Any Advice on an Ever-Evolving Theme?

[Ethryndal]

Hey guys. I’ve run into a problem.

Over the past year or so, my story has changed drastically from what I originally intended—and I’m not even done writing it yet. I started out aiming for a specific end result, but as the story progressed, different plot threads would virtually appear on my page, helping fix certain issues, but also altering the course of the book. The story seems to be writing itself—which isn’t necessarily a bad thing—but the problem is, it’s making me lose sight of where I’m going.

Basically, my theme is changing. And with it, everything else. It began as The Worth of Humanity, then slowly turned into The Meaning of Strength, then Racism, and currently, it’s beginning to look more and more like The Depravity of Humankind, with a focusing question of Is righteousness attainable? Now the rest of my plot/character arc is a wreck, because the beginning of the plot was crafted to support a COMPLETELY different theme. My character arcs have to change, because what my MC struggled with at the beginning of the story isn’t necessarily what she’s struggling with now, nor would that original character arc supply the story with half the thematic oomph it should.

I keep trying to slog through and just finish the stupid book, telling myself I’ll worry about the continuity errors once I get into edits, but the problem is, I’m no longer sure of where I’m going. The villain (who I’ve never felt a huge connection with anyway) was meant to support a theme that no longer seems relevant, and his actions/motivation don’t quite fit into the story anymore. Part of me wants to just revert back to one of the previous themes and force the rest of the plot back as well, but I don’t necessarily think that would be a good thing. My plot and protagonist have grown into something so vastly different than what they were supposed to be, that forcing them to submit to something they’re not feels like I would be stunting their emotional impact and thematic potential.

The biggest problem is, my brain is starting to feel like sticky tarmac. All these thoughts about what was, and what is, and what probably should have been except I forgot, and I can’t remember what thing I was supposed to focus on in that specific moment because it used to go one way but doesn’t anymore, and everything just seems like one big lumpy pile of hopelessness.

So I guess what I’m asking is this: How does one handle an ever-evolving theme? Can one handle such a thing? Or am I doing something seriously wrong?

@Daeus @Kate-Flournoy @Jane-Maree @Audrey-Caylin @You-All

INTJ ➸Your friendly neighborhood mastermind. ➸https://thesarcasticelf.wordpress.com/

[Elizabeth]

So…I can understand why this would be a problem, and though I’m not entirely sure what the answer is, I can offer a few thoughts and maybe they’ll help? Or not?

It kinda sounds like you’re pressuring yourself to figure this out quickly, so I’d suggest slowing down. Sit back and look at the story. Maybe go through your book and write down how each character arcs/plot devices/themes have evolved over time and see where exactly they’ve changed? Seems to me that one of the problems here is you don’t quite know where the differences are, so that could be a first step.

Second of all, I don’t see a problem with having more than one theme, as long as you can control it. Sure, having a single theme that unifies all your characters and their arcs might be nice, but is that truly realistic? Think about you and your friends and family. Are you all going through the exact same things at the exact same time? Learning the same things at once? Probably not–in fact, it might be just the opposite. People’s worldviews will take them in different directions, and lead them to learn different things. If they all reach the same conclusion (or fail to), isn’t that proving that your book realistically reflects the way our world works? With diverse mindsets all working together in society? Not sure if that breaks any laws of theme or anything, ’cause I haven’t taken TM, so…correct me if I’m totally wrong. That’s just the way I see things.

So…yeah. Maybe just sit back and take stock of the way things have changed, and maybe choose a couple different themes to cover in your book. Not all of them have to be the main focus, I guess, but if you reference them…I dunno. I’m not very good with theme myself. Just a couple thoughts.

 

Writer. Dreamer. Sometimes blogger. MBTI mess. Lover of Jesus and books.

[Daeus]

@ethryndal Well, I’m not totally sure. 😛

I can try to help though.

First of all, those themes do seem very interconnected and I believe they can all coexist at once. Humans are depraved so when they ask what gives them worth their fallen nature says it is their strength. In the search for strength, they become racist. I could see this all working together. So maybe what’s happening is not that your theme’s changing, but that you’re sometimes broadening it and sometimes moving more and more toward the heart issue. If that’s the case, you’ll just need to figure out what your core theme is and make any necessary revisions from there.

It sounds though like those revisions might be hard. The best I can say is maybe let’s figure out why your theme keeps changing so it doesn’t change again and make things worse. Do you think you’re theme has been changing because you came to an awkward spot in the plot and had to abandon the theme to make things work or do you think you changed the theme because it seemed to make sense at the moment?

🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢

[Jane Maree]

@Ethryndal I have actually had this problem before in the past. Basically, I second what Elizabeth has said. Don’t push yourself to keep writing while you’ve got this big problem. Sit back and work it out.

