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Personally, I think the theme does not have to be obvious at all, or ever stated. It just needs to be consistent. For example, if there is some life philosphy in your story, "love will triumph", th...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-19T22:13:15Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32174 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T07:35:29Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32174 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
Personally, I think the theme does not have to be obvious at all, or ever stated. It just needs to be consistent. For example, if there is some life philosphy in your story, "love will triumph", then make sure love does indeed triumph, in some way or another, and a lack of it or hate or greed does not triumph in the end. Don't **tell** us the theme, **show** us the **consequences** or ramifications of your idea for the theme. Many stories achieve commercial success without making their theme explicit, or if they do state it explicitly, it was offhand enough I didn't connect it as such. The theme is satisfying not because we know what it is, but because it causes character's stories to resonate with each other, if it bends all their arcs in similar and consistent patterns.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2017-12-27T11:13:22Z (almost 7 years ago)
Original score: 2