Rewriting Your Script (Part 4): Themes
In November, upward to 1,000 writers — myself included — took a crack at pounding out a script as part of the Zero Draft Thirty Challenge. Many of them reached FADE OUT / THE END. They’re probably like me, staring at my 86 pages of diamonds-in-the-rough amidst pages and pages of verbal manure pondering this question: How the hell do I rewrite this mess?
So I thought it would be helpful to do a GITS series on the rewrite process.
The first thing to acknowledge is that the same thing applies to rewriting as to writing: If there is no right way to write, there is no right way to rewrite. Every writer is different. Every story is different. And every rewrite is different.
That said, this week and next, I will lay out some keys to the rewriting process. If they help you, great. Use them with my blessing. If they don’t help you, feel free to chuck them… and find your own way.
But know this: Starting January 1, I invite you to join me in Rewrite Draft Thirty One: 31 days devoted to rewriting an original script. Hashtag: #RW31SCRIPT.
I will be hacking my way through my zero draft. If you have a draft from the recent ZD30 challenge or any script in need of revision regardless of its origin, mark your calendar. Take part in a communal effort to take our stories to the next level in this time-defined challenge.
Part 4: Themes
Theme is much more than the moral of the story, an intellectual premise, or a central idea, it is organic and dynamic arising from the emotional, psychological and spiritual life of a story, conveying a story’s multiple layers of meaning.
Good stories have plots and subplots, primary characters and secondary characters, dialogue and subtext, actions and intentions, Plotline and Themeline. Why shouldn’t they have themes and sub-themes?
To explore this idea, let’s divide story themes into types, two potential ways writers can approach dealing with thematic material in their stories:
Central Theme: The overriding meaning of the story that provides the unifying glue to bind together the entire narrative.
Sub-Theme: A specific aspect or variation of the central theme that sheds a distinctive light on the narrative’s significance.
As an example, let’s consider The Silence of the Lambs:
Central Theme: To silence nightmares from the past, Clarice must confront them.
Sub-Themes: (1) Death — its power to inflict pain [the murder of Clarice’s father]; its power to provide redemption [the killing of Buffalo bill]. (2) Transformation — Buffalo Bill seeks to become a woman (i.e., his obsession with moths, sewing a female body suit made out of his victim’s skin, dressing like a woman); Clarice seeks to resolve the guilt she feels about her father’s death and become a whole person. (3) Father — Clarice’s loss of her own father; Jack Crawford as a substitute father figure; Hannibal Lecter as patriarchal mentor. (4) Blood — the shadow of her father’s death; the scratch on Clarice’s thigh as she crawls into Lecter’s storage unit; the desiccated blood of the victim upon whom Clarice performs an autopsy; the blood on the walls of the pit where Catherine Martin is being held captive; the blood covering Lecter after he slaughters a prison guard; the blood shed when Clarice shoots Buffalo Bill countless times.
Each of these themes provides a window into the heart and soul of the story. No matter the size or scope, each is an entry point for viewers to find their own emotional and psychological connection to the narrative.
What’s more, Sub-Themes support the Central Theme, amplifying its many varied aspects. Look at the themes in The Silence of the Lambs:
Central Theme: To silence nightmares from the past, Clarice must confront them.
- Death: It is her father’s death that sends Clarice down her life-path of becoming an FBI agent; it is the deaths of Buffalo Bill’s victims that gets her drawn into the case; it is the death of Buffalo Bill, killed by Clarice, that enables her to silence the nightmares.
- Transformation: It is the clue Lecter gives Clarice that helps her to understand Buffalo Bill’s criminal impulses; the moths [which represent the possibility of change to the serial killer] tip off Clarice that she is in the house with Buffalo Bill; it is her own growth from FBI agent-in-training to righteous ‘angel of death’ that gives her the power to defeat Buffalo Bill.
- Father: Her father was a sacrificial lamb, an innocent murdered by two burglars, symbolized by the single lamb Clarice scooped up during that horrible night on her uncle’s Montana farm, trying to save the lamb and in so doing, symbolically her father.
- Blood: What Lecter knows is that Clarice must sacrifice Buffalo Bill and shed his blood in order to wash away the guilt she feels at the death of her father.
For your rewrite, create a master list of all themes present in your script. Then sort through the list:
- What is your story’s Central Theme?
- What are your story’s Sub-Themes?
These may not be entirely clear to you. Don’t worry. Thematic content is often the last aspect of a story to reveal itself.
The main goal is simply to engage your thinking about what your story is about, what you are trying to say, and most importantly what is your story’s emotional meaning?
Two ways to surface potential themes: (1) Explore the relationship of each Primary and Secondary Character to the Protagonist. Oftentimes the nature of their respective narrative functions suggests a theme. (2) Look for talismans [physical objects imbued with symbolic meaning]. Those, too, can convey themes.
This is a good way to delve into the possible levels of meaning in your story.
Tomorrow: Structure.
DON’T FORGET! Starting January 1, you are welcome to join me in #RW31SCRIPT, a month-long challenge to rewrite an original script from FADE IN to FADE OUT. Who’s with me? If you’re into it, join the Zero Draft Thirty Facebook page here.