– What do you actually want the main theme to be?
– Can you revise the characters and their arcs and actions to fit that theme more closely?

It’s not an impossible problem, and you’re doing a great job to be noticing problems and actually thinking about how to fix them.

Writing Heroes ♦ Writing Hope // janemareeauthor.com.au

[introvert_girl]

*coughs* I really hope I’m not reposting, but I tried to edit my post and it disappeared. . . So . . . Anyways.

@ethryndal I know from personal experience that my writing often grows with me. Your problem may be a result of growing as a person. This is frustrating to deal with, as we can’t really stop ourselves from changing. But once I identified this, it helped me not to feel as frustrated with my writing (or myself).

My advice is to evaluate what you want your theme to be, and begin to trim the things that are distractions from this. Sort of like whittling at wood, or carving stone. I think it’s alright for first drafts to be a mess. Especially if you’re a discovery writer (vs. an outliner) the first draft is about discovering what the story is. Sometimes that may mean you write things that won’t end up a part of the finished product. I think that’s okay. It wasn’t without purpose, it was just part of the journey. Though I agree with the others, that deepening and exploring the different aspects of your theme isn’t a bad thing, it’s simply expanding the idea to fill a novel. You just have to decide what elements strengthen the story, and which distract from it. I think the trickiest bit will be your villain. If his motivation no longer supports your theme, that will take a lot of work to adjust.

I know it’s overwhelming when you’re staring at a pile of problems. Just focus on fixing one thing at a time (I suggest the larger problems first, as sometimes solving these seems to smooth or even erase the need to fix smaller issues.)

And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.

[Sam Kowal]

@ethryndal This a tough one. I remember my themes changing constantly when I first began writing, because I didn’t have much idea of theme.

XD I wish I could tell you how I worked it out, but I got rid of all those stories cause they were awful.

Like Daeus said, all those themes seem related to one another, so you choose to broaden them and make the story focus on all of them and how they interconnect. That would require edits where you work on weaving the themes together and focusing them all, though, which might be tough. And there still might be too much there.

One thing you might try is focusing on two of the themes that are most integrated into the story, such as The Meaning of Strength and Is Righteousness Attainable, and blending the others into those.

Revising the story to focus on your latest theme would probably feel strongest to you, but that would of course require some heavy editing. It depends- do you want to dissect your story like a crayfish in biology class and then put it back together differently, or try to stick with what premises you have?

It seems like a really tough thing to do. At least you know, editing the story will probably make you a much stonger writer.

*Giarstanornarak tries to melt chair*
Also, Daeus has 22 turtles in his signature.

[Emma Flournoy]

@Ethryndal I hope you survive. This sounds painful. *somberly gives you chocolate*

[GabbyJ]

@ethryndal

Greetings. I’m not sure if you’ve met me, although I’m a subscriber to your blog. I wanted to let you know that I love your blog (for some reason I can’t comment on your posts, so I’ll just mention it here).

I would offer you advice, but I have the same problem all the time. All I can say is, it sounds like you’re already doing really great to be identifying these plot holes. I’d just slow down, take a little break, maybe listen to some Lord of the Rings music : ), and then try to carefully sort through it.

Btw, are you in the habit of saving drafts? I’ve been working on the same novel for nearly two years, and I’ve found that saving old drafts really helps as I’m making major revisions. I’m constantly re-visiting my old drafts for things I deleted in my newer drafts.

*Hands you ice cream* Nothing fixes plot holes better than a brain freeze. : )

*Swirls cape menacingly while the Imperial March plays in the background*

[Ethryndal]

@That_Writer_Girl_99 Darling, you just single-handedly sorted out my mental state. You nailed it. On both counts.

You’re right, I am expecting myself to figure this out way faster than is probably possible. There for a while, I thought I had everything sorted, so now that I’m suddenly lost again, I feel so… frustrated. I just want to FIX THIS STUPID THING. NOW. But I suppose that’s impractical. There’s no deadlines on this book, so if it takes me one day or three  month to figure this out, I suppose it’s okay. (Even though I’d prefer it to be only a day… *dejected sigh*)

And as for your second point… Oh baby. I have pondered the fact that maybe I should let the story have two themes, but for some reason, I always felt like I was merely waffling all over the place and wasn’t firm enough in my direction. I think that’s a result of being such a black-and-white person. (Which is horrible for writing, just so we’re clear.) I’m very straightforward and fact-focused, so when I handle vague and esoteric concepts such as theme, I have a tendency to think I’m not doing it right if I don’t staple a label to the front of my book that says exactly what the theme is. And I know that’s not good, but I… sometimes forget. 😛 So while that wasn’t necessarily what you pointed out, it jarred me to remember that my story doesn’t have to follow a thematic checklist. In fact, if it does, it would be horrible. My two front-runner themes will most likely criss-cross and knock heads and play around with each other all throughout the story as vague entities that the reader has to look closely to find, and that’s as it should be.

