Theme Builder

Adam: In this episode, we’re talking about mining the best from your story’s theme. How do you determine what your theme is? How do you expand that idea? How do you weave it into your story? What if you have more than one dominant idea? Next on StoryOsophy. Hello. Welcome to StoryOsophy. This is Adam Jones.

Devin: And Devin Halden.

Adam: This week, we’re getting a serenade. This week, we’re talking about how to better build your theme or how to implement a theme that you haven’t quite figured out into your first draft. As we’ve talked about earlier in this podcast, sometimes when you write your first draft, you don’t really know what your theme is. I’ve grown okay with that in my life. At first, it was a little troubling. People are like, what is theme? Like, how do you get it? That’s one of the big components of storytelling. And I’m like, I don’t even know what that means. I know. I’m with you. And now, I realize that first draft helps me to figure out what it is that I’m trying to say or what the theme of the piece is.

So, I don’t get too worried about it right off the bat.

Devin: I agree. I always try to start with a theme early on. And I was like, all right, I have to have a theme. Like, what’s this about? And I would find that when I came up with a theme, I would almost force a story around the theme. And I would hesitate or I would push back on a story going a different direction because I’m trying to fit it to this theme that I think I need to. Yeah. This was like my signpost. Yeah, yeah. And then I found that if you just say, screw it. I’ll figure this out later. And you write, like you’re saying, you write the first draft or second draft or you figure as you’re polishing your story and your characters and what they’re saying and what they mean to you and what the story is basically telling you the theme, that’s basically what’s going to happen.

So, I would almost leave this for after, like basically about how we’re doing it. It’s like after you’ve written your first draft.

Adam: Yeah. And then your plot result will sort of tell you what your theme is. And sometimes that’ll actually even lend itself to your title. You may think you know a title when you first start writing something, but by the time you get to the end, my favorite. Yeah. My favorite type of titles are like multi-layered. Yeah.

Like you could read the story three times and get three different meanings from the same title. But I love that in rewatch or set up payoff land anyway, the layers of something. But that’s what theme is. Theme is a layer below everything else. It’s subterranean in a way. And so is subtext, right? Sub should be called sub theme. But tone is sort of the over-the-top aspect. So that’s why we say tone and theme sort of go hand-in-hand. It’s what you’re saying as a glaze, as a filter, you know, over the top of something. Or what you’re saying underneath it. What’s the takeaway, the philosophical takeaway? And when you’re talking about how the story informs the theme or characters inform the theme and tell you what it is, if you start with your characters that you find interesting, and let’s say it’s a fairy tale love story, right?

Right. And you find out how they meet and you go with this and then you find there’s an evil witch and all this other stuff. You start with things that are more captivating to you and then you go, well, do they succeed or does the witch kill them? Because is it love conquers all is your theme or is it something else? You know, it’s something more wicked. I don’t know what the opposite of that is, but I don’t want to know, Devin. I don’t want to know. But the whole point is the lovers. The lovers and their outcome have dictated what the theme is. Do you know what I mean?

The plot and the characters, the recipe you’ve been writing sort of dictates the theme. Now, in that example, that really simple example, you can see how easily the character and the plot create the theme. So you don’t have to start with the theme. You can start with the things that interest you most and it will sort of dictate it. And we’ll explain in this episode how you can find theme out of your story. How you can. Figure out where it is lurking. If you haven’t, you know, used it to the best of your ability in the first draft, you weren’t focusing on it. So how do you sort of bring it a little bit more, even though it’s subterranean, a little bit closer to the surface so we can see its presence?

I only have like a three step process for how I get theme at this point, because I like to keep theme. Theme can be complex, but I like to keep the seed of it very simple. I like to come up with an idea, a really basic. Idea. And Devin, I think we were talking about this. You were suggesting, too, that you can use the six basic thematic conflicts to from season one, right? Right. Yep. Just start with. You can use those as a basic. Yeah, to start. Right. It’s a great, great place to start. Yeah. Just a quick reminder what those are. It’s person versus person, person versus self, person versus society, person versus nature, person versus God or the supernatural.

And. Person versus science technology. Those are the basic ones that people sort of put stories in. And it may not yield your theme, but it helps to do that. That’s a strong premise to at least birth your theme, if nothing else. Because a lot of a lot of what the person is struggling against, like we were just saying, character and plot equals theme in its own way. But they are a good place to start or an idea like honor or connection or isolation. Which is sort of Edwards thing. What would a guy who was isolated, Edward Scissorhands, isolated in a mansion be like if he entered society now?

And they sort of did, you know, a Frankensteinian reboot.

Devin: You can mine your theme or elements of your theme from your your character’s flaws is also a good place to to look because there’s or even just the change in your character, your character’s art.

Adam: The flaw strength ratio. Yeah. That’s a good it’s a good point.

Devin: Yeah. All we’re doing with this episode is trying to provide questions to you or provide you with the questions to ask yourself to try to to mine what you’re the theme of your story is because it’s a pretty important piece of the puzzle. You know, in when you’re when you’re actually thinking about when you’re it’s also a checks and balances as well as well at the end of the writing process. If you can’t mine or you can’t. See the real are a true or strong theme coming from the story, you know, that might be a indication that that something’s a bit off or a skew.

Adam: It’s hard to put your thumb on theme. It is because theme is it’s elusive like all three elusives. It is like I elusive elusive and elusive like it’s just elusive and it’s subjective.

