How to Craft Strong Themes in Writing: Part I

Part I: Identifying and Choosing Themes

If you learned nothing else from your high school English classes, you probably know how to detect the theme of a piece of writing. So why is this one piece of a story so important, and how do we effectively implement it into our own writing?

What is theme?

Theme is the vessel in which your story moves along. Theme is the overall significance of the book, the end goal, the main point. Theme is the statement you, as the author, make about the subjects of your story.

So, why is it important?

By using a well-crafted theme, you can emotionally draw in the readers and connect them to the characters and their arcs. This leaves readers with a sense of the overarching importance of your book.

However, themes can go downhill, and fast. Often we’re taught to clearly outline the theme in our work, and it becomes a textbook moral-of-the-story sermon. Preaching your thematic statement to your audience has the opposite effect, driving your readers away from the story. It’s important to note that audiences like to come to conclusions on their own. Don’t just hand them the theme—you must be more subtle than that.

Choosing a theme

There are countless approaches to theme. Sometimes they can simply be underlying ideas, sometimes they are lessons learned, and sometimes they are comments on the human condition. Oh, and you can have multiple themes as well. With all these to choose from, how do you begin?

Start with identifying a few topics or central ideas—coming of age, love, good vs. evil, independence. These will be your themes. The way you write about them and tie them to your characters’ journeys is how you convey your intended message. These will be your thematic statements. For example:

 “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee

·Theme: Coming of age

·Thematic statement: Moral education during childhood and adolescence is crucial to becoming kind and upstanding adults.

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare

·Theme: Love

·Thematic statement: Love, though essential to our beings, is often irrational, messy and difficult to balance.

 “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” by J.K. Rowling

·Theme: Good vs. Evil

·Thematic statement: Good will always triumph over evil in the end.

 “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin

·Theme: Independence

·Thematic statement: A life of independence often brings about solitude for better or worse.

So, find your themes, decide what your statements concerning them will be, and we’ll discuss building these into your writing in Part II of this post!

New Release!! "The Girl Behind the Wall"

🎉🎉New Release!!

Purchase Your Copy of "The Girl Behind the Wall" authored by Elizabeth Barnes today!

This book retells the growing pains of a young woman. She has struggled psychologically from the sexual abuse of family members, pregnancy, mental abuse, and suicidal thoughts. ...
One after another, the devil has tried to keep the growth of Elizabeth hindered. But God said, "No more!

After choosing to turn to God and faith, she has now recovered her life from behind the wall of turmoil the devil created for her.
Help us Congratulate Elizabeth!

Journaling: A Writer’s Best Friend

What is Your Most Prized Possession?

What one material thing holds your heart over all others? What is the one item (not including people or pets) that you would save in the event of a fire?

For me, it’s a black Moleskin journal that I received a few years ago. Its edges are worn and dirty, and I’ve stuffed so much into it that it bulges in the center and is impossible to stand up on a bookshelf. Nevertheless, this is the item I want to keep with me forever and then pass on to family after I’m gone.

Why?

Because this is the first journal I’ve ever seriously filled out. I was gifted this journal on a bus in Iceland, the very first day of my semester abroad. It was a requirement to fill it with at least 30 entries, but I became obsessive about writing in it. As we traveled through Iceland and England, Scotland and Ireland, France and Belgium, I scribbled down the events of nearly every day for three months. My journal traveled eight countries by bus and plane, boat and train, taxi and bicycle, (and even horseback) as I filled its pages with memories.

Now, it’s been nearly three years since my great adventure, and the memories in my head have started to fade. It wasn’t until I was home that I became so grateful something inspired me to write everything down. My journal is full of precious stories, photos, ticket stubs, lists, maps, notes and even a few receipts, and I hope I’ll have it forever.

After this Journal...

I started carrying journals with me wherever I go. As a writer and a sentimental person, I love being able to jot down ideas, images and inspirations whenever I come upon them. And to all you writers, I challenge you to do the same. I fully believe that journaling can benefit you in almost every one of your life’s endeavors. Not only does it allow you to decompress after an experience and store memories, but it also allows you to remain in your creative writing mindset more often.

It is strange at first to get used to pausing to write down a few simple words. However, I promise later on in your writing and your life, these words will keep you going in this creative journey.

I promise, these small words are the big things. The things you thought seemed so miniscule or even petty. The things you never dreamed you would remember as important.

Look up. They are.

They are important, and they are grand, and they are beautiful. They are the little details of life that may go unnoticed by most. But not you anymore. You, who call yourself writers. You, with your sentimental glances that try to take in each individual pixel of what they call “the big picture.” You, with your black journal in hand, ready to write down anything you fear might slip away. You, with your outstretched arms looking to embrace this moment, this feeling, and live in it for a while.

Milestones

Most of the time we live our lives for milestones. Huge moments lined up one by one. A bucket list ruled by society, family, friends, religion. Check, check, check. The milestones remind me of those toys in waiting rooms, the ones with the little colorful plastic beads that you can slide down the metal wires. And you take one and move it down the curly line until it reaches the end. Then you grab the next one and the next until you’re all out of beads. But then they’re all smashed together, and there’s no more room to breathe. There’s no room for error. There’s no room for what you thought were small words.

