

When I look back over my own repetitions and obsessions, I begin to ask myself: What am I saying here? Or—this may be too woo woo for some: What is the story trying to say through me? Or, to get back to my earlier formulation: What is this story about, on a deeper level? On the level of the universal, rather than the particular? What abstract issues or ideas are being explored? And what is the story’s attitude toward those issues or ideas?

I’m not expecting answers right away. I’m definitely not pushing to answer them yet. I’m just putting the questions out there.

The answers will come. Maybe not immediately; I might have to wait for an uncomfortable while. But they will come.

Examples from my work

I could tell you a dozen stories, but I’ll settle for two:

I found the theme of my novel Shadow Spinner through realizing I’d unintentionally created a repetition of character. The protagonist, Marjan, is unforgiving of her mother, and the Sultan is unforgiving of his first wife and, by extension, all women. Marjan and the Sultan are on opposite poles in this story. Marjan is our sympathetic heroine. The Sultan is the antagonist, a monster. When it dawned on me that they shared this single character trait—the unwillingness to forgive—it became clear that the territory the novel was exploring was forgiveness.

In my most recent novel, Sea Change, I was uncomfortable with my final line: “We might as well hope.” Nothing’s wrong with the line, itself; it just didn’t seem to resonate with the rest of the book. I tried writing other final lines, but none of them worked for me. At my very last opportunity to make changes, I remembered that I had named one of the characters Hope. I remembered that Turtle, my main character, says at one point, “I’m a fan of hope.” I remembered that she has a climactic moment when she almost gives up hope. I went back through the manuscript, seeking out other places where hope was either stated explicitly or important but unnamed. I found quite a few. Then I just tweaked a bit, to highlight the fact I had realized only belatedly—that hope is a bright, thematic vein that penetrates to the deepest stratum of the story. And now, that last line clearly resonates; I am content.

There’s something magical about theme, how it finds its way into your manuscript while you’re busy working on character, or setting, or action. Discovering my novels’ true and vital themes is one of the great joys of the work I do.

Susan Fletcher

Susan Fletcher is the author of fourteen books for young readers, including Dragon’s Milk, Shadow Spinner, and Journey of the Pale Bear. Her novels have been translated into ten languages and have received awards and recognition from the American Library Association, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Western Writers of America, Women Writing in the West, and many other organizations. She taught for many years in the M.F.A. in Writing for Children program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her most recent novel is Sea Change, a young adult science fiction love story, about which author Gregory Maguire said, “With the brave and committed Turtle, we swim toward hope.”