Devin: It’s yeah, it can be very subjective to who’s ever watching it. Like I can watch a film or I can read a book and. And the theme to me is something of that of that story spoke to me as the theme of the story or meant something to me more than it might mean something to Adam or somebody else.

Adam: It’s like an abstract version of the premise. It’s like an abstract version of the premise of the story and how a person connects with it. Like you’re saying individually, each person does connect with it somehow differently. And it’s like that’s what the argument about art is. Once it leaves, you know, the hands of the artist or the writer. However, that other person. Interprets it. That’s the truth of it. Yeah. And I mean, that’s like everyday life in our actions anyway, is once we release that thing, it’s it’s perception of someone else. I don’t start with theme, but I do try to think about what it is before I start writing me for sure.

Now, like I’m saying, you don’t have to worry about it for your first draft. But if you start to figure out what it is, you’re you’re sort of just mentally tracking it, even if it’s just an idea of like the one Devin, you and I. We have been working on one of our themes is isolation and connection on many levels. And and so it becomes a part of the story world in a way that almost is this is and this is anything that almost glues together the people in that world. It’s like, why are we watching all these people? Well, because all the events that are in this story connect them.

Yeah. But why? What underneath all of that is connect? Right. It’s a great way to talk about the beyond and the abstract. And metaphysical and mysterious things. Theme is great for that. And that’s what why I love it, because it is so mysterious. I think of it like almost like a holograph or a holographic image. And think of that as like a like some sort of monument in the in the middle of a group of people. And they’re all staring centrally at this thing. And this thing in the center is your theme. This monolithic little monument here. And if you just walk to the left. To the right, if you were a person in this circle, you would see that it’s a slightly different thing from a different vantage point of perspective.

You would see that this thing, oh, that’s what you’re seeing, huh? I can’t see that on my side. I see it as this. And let’s say that monument is an idea like truth or love. Oh, I see truth like this. The person on the opposite side of that monument can’t see anything you’re seeing. And so they’re seeing the monument. The monument or this idea of truth from a completely different vantage point with completely different information. That is the source of antagonism when you’re trying to build a character. Pick people on different sides of the central thematic idea. It can be about this. They can both have their own version of truth, but they are not seeing the full picture.

Devin: It’s like watching Fox or CNN.

Adam: Right, exactly. The only way. The only way that we start to get the bird’s eye view of the story world and you build your characters out of the rest of the people in the circle. All of them have differing angles that are either closer to the person’s perspective or further away. And if it’s about relationships, this person may have lost their spouse. This person may be divorced. This person may be single. This person. So there’s all of these different ways of looking at relationships is the central theme, right? The idea you want to explore, right? The way you create your ensemble cast, your side characters, your allies or your minions or all the is just by thinking about, well, what are the different angles people could be looking at or have a perspective on this specific central idea, whether it’s truth or honor or love.

And I use those simply because they tend to be the crux of a lot of movies because those are driving forces for human beings is companionship and love and all that.

Devin: Yeah, you make a good point, though, too. Like, it’s elusive, but it’s. It’s very important to identify the theme because it does have.

But the relationship with, say, the hero and his father is a big driving force into why this whole story happened in the first place. Like maybe he’s going, his father was kidnapped, and he has to go find him. So he has to overcome all these flaws that he has and these internal issues and then all the plot, the obstacles that happen on the external parts of the story, which is the plot. But then if you take… That theme, because you understand that that’s the theme, and you apply it to your antagonist. Yeah. And so that makes, there’s this dark, deep backstory on why he’s doing what he’s doing because of a relationship, perhaps, with his father.

That’s right. It’s not something to just glaze over or say, well, it’s subjective and it’s elusive. So I’ll just let my audience figure it out for themselves. They’ll come up with their own theme, what they get from it. That’s not what we’re saying. We’re saying… We’re saying it’s still important to have a pretty good grasp on what you want your theme to be because it’s going to be a thread that keeps this entire story together and the characters of that story together. It’s the glue. Yeah. Exactly.

Adam: Preach it, brother. Get him, Devin. Boom. Woo. On fire today, baby.

But no, you’re… All right, I’m going back to sleep. It is the glue that holds everybody together. The reasoning or the why of why they’re doing stuff that you can’t always put your finger on. That you can really play with in theme. Right. That’s one of the main questions for how do you start with that basic idea is what you were saying. What do these characters have in common? Because if it’s only the object of desire, if it’s like both of them want the gem of blah, blah, blah, and it’s just a race of time to get it. I mean, yeah, that’s fun and all, but who gives a crap?

You know what I mean? Like that’s the only thing that’s the… Then it’s going to be called, you know, the jewel of the Nile or something like that. Or the gem of the… No, I can’t say that. I like… I like that movie.

Devin: It’s actually a movie. It is a good movie. And romancing the stone.

Adam: Yep. What you say, common ground is an important way to get characters to understand a theme. Theme doesn’t… I mean, theme does not have to be the primary thing. So we don’t want to dwell on it as if it’s like, you got to know your theme. But if you have a sense of it, your story world will gel.

Devin: Even if you don’t know your theme… I don’t want to contradict ourselves. But if you don’t know your theme in the first draft, that’s fine. Because you can identify that relationship theme. Commonalities. And then you can go in and strengthen the theme in each scene and event and movement and act and throughout your story. You can do this. So don’t dwell on this before you start writing your story. And don’t think that you… Because like I said before, it can be inhibitive. Like it can… And actually, you can actually try too hard to force the theme into your story and into your scene and into your characters and how they deal with each other.