The quiet mornings before anyone is awake when you sip tea and read a book, and a cat snores next to you. The hours spent talking in a dimly-lit coffeehouse. The poem written on a Tuesday night because you had to. The afternoons alone in a museum. The conversations in the car when you should go inside but don’t want to. The bubble baths and fluffy comforters and hotel cappuccinos. The rain droplets on a bus window and the cold wind that takes your breath and threatens to push you, to move you.

Let it.

Just Write

Let it pick you up and move your feet farther than the milestones and planned out futures and bucket lists. Hit the end of the wire, and go past it. Live in these moments. Wrap yourself in them. A dear friend of mine told me that once. Pick up that cozy blanket you love and wrap yourself in this feeling right here, right now. It’s not small, and neither are you, writers.

Take your black journal with you everywhere. For thoughts and ideas, for bits of conversation and quotes from books that give you chills, for little details like the kind blue-green eyes and the red lipstick. And write it all down—don’t forget a thing. Because these are the big things, my friends.

Look up.

You don’t want to miss them.

So, I Lost My Writing Voice…

Whenever I come back to writing after a long break, I feel as though I just sent the first text to a friend to whom I haven’t spoken in a while. I feel that reaching out with awkward timidity. How are things going? I’m still here. I still care about you.

    And it can be awkward to get back to writing and develop your voice again. We work so hard to find that voice in the first place.

    But we all tend to get busy and stop writing for ourselves at some point. Life gets in the way, and we cease to come to the little blank space we enjoy on a computer or in a journal. This space where we pour out our innermost musings sits empty for a while. We are the friend who drifts out of touch.

    Most of the time, when I stop writing, it’s because life has gotten too hectic, too demanding or too heavy, and you might be in the same boat. You might be dealing with grief or anxieties or life circumstances that threaten to shatter you. I often get frustrated with myself at this point because I can’t seem to put my words on paper in a meaningful way. I get angry that something I know I love to do is still this hard. I stop writing for a while not exactly because I don’t want to, but because I simply can’t make myself. Even if you are used to processing life through writing, blogging or journaling, there are times when it just won’t happen.

    In the past, I confided in a friend about the loss of my writing voice, and she shared these words with me:

“I think there are times to write about what has happened to us, and then I think there are times to allow what’s happening to us to just happen. No writing it down. No trying to make it eloquent. No forcibly documenting it for the world to comment on.”

    These words of a favorite writer of mine, Hannah Brencher, completely encapsulated this time in my life. I was tired of trying to make everything eloquent, to make it beautiful when it wasn’t. There are times when you need to pause, even from art, and learn how to take care of yourself. There are times when you need to learn how to take care of others who need you. There are times when you need to sit with the bad however uncomfortable it may be.

    I feel as though too often I try to make good come out of the bad, even though I don’t believe it has to be this way. Sometimes there isn’t a reason for everything, and sometimes it’s okay to feel hurt without immediately jumping up and recounting the lessons you learned from the experience. Sometimes, you just have to put your head down and keep trucking until it’s better. Sometimes, you can’t write through it because you just have to live it.

            But just know that you will get your writing voice back. It might be a little hoarse, but eventually it will pick up again. Like riding a bike, you won’t forget how to write, even if it needs a little refining to work out the kinks at first. Sooner or later, writing will continue to be what you need it to be—work, therapy, connection, art. Even the greatest artists have gone on hiatus a time or two. Know that it’s okay for you to do the same.

How to Avoid Wordiness in Your Manuscript

As writers, we all secretly love crafting long, winding sentences and epic descriptions for our readers. But do you ever reread your writing and struggle to understand your initial meaning? Or do you ever find yourself drowning in your words as you attempt to get through a sentence in one breath? If so, you might be suffering from wordiness.

The consistent use of this type of writing can be detrimental to your work and can irritate your audience. We all want the world to know that we know a lot of words and how to use them; however, the key to great writing is subtlety and selectiveness with those words. As Strunk and White said in Elements of Style: “Vigorous writing is concise.” And concise writing is a product of a mature writer and self-editor.

As soon as you finish your latest piece of writing, take a step back, let it breathe and then go in for a proofread with these things in mind:

 

1. Get rid of passive voice.

Instead of saying, “The dinner was eaten by Edna,” use an active verb and say, “Edna ate dinner.” Use strong verbs (not weak such as “was” and “is”), and always, always, always try to have the subject of the sentence doing the action.

 

2. Delete fillers.

Bloated language occurs when writers use unnecessary fillers—generic words that don’t mean anything, are not specific or don’t add to the overall meaning.

Wordy: “Due to the fact that the family moved, Anna dealt with culture shock as a result.”

Concise: “Because the family moved, Anna dealt with culture shock.”

3. Avoid Redundancy.

Now you’re looking for the “fluffy” stuff. These are words you could have said once, but stated again anyway. There is, however, a difference in emphasis and redundancy.

Wordy: “We came to the mutual agreement that we could no longer have an amicable and cordial relationship.

Concise: "We agreed that we could no longer have an amicable relationship."

