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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/16832
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

In the case of a story I am toying with, the theme (or more accurately, the idea) I am trying to bring across has a bearing on the structure of the story, the plot and the different details I bring out or emphasise in different parts of the story.

Since these elements are determined in part by the theme, they should, in theory, cohere well together. Since all the elements of the story are driving at the same goal, they fit together as a whole while adding an additional layer on top.

In my mind, it is this coherence and layering that adds weight to a novel with a theme. I'm no writer but my wife is an artist and she has also said as much. To take a lesson from art, the message will have the most effect when it is implicit rather than explicit. How does the lighting and shading, the emotion in the brush strokes and the relationships between the different elements make us feel?

In the same way, the theme shouldn't come out in the writing but in the underlying structures. I suppose it is the same as the "show don't tell" motif; show the theme to the reader as it bubbles up out of your story, coming from everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. Don't give them blunt force trauma by making it too explicit.

Original score: 1