When all you really want to do is let your creativity and your imagination flow a little bit and then read it and be like, you know what? If I made this about the relationship between the hero and his father, I can make the antagonist more layered and have a much more mysterious background. Backstory that can leak out slowly and slowly where there’s a moment at the end when the hero and the antagonist all of a sudden understand each other. Yeah.

All of that doesn’t need to be figured out in the very beginning of your story. But you can… Once you’re done with your first or second draft and you identify like this could be a really strong theme, it could really add layers to the story. Then you can go in and strengthen, tweak things, tweak dialogue, tweak some scenes that can strengthen that theme.

Adam: Don’t state it too blatantly, right? Because then theme does not become theme. Theme becomes cheesy, because I’ve done that too. It becomes beyond subtext. It needs to stay in subtext, right? The audience should feel the theme or resonate with the theme. And the only theme that I’ve heard really stated outright recently is one of our examples later that Devin has used several times in this podcast, but we’ll get to that when we talk about the thematic question, because it’s another stage in developing your theme, or another way of doing it.

But initially, the basic idea: look, if you start your piece and you don’t know your theme, that’s fine. But you sort of do, because if you say, all right, I’m going to write a revenge flick, well, your theme is going to have to do something with revenge. Revenge is a dish best served cold. It’s going to be some variation on this type of genre or character you want to write. You’re sort of developing what your theme is as your character grows, as your story world grows, but you have the seed of it. You know you want to write a fantasy quest movie, so you know it’s about a quest. You know you want to write a rom-com between two people, so you know it’s about love. When you start, you may not know it in your first draft, but just keep this in mind. Don’t work too hard on your theme, but know that whatever story you’ve chosen to tell, the crux of it is your theme. Revenge flick. Love story: love is my theme. Well, what is it? I mean, that’s pretty broad. Yeah, that’s second draft questions.

If this story starts to be about some weirdo friendship at work and blah, those are the scenes that get cut, because it’s a rom-com. It’s not about that friendship. And I guarantee you, many rom-coms have been written where the dialogue between the ally character and one of the hero characters was so awesome, and they cut tons of it. That’s some funny dialogue, you can do some funny bits at work, but it’s excessive. That’s why you look at those Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow movies. There’s a lot of camaraderie involved, you know what I mean? And that’s really funny, but they have to find a balance between the funny and the plot-driven, scene-driven want to get the relationship or whatever.

So what we’re saying is, especially with your first draft, when you’re going through, know the story you’re writing. Have a basic idea of what you’re talking about. And even if you don’t know it, like I said, if you know you’re writing a love story, a revenge story, a horror story, you know the basic idea. Your genre is sort of helping you out. Just stick with that and do a first draft.

Now, when you’re done with the first draft, before you even send it out for feedback from other people, trusty readers and such, you can refine it and place some theme in it. You don’t have to wait for your second draft to actually make the theme really work. You can go back and go, now, out of what I’ve written, let me investigate and try to find the theme here. If you don’t have a good idea other than the basics, like I said, pick that one basic word, one basic philosophical idea, or use one of those six basic thematic conflicts, person versus self, person versus society. Those are helpful in the same way. Start there.

Now, when you get to your first draft and you’re reading through, start to think about the motivations of your characters. Like I’ve said in previous episodes, a character’s journey generally is, and this is the reason why you don’t need a lot of exposition, a person trying to make peace with something that was sort of developmental for them. They figured it out in life, but it was a tripping block, and now they’re trying to get over it through the thing they’re confronting in the present. So the present obstacle, the present force or source of antagonism, reflects their flaw in an exterior way. And usually it has to do with something that has happened to them. Every comedy about dating starts out with them one guy as a child getting a bit of information that shapes them, and we only need a glimpse of their past. And in Mysteries, that information would come at the end.

It wouldn’t come at the beginning as a little cold open, seeing Adam Sandler as a boy or Amy Schumer as a girl, which is a really funny scene with Colin Quinn. I haven’t seen that movie. The opening’s funny. He basically is telling her daughters, he’s like, I know your mother and I are having problems, but would you prefer to have one doll or two dolls? And they’re like, two dolls, daddy. He’s like, yeah, that’s right. That’s right, kids. So, he’s teaching them that being a womanizer is okay with their dolls as an analogy. And so, it screws her brain up as a kid. And so, she becomes Amy Schumer in Trainwreck.

But it’s a really funny cold open because he’s like, right. And don’t you like the dolls that are prettier? Right, kids? Right, girls? They’re like, yeah. So, my point is her whole dilemma ends up being that. Now, it’s a comedy. You set that up so that the gags make. More sense, right? Throughout the whole piece. If it’s a drama or a mystery, you save that information to the end. Because the reason why this person is struggling can come from this. You can have the paths intersect between exposition and current conflict. Because they come from the same place, generally, in life. The only things we get hung up on are things we haven’t made peace with.

So, you don’t have to show a lot of exposition. Because the current plot does it for you. Where exposition and current plot, backstory and current plot, dovetail together within your story. In moments of conflict or things like that. Your theme becomes apparent, too. It focuses the attention on what’s going on here. The why of the story. Which is sort of your theme. The philosophical, what is this about conflict? What’s the meaning here? That’s another way of looking at your theme. What’s the meaning? Within your story. What does it all mean, Devin? I mean, what does it all mean?