 

4. Remove extra qualifiers.

Many. Really. Definitively. Actually. Extremely. Very.

These words can be removed from almost every sentence they are used. While adverbs and adjectives can be great for descriptions, these types of qualifiers are vague and don’t enhance the meaning. They can often be replaced by a single, more poignant noun.

Wordy: “Jeff is extremely sad.”

Concise: “Jeff is devastated.”

Writing and more importantly, editing like a concise writer will give your writing a variety of sentences and vocabulary that wasn’t there before. Ernest Hemingway was famous for his to-the-point style that he picked up working as a journalist. Hemingway believed that cutting unnecessary words allowed the reader’s imagination to provide the rest and be fully immersed in the story. You aren’t writing for word count, but for content. So, write vigorously, edit concisely and choose those words wisely.

How to Get Out of a Writing Rut

It’s the end of January, and as much as we hoped we would stay on the wagon with all our New Year’s endeavors, I’m sure many of us feel a little worn down by the gloomy weather and daunting self-improvement we promised to do in 2018.

For writers, it’s easy to fall into a creative rut this time of year (or any time, really). However, if 2018 was the year you decided you would write your book, or simply improve your writing in general, have no fear.

Here are few steps to help you climb out of your rut and keep on creating:

1.       Make deadlines for yourself

I know I have always done my best work under deadlines. A recovering procrastinator myself, I am self-aware enough to know that if I don’t have a due date for my work, I most likely won’t do it. Setting deadlines not only helps us stay accountable, but also visualize our writing process on paper. If you are working on major project—writing a book, perhaps—seeing a timeline of how it might actually get accomplished is essential. If you, like me, have a weakness for beautiful stationery, this is your excuse to invest in a quality planner and start setting those deadlines!

2.       Set Habits, Not Goals

As writers, many of us are also chronic list-makers. We write down our goals in journals and on scraps of paper and in the notes of our phones. Whether you are writing down your daily to-do list or your long-term dreams, I challenge you to not only make goals but to make habits. When time passes and we still have not achieved our goals, we are left with feelings of shame and inadequacy and often dig a new creative rut.

But setting habits, tasks you complete in your daily routine, allows you to see progress toward your larger goal. Don’t stop dreaming, but make sure you allow yourself the opportunity to achieve that dream by working on it little by little. As writer Annie Dillard said, “How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.” Let’s spend them wisely.

3.       Write!

This seems like an oversimplified step, but I cannot stress enough how important it is. When we feel writer’s block or a lack of creativity coming on, the best medicine to combat it is often powering through and writing anyway. I used to think writing meant sitting down in a cozy place with a cup of tea and watching the words flow when I felt inspired. And sometimes it is, if I’m lucky. However, most of the time it looks like sitting down to a computer at any given time and allowing myself to hone my skill, whether I’m feeling moved to do so or not. And so, I urge you to write when you don’t feel like it. Write when you think your writing is poor.

Write when you are ready to give up and there aren’t enough cups of tea in the world to make you feel like a good writer. Even if you end up not using the pieces you create when you are less than inspired, keep on keeping on. At some point you will be writing along and rediscover your spark, your voice, your breath of fresh air. And you will have at least gotten some practice in along the way.

We can talk and think about writing all we like, but until we actually start doing it, we can’t get out of the rut. Be generous with yourself, accept that you are a good writer, and let yourself do what you ultimately love to do, one small step at a time.

We Welcome Yet Another New Author to the Publishing Family!

📚We welcome Ms. Vanessa Farr of Arlington, Texas to the J. Kenkade Publishing family!

We are excited to be publishing her upcoming novel, a personal life story about how she survived the entrapment of domestic violence. She is excited to finally tell her life story.
-
She was inspired to write this novel after losing a friend to the same situation she was blessed to live from.
-
She hopes that the dark memories referenced in this book will help teenagers and women who have suffered from the same prison of domestic violence to overcome their shackles of abuse.
-
Help us welcome her to the family!

www.jkenkade.com
(501) 482-JKEN

Welcoming Our Newest Author to J. Kenkade Publishing!

📚We welcome Ms. April Smith of Spring, Texas to the J. Kenkade Publishing family!

We are excited to be GHOSTWRITING her upcoming novel, a personal life story about how God turned her away from a lifestyle of promiscuity.
-
April hopes to open more doors for young girls to be honest about their sexual involvement, to seek counseling without being ashamed, and to help them understand they are not alone. Not only has April conquered her past, but has also proceeded to conquering her educational goals in college.
-
Do you have a story to tell, but don't have the time to write it? We have professional ghostwriters that will write it for you, then our publishing house will publish it for you!

www.jkenkade.com

New Year's Package Deal!

Newly Signed Author, Susi Epperson!

Congratulations to our newly signed author, Susi Epperson of Batesville, AR!

Mrs. Epperson has been a licensed educator for 16 years. She has served as a teacher for six years and principal for 10 years. She currently provides professional development workshops on a variety of topics for school districts across the nation.

We are excited to be publishing her new Children's Book that will serve as an inspirational tool to remind teachers and students that one kind word can change someone’s life!