Anyway. Thanks. If nothing else, you’ve inadvertently helped me get a better grip on my brain. Which was half my problem. 😏

INTJ ➸Your friendly neighborhood mastermind. ➸https://thesarcasticelf.wordpress.com/

[Ethryndal]

@Daeus That’s actually really interesting. I don’t think I ever considered how inter-related they all were, but now that you point it out, I’m starting to see the bigger picture of my story and theme as a whole. Because it seems to me like The Depravity of Humankind really is the core, with everything else siphoning off as more individualized explorations of that larger theme. *taps lip thoughtfully* Hmm. With that thought, I think things just got a lot bigger than I originally intended. I have to think about this.

As for why it keeps changing… I’m honestly not really sure. Part of it I do credit to my plot being a little unstable—I don’t like to consider myself a panster, but this story has been all over the place from day one. There for a bit, I thought I had it all planned out, but then I would write myself up to a certain point and suddenly a scene wouldn’t quite go the way I expected. And just like that, a whole different plot-thread would open up—inadvertently leading to character choices and plot-elements that supported a different theme. I think if I had been more cognizant of that, I wouldn’t have lost hold of it quite so much, but I kept thinking I would just fix it once I got into edits.

*rolls eyes* In retrospect, I don’t think that decision exhibited a great deal of braining on my part… 🤨

INTJ ➸Your friendly neighborhood mastermind. ➸https://thesarcasticelf.wordpress.com/

[Ethryndal]

@Jane-Maree Yeah, I think what I’m going to do is set a couple of days (or weeks, or even a month) aside to really figure out where I’m going with this thing, and clear up all the “figure it out when you get there” moments. As Elizabeth noted, I think I’ve been pressuring myself to be perfect and get this sorted right away. Now I all I want to do is take a break and just… lay everything out. I think theme as a whole will be easier to study and define once I really have a grasp of the big picture, not to mention I’ll be much more equipped to handle the integration/revision. Thanks for your input.

@Introvert_girl (Aaaaaaand after three edits, I finally get your tag right. *rolls eyes at self* Sheesh, Sarah, it’s not even a hard one. Get thine act together.)

I know from personal experience that my writing often grows with me. Your problem may be a result of growing as a person.

Ain’t that the truth… I totally agree with this, and I do believe a lot of the reasons my story has changed over the last two years is because as I deepened and matured, so did the concepts and plot. Huh. It’s kind of interesting.

@Sam-Kowal Yeah, and I’ve already gone through like, two major revisions at this point… *weeps* I don’t wanna do it again… 😫 But as you said, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and considering that at this point, I feel like some sort of super-elephant, another… *weary sigh* revision… will probably make me the queen of Gondor or something. One can only hope. Thanks for the advice.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Ethryndal.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Ethryndal.

INTJ ➸Your friendly neighborhood mastermind. ➸https://thesarcasticelf.wordpress.com/

[Ethryndal]

@Emma-Flournoy Thank you, Lord Sopespian. Your compassion is a boon in this troubled time.

*eats your chocolate*

INTJ ➸Your friendly neighborhood mastermind. ➸https://thesarcasticelf.wordpress.com/

[Josiah DeGraaf]

@ethryndal Looks like you’ve already gotten some great answers here! In my opinion, this is natural. When I started writing my current novel, I thought my primary theme was anger with a focusing question of “How should you deal with your anger?”, but during drafts and revisions, the primary theme ended up morphing into moral principles with a focusing question of “How should you follow moral principles in your decision-making?” Anger is still a major theme in the work, but it’s no longer the primary theme.

In general, the outline you initially construct may not match what you end up writing and I don’t think there’s a problem with that. You may need to re-outline your novel after the first draft, though, to figure out what plot & theme you’re <i>actually</i> trying to tell so that you can revise your story from there. My first drafts have always been a mess of plot, characters, and theme so I can sympathize with where you’re at right now. 😛 And I agree with what some others have said. “The worth of humanity” may be an interesting major theme to complement the primary theme of “the depravity of humanity.”

Editor-in-Chief Emeritus. Guiding authors at Story Embers.

[Sam Kowal]

@ethryndal Queen of Gondor? 😀 You forget who you are… Queen of Lothlorien, more like.

Unless you were planning on adding Gondor to your realm… didn’t think of that.

*Giarstanornarak tries to melt chair*
Also, Daeus has 22 turtles in his signature.

[Kate Flournoy]

@Ethryndal yeah. What they said. XD

INFP. kateeverythingwriting.wordpress.com

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