Once you get to draft two, you can sort of pick it apart and diagnose it. The same way we talk about movements or the scene builder. Now it’s time to break it all up. Open the hood and check out the engine and make sure stuff works. And there are ways of developing what you will discover about your story. Whether it’s the theme you set out to write. You have this basic idea. Did you stick with it or not? If not, figure out what the theme actually is. Maybe it’s self-sacrifice and you thought it was love. But it’s a different theme. It’s more specific. And then you go, well, how do I then build this back into my story?

That seems to be the thing that trips people up. And it shouldn’t.

Devin, I would assume you agree with me, but I’d like to know what you think. Once you figure out what the theme is, taking it and implementing it and putting it back into your story, is actually the easy part.

Devin: And it’s the fun part.

Adam: Yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Devin: Because it actually starts strengthening some of the scenes and some of the dialogue. Yeah. And gives it a little bit more direction for you. It glues it together. From a writing standpoint. And I actually use, because I like to track things. I like to track the audience experience and all that stuff. And so I still, once I have the theme, so once I first or second draft and I’ve figured out what the theme is, I’ll track it through and I’ll figure out, okay, where did I introduce the theme?

Adam: Yeah.

Devin: And then I want to make sure that there’s a moment that that theme was introduced. And again, this is all subtextual. It’s underneath the surface.

Adam: That’s a smart thing. The introduction is really important. That’s a really important, like, just like a character. How did you introduce the character? Treat theme the same way. Track it the same way.

Devin: And then have, is there a moment or make sure there’s a moment that contributes to the theme? Yeah. And then is there another moment? There’s a moment that reinforces the theme. And then there’s another moment that reinforces the theme and reinforces the theme. And then at the very end, what happens that brings this theme full circle.

Adam: And even like we do with plot, maybe subverts the theme. Maybe there’s a surprise twist to the theme that we weren’t expecting. Which is what I like to do with it. It’s, you weave it in with the plot so that it helps to expand it. And especially the philosophical aspect of it. Like you want your, your audience to be thinking about the story on different levels. Even if the, the, you don’t have a surprise on the surface of the plot. If the theme does, there’s still something that’s interesting or satisfactory about that. There are two ways that I approach sort of multiplying the perspective of theme. That one with the monument, this thing, the idea, the topic that’s central with characters surrounding it, I always think of that, that’s my one visual, and going, whatever the topic is, everybody has to be related to it in the story.

Even if there’s some aspect where it’s like that person doesn’t care about that topic, even that is an opinion or perspective on the central thematic topic. So, when I find out what the theme is, I look at it and try to do it and go, okay, let’s, if I don’t have, if I don’t know what my force or source of antagonism’s perspective is on that topic already, or have a clue, I make them the opposite. That’s my first go-to to step to it and be like, okay, so this person loves this thing, that person hates that thing. You know, whatever, I try to make them as opposite.

If that doesn’t work, or that’s too on the nose, I subvert it a little bit, or I move the perspectives a little bit. And then I look at all the surrounding characters, allies, mentors, you know, minions, shapeshifters, tricksters, all these archetypes we talk about. And I try to figure out what their perspective is on that theme, just to have an understanding. Even if it’s to complement the hero’s perspective in some minor way, like some little thing. The next way I go about it is, okay, so let’s say you don’t, you want to expand what the theme is in its own way. I think Robert McKee, I’ve talked to you a lot about this, Robert McKee in Story, his book Story, he’s got this really great, interesting, he does these positions.

Like positive, negative, and what he calls the negation of the negation. And what? I’ve expanded this a little bit for my own thinking, and I’ll sort of explain how that fits into that circle of characters around the central thematic topic. But he’s, the positive is the presence of the topic or the value, like truth is the idea. And this is someone who, let’s say it’s a law, has to do with cops and robbers and law, right? So truth matters to a certain side. Like this person wants the truth and wants to tell the truth, right? That matters. A few good men is a great example of that.

And then you’ve got a person who doesn’t, who just needs to defend the other side, but is not necessarily concerned with the truth. That would be the antagonist, the negative side. And then you’ve got someone, negation of the negation, that is to the extreme, meaning they’re almost using their power as an excuse. In terms of like, Nathan Jessup in A Few Good Men, the Jack Nicholson character, he’s beyond the beyond, right? These kids are on trial for murder, and yes, someone murdered this soldier. But these two young guys who are being held accountable, they’re not as loathsome as the person who is supposed to be the pinnacle of honor, truth, and respect in this military commander that is Jack Nicholson, who is the one who abused the law.

And had this kid murdered. So, that’s the negation of the negation in his thing. Now, for me, I look at it like this. You have a topic, and then you have its opposite. The best way to do any topic is, it’s all positive, negative, dual charge things. Every topic is two topics. You have love, right? And that would seem like the topic. But then on one side, you have the presence of it, and on one side, the absence of it, right? So, it becomes two topics in that. They’re commensurate. You can focus on an idea, but you’re either focused on it one way or the other.

