Dispatch From The Quest: Troy Klith
Over the course of the 24 weeks I am working with the writers in The Quest, each will write a weekly dispatch to share with the GITS community. There are several reasons for doing this, the main one educational: Hopefully you will learn something of value for your own understanding of the craft from the experiences of the Questers. I should also add they are a great group of people, so I expect you will enjoy getting to know them.
Today: Troy considers Theme as Expansion and Theme as Focus:
Put the the words “lecture” and “theme” in the same sentence and most people’s eyes retreat into the middle distance. We go back to freshmen English. As the teacher explained what “The Catcher in the Rye” really meant, we employed our own version of “alienation as a form of self-protection” to escape the boredom.
When writing, thinking too much about theme is a surefire way to make things feel unnatural. It’s like dancing. Even if you’re terrible, better to just feel it and go with the flow than be the guy who’s learned from a Youtube Tutorial. Step. Touch… Add some arms… Now knock it down! Likewise, things can get very stiff, very fast if you consciously write to a theme.
But two approaches to theme have enhanced my view on the subject.
The first is Theme as Expansion, which essentially means that a story can have multiple themes. A quote from one of the lectures that sticks with me: “As a diamond has numerous surfaces, each shedding some ‘truth’ about the gem, so too a screenplay or movie has numerous themes…” When writing, this provides freedom. It’s normal to uncover meanings in our story that don’t fit precisely with some central premise.
The second is Theme as Focus. This sounds contrary to my belief that writing with a specific theme in mind can make things feel stiff. But a point that resonated with me is that reducing a story’s meaning to one word can be a useful decision-making tool when you don’t know which way to go. One of the lectures included a reflection from Coppola where he speaks of capturing his films in one word. In “The Conversation” it was privacy. When faced with the plethora of tiny decisions, he could fall back on that word to guide him. For example, when needing to choose the specific raincoat a character should wear, Coppola chose a clear one over the many other options because it better represented the “privacy” theme.
So for me, considering theme in the writing process as both expansive and focused seems helpful. I’ve settled on the one word to guide my own raincoat decisions, and I’ve decided not worry too much if multiple themes surface along the way. I’ll just go with the flow, feel the beat, and hopefully knock it down.
In my mind, Theme has much more power and potential if we think about it more than simply a story’s premise or the moral of the story. If there are multiple themes in a story, that allows us to expand the range of emotional and psychological points of connection between the characters, and by extension the script reader and movie audience. If there is a central theme, that provides us a point for the story, that one thematic hook we can always keep in sight to maintain a sense of focus.
Tomorrow: Another Dispatch From The Quest.
About Troy: Born Midwesterner with heart in San Francisco, but nothing beats NYC. Entrepreneur. Writer. Lover of the underdog. Grateful father of 3. @troyklith.