The Theme Is The Thing

The theme is arguably the most important part of your writing. The theme does one thing for you, and that one thing is that it makes it important for other people to listen to you, because YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY!

What Does It Do

Think about that for a moment. By deciding the core of your piece, by deciding on what you want to say, you add something to your comic. It goes from being mere entertainment to saying something; that makes it interesting. Anyone can tell a story: You've now made a statement piece, and that makes it better than something that merely entertains. That has some sort of meaning beyond mere entertainment gives your piece some really nice weight instead of just being fluff.

Better yet, it allows you to remain focused and centers your imagination. As you are trying to figure out what needs to be done, you have something that helps you to concentrate the wildest parts of your imagination on telling a story with a moral, and that keeps you on track. That is, by focusing on the theme, it helps to define what you need versus what you don't need, and that helps you decide which pieces of your writing will work or won't work for whatever you're working on.

That combination of weight and focus can only help your writing.

What Is It

So, what is a theme? It's your message. It's what you are trying to say, and what someone should go away from your comic with. The "Lord of the Rings" was that anyone can help, and that size is not important. "Sex Percussions" theme is that love comes in many forms, but it's important to love something. Most sports movies are about the underdog overcoming the Big Dog with enough motivation, while fantasy movies are all about how Evil will be overcome no matter what.

For an ongoing series, you can even change the theme for each show or story arc. Even if the overarching theme for a series may be that "teamwork allows you to accomplish great things," themes of how worthy individuals are, that people can do for themselves, and even that teamwork can be a problem (such as when you sacrifice too much for the team or the negative effects of peer pressure). The series theme (the overarching theme of the series) should be used as a springboard for inspiration, not a straight jacket; that keeps the series fresh over time.

[Yes, the "theme" can refer to a specific motif, such as "all stories are about people working at a specific restaurant," or that a red ball pops up every so often. However, that sort of theme is not what we're discussing here. That's not a theme; it's either a "motif" (something that repeats throughout the composition) or a "leitmotif" (something specific that repeats throughout that has a more symbolic meaning); the restaurant theme is a motif, while a red ball that shows up to highlight something is a leitmotif. We're looking more at the message. We're more worried about discussing the message of the piece.]

You just decide what it is that you would like to say, and go for it! State the theme as succinctly as you can, at least to yourself, and constantly refer to it constantly. However, don't feel that you need to state it explicitly in the text itself; your plot and the actions of your characters should reinforce the theme. The key here is that the theme works best when you let readers guess what it is rather than stating it outright. Put another way, if you need to state your theme explicitly then you've most likely failed at expressing your theme.

The theme is a great way to focus your writing as well as add something of value to it. You should decide on the theme as early as possible so as to make its implementation that much easier. You don't always need to have a theme (shorter fiction, for example, is sometimes more interested in exploring an idea rather than a message), but a theme can only make your piece stronger. It can provide your literature with a heart, and that's always worth it.