It’s not just the idea. You’re focused on whether, like I say, lack or presence of said thing. So, that helps to create that dichotomy, that different system where each side is sort of an opposing force to the other. They’re opposites. They can’t exist in the same place. Lack and abundance. Lack and presence, right? They’re opposites. So, you have the idea of love. So, if one person comes from love, the lover, versus the evil witch in the fairy tale that’s going to stop that from happening, right? Does not want that, the lack of it. You’ve got… Your two opposing forces. Now, you choose a middle ground, which I like to call lukewarm. Lukewarm is a great way to think of it, which is halfway between that. So truth, maybe it’s a person who tells little white lies. If truth is your, you know, your central idea, a person who tells little white lies, or a person who is dishonest with themselves in denial, right? There are these little variations of not straight up lying. And those would be traits that I would attribute to ally characters, trickster characters, characters that are supporting roles to whoever’s perspective dominates the story, because they help to inform that. It lets us know this person’s got a girlfriend, but they, you know, it’s the minion. And so he’s in the negative realm a little bit. He cheats on his girlfriend. So the what, what we, how we have this, you know, commentary of romance or relationships in the center, he’s deceptive in his perspective on that topic, right? And so it helps to inform what his character is like based around the theme you have. So you have these lukewarm things in the middle, and then you do your extremes on either side, not just one, like McKee suggests in the negation of the negation, but also all the way on the other side. Like if there was an overabundance of something, right? If there was, so you want to take the extremes and different actions. Once you’ve done that, generally you have enough perspective to be able to hand them out to your characters, and they sort of will work easily. You just sort of take the idea, break it up into these little parts and go, let me look and see which of my characters these resemble. And I, you’re, I’m telling your brain’s an amazing machine. In your first draft, you will have accidentally done most of the work. If you start with that seed of the idea, and then all you’re doing is distributing these things where it’s like, oh, this person would say this kind of dialogue, or I didn’t spend much on their home life, but I wanted to show their apartment. Here’s a two page or a half page scene where I, when I get to see they live by themselves for this reason, right? Comments on relationships. You’ve got the information. You can then plug back into your draft easily enough that you can give it out for feedback and still have theme within, you know, within that first draft, because it’s an easy plug in that way. You just look at what you got, fracture it up like that into multiple perspectives, and then hand it to a character and see if it works.

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Devin: A lot of the development that you’re doing with your characters, even before you start writing that we’ve talked, we talked about in season one is that the importance of character development is something that I. Discovered well after I started writing and it ended up becoming the biggest discovery or the most important discovery that I made was taking time with my characters actually did a lot of my story writing, you know, or writing of the story for me. And so a lot of the character development that you’re doing, especially when you’re focusing on your hero and your antagonist, a lot of that stuff that you were making sure you like emotionally and and what was driving them to do what they’re doing and each event like what what was the inciting incident in movement one or act one that caused them to actually to make the decision to go on this journey in the first place.

What what pushed them to continue to make decisions throughout this journey in order to to try to achieve the to obtain the the outcome or the elixir, whatever that the objective is. So a lot of that is actually doing the theme stuff for you to that you’re not realizing, you know, is the theme is actually kind of being built in the background because you’re focused on on developing your character and then maintaining.

That character. As you write that character, like everything that you’ve developed for that character, especially like the arc that you’ve planned, you’ve plotted out for him or you blueprinted like this is this is the who I want my audience to see when they first meet this character. This is who he is. And when they leave him, I know this is who I want him to be. It’s the stuff in the middle that, you know, the obstacles and other things that are going to, to, to impact and affect that transition from this person to this person. This is what he wants in the beginning. This is what he really wants at the end. And you’ll realize when you’re reading it that a lot of that stuff, even though you were folk, you weren’t focused on theme. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Theme is, is seeping out through your characters throughout any really want. That’s right. Yeah, dude, that’s a really good point.

Adam: That’s what I’m saying. Your brain is an amazing machine. If you give it a little bit of an idea of what you want to do, it’ll do stuff almost subconsciously.

Devin: Right.

Adam: And you’ll look back and be like, oh, shoot, there’s stuff built in there that I didn’t even – you did know. You’re sort of time traveling without time traveling. You’re awesome, human beings, story authors.

But, no, it’s true. You can literally do that. Because the really want, as you’re saying, it’s the theme. That’s another way of incorporating your theme in the really want.

And then it’s sort of creeping underneath your story or maybe for me and like in my first drafts when I write overtly and my subtext is not always there. The theme will be present on the top layer. That’s sort of why I do that first draft that way. And I don’t – I know it sounds like I’m like, I write the most horrible first drafts ever. I usually take the time to push the subtext below the surface and push the theme below the surface. But my first writing of it for myself before I tidy up, I don’t care about that. I literally will write the theme and the wants and the really wants on the surface.

And then make the decision later of how best to artfully show this moment. That’s something that I’m going to do. And that’s the past that we’re talking about here in these last five episodes of season two. How do you do that? How do you rework the clay of the story before you send it out? But you’re right. That really want is buried beneath the character in some way, but so is the –

Devin: We didn’t talk about it.

Adam: You’re a genius, D. Genius.

Devin: You don’t, you won’t necessarily have just, you know, one theme. That can be identified. Like Edward Scissorhands said that self-discovery isolation. And, and, you know, I think, I think most, most stories you’ll be able to mine or pick out a couple different themes that are the glue or the thread that, that is kind of pulling all of this together. So don’t feel like you have to pigeonhole yourself into a, into one, one thing.

Adam: So here, I’ll give you my guesses, but I’m interested to know what you, what. Your thoughts are on the themes for the two movies we’ve been reviewing for season two so far, because you just mentioned Edward Scissorhands. And I was going to say, if I, so if I had to boil them down, Jumanji would be, who are you? And Edward Scissorhands would be somewhere in the vein of like fish out of water. It’s like the, the premise is, you know, does love conquer all. It’s like a fish out of water, dot, dot, dot. He’s out of his environment. And how does that result? I think Jumanji’s strongest one is who are you? Like in growing up in understanding oneself, it’s, it’s maybe a little self-sacrifice.

Devin: I think Jumanji’s, I think the principle actually states the theme right to them. It’s a very, passengers type of moment when he says, who do you want to be in this moment or at this time? Like, who do you want to be? And so I think that that’s the theme because that, and that kind of rings true.

Adam: It’s a blatant one. He literally says it right out loud.

Devin: The entirety of his sentence is actually because it it’s, who do you want to be at this? I think he’s, of course, didn’t prepare for that, but who do you want to be in this moment or at this moment? Like, who do you want to be? And, but that’s what they are. Like they’ve, that is kind of ringing in their heads at each moment. Like when, when a fridge does the, he does something with the Cobra or whatever that snake is like. That’s the question they keep asking themselves. You know, it’s like, who do you want to be at this moment? Do you want to be a coward or do you want to do this? Or, or, you know, so I think there’s, that’s the, that’s the main thing for that. And I think with Edward Scissorhands, I think it’s self-discovery and isolation. I think it’s having to go through something to discover who you are.

And then his retreat back, back to the castle is the mansion, whatever it is, is I, now I know who I am. Yeah. In Edward’s case. But isolation is also in Kim’s. You know, Kim feels isolated because she doesn’t feel at home there either, really. So she’s in between good girl and bad girl; she doesn’t know who she’s supposed to be. She’s doing self-discovery too, still trying to figure herself out. And I think she actually plays a very similar character in Beetlejuice, where she’s the only one that can see, you know, the two dead people. And so she’s got this, she’s in between this like human, in Beetlejuice, human and this other realm of… Mystical world, realm of the dead, yeah. I think that’s a common theme in a lot of Burton movies actually is self-discovery and isolation for sure, but…

Adam: Well, and also the girl who can see between two worlds that way.

Devin: Yeah, right.

Adam: It’s a little romantic ideal, I think. Ideal or idea in his world.

Devin: He uses Winona Ryder in both of those, both Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands as like the bridge between that part of the story that we’re supposed to just believe, you know, and then the reality and like you’re saying, the mystical world and reality, which is cool.

Adam: It’s a very Burton psychological landscape.

Devin: Yeah.

Adam: You know what I mean? Like I say, it’s like the romantic ideal. It’s like there’s some, there’s a, there’s a, the, the girl between two, the bridge between two worlds. Like it’s kind of interesting. That’s why one of the things I love about Burton stuff, the psychological stuff, the psychological is turned into fantastic or fantasy stuff, you know, the whimsical, like that’s what I like about it is it’s psychological and whimsical in the world itself. Phantasmagorical. Oh, well done, D. Well done, D. I’ll put in a rousing applause. That’s a good word. It’s the word of the day. Right out of the hat, man.

So, what we were just talking about with Passengers, I wanted you to give this example. Oh, crap. Well, I’ll let you think about it because I’m going to introduce the thematic question. So something that recently I’ve been thinking more about and trying to use in my story is something that Devin brought up in first season. About theme. So he had said that in the movie Passengers, Chris Pratt presents a question, a philosophical, ethical, moral dilemma question to the bartender played by Michael Sheen, right? Michael Sheen, who’s awesome in Good Omens. He’s awesome. And the question had to do with basically the philosophical… Ethical, moral principle of this movie.

So much like Jumanji, where it’s blatantly said, it’s said directly, openly, out loud, in the form of a question, like not a dramatic question, not the premise, but a thematic question, the moral implications, you’re almost posing that question to the audience, to the viewer. Like we’ve said a million times, as soon as you present that question, it’s almost like an open-ended equation. You need the counterpoint. You need the complementary answer to it. And so that’s why setting up things in the beginning of your story, people will keep reading or watching because they want to know the answer. Presenting your central idea or dominant idea or your philosophy of your story through a thematic question, you’re purposefully engaging your audience in searching for the answer for the rest of the movie, whether they think they’re going to find it within the context of the story itself, or the story ends, and this is the question that they go out to the car or go to bed with if it’s been on Netflix or whatever. Thinking about, discussing with their partner, discussing with the group of friends that they saw the movie with. It’s the thing that engages a more, a broader philosophical discussion. That’s the purpose of posing it as a question.

And I don’t know, you probably have to paraphrase it, Devin, but you can do it better than I can. The thematic question on, and for those of you who don’t know, Passengers is the one with Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence where there are two people aboard a spaceship traveling to a new colony.

Which, I tell you, I know Jumanji, I’m sure people will criticize the fact that it’s sort of like entertainment, like fun, fair. I enjoy it very much. I love it. And I love the fact that it’s a good thematic question. Who do you want to be right now? Not who are you right now, but who do you want to be right now? It’s very specific. It’s in this moment, and it’s what is your desire for you to be the best version of yourself? Not tomorrow, not yesterday, but now. So it’s one of the bigger themes I like to employ in the stuff that I write, which is every character’s journey, doesn’t matter if they’re a supporting character, they’re going to have some revelation of self-worth or self-meaning, meaning for self.

As Devin’s saying about Edward Scissorhands, self-discovery. Within the course of the story, the hero having the most dominant understanding of that. But if you’re looking to find ways that your audience can relate to any character, pick their self-worth, because everybody struggles with their own definitions of self-worth and how they value themselves and what they value themselves for. It’s easy for an audience to identify with a character if you approach it that way. So as blatant and obvious as that Jumanji theme is, it’s still a reality. A really good one to choose, especially for an ensemble piece. If you pose a thematic question like that, the story will answer it.

Like in the case of Jumanji, who do they want to be right now? Well, they get over some of their character flaws. Bethany comes with vanity and she’s putting an overweight, middle-aged white man’s body that, you know, fridges a little ego, but they cut two stories off of his physical, the stature, the rock needs to be more brave, or Spencer needs to be more brave, Bravestone, so they elevate that. And Martha needs to come out of her shell a little bit, so she’s a little bit more overt as a character. But so the story itself explains the theme or gives you the answer to that thematic question.

In terms of passengers, whether he should wake her up or not, it ends up being like, in many ways, yes, when we get it on different levels throughout the story. Yes, because someone needs to be doing this and he’s the only one who can save the ship. And so someone needs to be inside, he needs to be outside. So without another person, everyone on board would have died, right? Everyone. In addition to that, her whole purpose is to write the story of the new colonization.

With this ship. And so now she gets to write this story of this adventure that no one would have seen had they both not woken up. So her journalistic intentions are also met. Guaranteed, some of the things have a little bittersweet irony to the end of that. But notice how your story hopefully somehow will answer the thematic question. And if not, here’s an example of how not to do that, how to do the opposite of that for a story ending. No Country for Old Men, where they literally end with this empty philosophy. Basically, how do the good guys keep going kind of thing that they’re philosophizing about?

Because in this movie, the bad guy sort of wins and the good guy retires. That’s the ending of No Country for Old Men. And the last speech is Tommy Lee Jones recounting a dream to his wife. And it has to do with sort of feeling lost in that world of, what good is a lawman? So they sort of pose this thematic question about law in this philosophical discussion, and then end the movie. And you’re like, what? Now, like I’ve said before, I did not like the end of that movie. Me personally, I did not enjoy it. I was really into it in the beginning, and then by the end of it, I was like, what?

And I love the Coen brothers. I just was not happy with that ending. But once again, thematic questions and thematic, philosophies presented, but they’re not summed up tidily and neatly for an audience to, not as easy to understand or take in as Jumanji’s. You know what I mean? They’re trying something a little more complex in the philosophical landscape. We’re not going to give you the answers. We’re going to pose some really deep… Complex question, and let it sit with you. See you later. I like narratives with, like we’re saying, tying up loose ends. I like narratives that do that. And that one decided deliberately not to do it.

Devin: Leave it to the Coen brothers to mess with convention.

Adam: I know, right? Which is why I like, I mean, that’s part of why I get it. But that’s what we were saying before, like even past bunch of episodes. What if? That question, what if? That’s why we were saying also, this is not, this whole podcast is not meant to be an instructional podcast. It’s meant to be philosophical discussion about where story can go next. But talking about it in ways that it’s like, okay, how we practically build stories, design them, architect them, how we put them together. We’re sharing systems. Of how we do that, or approaches, or different things like that. Hoping that we can get more what ifs out of the foundation and traditionalism of storytelling.

So, that’s what we’re aiming for with this. But that what if question is, is the biggest one. And the Coen brothers, it’s like, what if we didn’t give them an ending at all? What if we just had Tommy Lee Jones talk about a dream, and then we cut to black? Well, Adam Jones? Well, Adam Jones will probably be really upset about that, but let’s do it.

That’s it. They did it anyway. I’m still trying to find the quote. I figured. What’s your favorite Coen brothers movie?

Miller’s Crossing. Miller’s Crossing is a really, I haven’t seen that in a long time, but that’s a good movie, dude. Yeah, it’s really good. That’s a good like gangster movie. I think my favorite, my favorite is probably Raising Arizona. But my favorite two are probably. Probably Raising Arizona and Hudsucker Proxy.

Devin: Hudsucker Proxy is good too.

Adam: Those are probably my two faves. But Miller’s Crossing is. I’m not on the big Lebowski bandwagon. Many people love that movie, and I enjoy it.

Devin: Yeah.

Adam: But I don’t love it. Like, I’m not as big into it. They did O Brother, Where Art Thou?, didn’t they? Oh, that’s a good one too. That’s a good fun. Yeah, that’s pretty good. The look of that and the feel of that is really exciting. You know what I mean? The world that they built. It was really fun and felt dusty. Like, it felt warm and sweaty and dusty just watching it. You can be in the middle of winter, and they created a. That’s the tone or the mood that I’m talking about. When we were speaking about last episode scene stuff. There’s like, you don’t even have to be in that movie, and you’re sweating and feel sticky.

Yeah. You know? Right. Because it’s like they created this look. Yeah, Raising Arizona to me. I just love how absurd it is. I love so much how absurd it is. And it has some of the best bits of dialogue. Comic, subtle comic dialogue in any movie. I mean, do these balloons blow up into funny shapes? Not unless round is funny.

Can you describe the jammies, please? I don’t know. They had Yodas and shit on them. Yeah. One of my favorite bits in any of those scenes is when they tell, they rob that store, and they tell the clerk, lay down on the ground, and count backwards from 1,000 or 100 or whatever they tell him. They drive off, and he’s on the floor, and it cuts back into the store, and he’s like, 996, 995. It cuts to whatever they’re doing, and they decide to turn around and come back to the store, and it cuts back inside the store. He’s like, 860. Oh, bullshit.

And he stands up, and the car’s speeding into the parking lot, and he lays back down and starts counting again.

There’s so many funny lines in that. And the premise is really absurd and funny to me. It’s one of the best Nicolas Cage performances. Son, you got a panty on your head. I almost phoned it. I almost phoned the quote. I’m going to keep quoting Raising Arizona until you get there. Okay, you just do that. Mighty fine cornflakes, Miss McDonough. Yeah. So he narrates the whole story, too, which is what I love, is you get this perspective. They sort of end Raising Arizona a little bit more satisfactory than No Country for Old Men, but they still end it with a dream. It’s H.I. McDonough’s dream. He dreams about having a big family and growing old with his wife.

They’ve had trouble the whole movie and this and that. And he goes, it’s something about, he’s like, it’s someplace really nice. Maybe it was Nebraska. Or Kansas or something. Like. It’s just this great, like, great, like, ending where it’s like, maybe it’s not Arizona. It felt good, though, like Nebraska or Kansas. I can’t remember what the last line, but it’s something like that. It’s very funny. I love the fact that he’s this constant, he’s a repeat offender criminal, and he falls in love with the police photographer for every time he gets booked. And then, so the whole opening sequence, the whole hook of the thing is, their romance, every time he gets arrested, he’s like, so, did he treat you wrong, Ed? Did you, her name’s Ed.

So, you guys broke up? You and your fiance? What? Give me his name. When I get out of here, I’ll go tell him a thing or two. What kind of good woman you are? And the next thing I know, he’s like, I don’t know. Every time he comes in, he’s got a ring. When I get out, we’re going to get married. So, it’s a criminal and a police officer that fall in love with him getting booked. It’s a great hook. It’s a great, like, as they call it in rom-coms, the meet-cute. It’s the perfect meet-cute for them. And then, once they’re married, she finds out she’s barren. She can’t have children. And Nathan Arizona, who owns the biggest furniture company in Arizona, has quintuplets.

So, she tells him, who has sworn he will never do any more crime, now that he’s married to her, that he has to go and steal her one of those babies. You better get me one of those babies, high. It’s such a good premise. So good. He climbs up there with the ladder and all the babies attack him, like a horror movie. Oh, God, it’s so funny. So good.

Devin: Found it. Great. All right. Good. I got it right from the script. All right. So, this is Chris Pratt’s character. He says, Let’s say you figured out how to do something that would make your life a million times better, but you know it was wrong, and there’s no taking it back. How do you do the math? And then the robot says, these are not robot questions. He’s like, I know how to wake Aurora up. Well, that seems like a fine idea, the robot says. You could use some company. But I’d be stranding her on this ship for the rest of her life. So, I guess the main quote.

Adam: Well, the main quote, but also, they extended it into a dialogue with someone who can’t give him the answers, which is brilliant. Yeah. Doesn’t even give him advice, or the advice he gives him is sort of the irony of the dialogue. He’s like, that sounds like a fine idea, sir. Like, he’s just being the polite bartender, but he’s not really answering the questions. The beauty of a thematic question in this vein is, the characters get to think out loud about something that’s usually beneath the surface.

Devin: Right. That is a brilliant way to pose the thematic question, or just the debacle that he’s in, and don’t allow it to be answered, which is just as frustrating. Because if you actually watch the scene, he’s just as, he’s, it’s like using dogs and pets when people express something, and it, the writer, doesn’t want it to seem like they just jumped up on a soapbox, and they’re performing some monologue to people. So, they put something that isn’t going to answer back, or we, as audience, aren’t going to think they’re going to answer back, at least intelligently, like in Passengers, and it allows them to pose that question, or get all that information, or provide that information to the audience that they want to provide without it seeming forced, or…

In, like, the last example we, we, last episode when we were talking about radio, because they have to tell us so many things because we can’t see them happening, and, and even though they can use sound effects and things like that, a lot of times they have to try to, unfortunately, not as creatively as they could, tell us what was that noise, or what was that stuff that fell on top of them, and what did it look like, what did it smell like. They have to creatively, through words, give our senses, our other senses that are, are beyond sound, stimulation and information. You know, it’s like, this is the information you need to know.

Adam: But in that, it requires your imagination to be stimulated to send signals to them, because if you can’t imagine the thing they’re talking about, they can’t get it to the senses. You have to, it’s all through their mind first, because if they’ve only got words on the page in a novel… Or a few sounds on a radio show type, you know, piece of entertainment, that’s all they have to go on. So, you have to be clever in the way that you stimulate that. Right, exactly. To get it to the other places. A theme is an easy thing to plug back into after you’ve done your first draft, and these are the main things to think about.

Your basic theme when you start, your sort of thematic equation, or that central idea of a theme that you can… Fracture off into perspectives, positive, negative, lukewarm, extremes. And then also, the thematic question, which is, we like to pair that with the dramatic question, the premise of your story, and the underneath of your story. Those two are important. You can do it overtly, and you can do it subtextually. But if you approach theme and just use those tools, those simple tools to build your theme, your story, even your first draft… Though it may require some finessing, your first draft should be in good shape for people to give you better feedback. We’re gearing you up to get your polished draft. So get ready for your feedback. We’ve got a few more episodes. Last two. We only have two more left. We’re gearing up for our last two episodes, polishing and wordsmithing. And polishing, we’re going to be talking about sort of what we’ve been talking about with movements and scene building, but more specifically what you’re looking for as you go through. And wordsmithing is your final pass to make sure that all of your punctuation, grammar, typos, you got to do a final pass for that. You can’t do it earlier because if you change stuff, you might’ve missed something. Scraping the barnacles off the hull. That’s exactly right. Taking the support structures down, the scaffolding gets removed. That’s it. A couple more episodes, you’ll have yourself a tidied up first draft.

Bingo.