I hope you found this one useful! If you'd like to join my Discord server where we chat about our writing projects, workshop ideas, and generally discuss the movies/shows we love, here's a link you can use to join. My Discord: discord.com/invite/aJpYPQX Keep writing! - Henry

This is why when I teach students about theme, I tell them it needs to be stated on a complete sentence, not a single word. A theme can’t just be “love,” it needs to be something more like, “Love is the capacity to desire the greatest possible good for another person, including those you find distasteful.”

I think Romeo and Juliet became such a famous love story because most people got out of it the message "love is so powerful it persists beyond death" rather than seeing it as a cautionary tale against loving too far

To me, Romeo and Juliet is about how feuds, grudges, and rivalries are more than just personal decisions; they take hold and infect generation after generation, poisoning everything.

The scenario featuring Harold the writer is cartoonishly unrealistic. Penguin house would never send actual feedback along with their rejections.

I just finished a semester of a personally difficult 200 level college class called "Storytelling:Genre/Theme." Not a single lesson in the entire course was as helpful and insightful as this 20 minute video. Creators like you are why im minoring in creative writing, not these shitty classes.

This is the closest look yet

I will challenge this a little. Firstly, it is fine to have a complex series of themes bled into one another, Tolkien has themes (very simplified) around things like the dangers of technology, the importance of myth, the value of the little people, how one man of humble origin can make such a change, the importance of fulfilling lineage, etc. The distinction is that each is full sentence with specific goals and is tied into each other cohesively. Everything in a story should also play into concepts and ideas you want to portray. There are three things you can generally do in a story: instill an emotion, state something, or ask something of the audience. You can also do things to set presentation but those are a bit more superfluous. Your central conflict needs to be pretty singular as a focused theme in a rule of thumb, but every character and sentence has a through idea and thus a theme behind it. You can have quite the variety bled into your story. It is incredibly rare any story is purely one thematic idea. Theme is another way of saying an idea and it is the genesis of story. *The more accurate problem from your description seems to be that you muddled your central conflict and created a bunch of disparate themes that are only superficially tied together rather than integrated in a single narrative (a central conflict/theme). You could get away with such things in something like Pulp Fiction or by making it episodic, but you need ways to intertwine them and properly develop each. You can develop ideas quite densely with efficient use of language implementation extensive subtext and meaning. **Also the claim that we must explore all directions on a question is incredibly false. A flat villain has many uses, objective evil is a useful tool & there are topics that just have a straight "this is the wrong answer." Set in 1930 Russia or Germany there's not a lot of room for ambiguity on certain topics there for example. That doesn't make them bad. These things are still complex because people, the world, everything is complex. This is just wrong. There are many morally questionable instances in the dog question even.

This is really similar to LocalScriptMan's approach to writing. He has a lot of great videos about theme-focused writing and using different characters to express different attitudes towards a story's theme. It's a slightly different approach of course, but it's changed how I think about writing and story structure A LOT and I think ties well into the ideas of this video.

Constraints are why I've always loved stories where rules and boundaries are very clearly established especially in fantasy setting, as it makes bending those rules or skirting around them in unique ways VERY satisfying. It's part of why I still love Death Note so much. It asks questions like "how do you find an anonymous person who kills from a distance entirely discretely" and vice versa "how do you stay anonymous and continue your process consistently while under surveillance". They're so dead specific and this cat and mouse makes for some of the most intense tension while the characters are nowhere near each other a good chunk of the time. It's probably better to think of a theme as more of a thesis statement that may not be explicitly stated but is more than clear when reading.

Words cannot express how this video has changed my mindset. I've been worldbuilding for over a decade, only because every story I tried to write would become so broad and unfocused. Until this video, I didn't understand why. After finishing this, I was able to hone in on what story I wanted to tell. After all of these years of having cool moments or cool ideas with dozens of unfinished/unpublished works piling up, I found that one of the biggest themes I've been sort of circling around was "Is freedom worth fighting for?" Once that came to mind, EVERYTHING began to fall into place like you said in the video. Thank you so much.

The theme I have for the first book I’m trying to get published is “can you save everyone?” And I agree fully with making your theme a question. I didn’t even realize how concise and focused the story was. It just naturally moved around that question. I already wrote out the sequel to the book as well and the theme was “when does life get easier?” Which also helped keep my story focused.

When I was a senior in high school over eleven or twelve years ago, our AP Lit teacher used to hammer home during our analysis essays, that she never wanted to hear the phrase "the theme of this story is" or "the theme of," followed by a single word. The way she used to explain it was basically theme as a thesis: it is a complete statement, an idea that is well-thought out and developed that the author then spends the rest of the story exploring and extrapolating on. To badly paraphrase her words, a theme must be expressed as one (or, ideally more) complete sentence(s), or as you put it, a question to be answered, and never as one single word. If our essays ever tried to express a theme as a singular word it was a good way to take a significant hit to the paper's grade right out of the gate. I've held that lesson close to my heart in my personal fiction writing ever since.

Before, my story's theme was simply "Religion." Now it's "What role does God really serve in the grand scheme of the universe?" The good guys believe that the universe was created by God, but it is the actions of the mortals that determine its fate. The bad guys, on the other hand, believe that the universe is controlled by God, and their objective is to conquer the universe and "usurp the throne" in a way.

Yeah, I noticed this too while currently writing my first book/comic script. But I had to opposite: I already had the proper theme, but I was trying to force it into one singular word. Yeah, I could get it into "perseverance", but I already had a perfect "no matter of how dire the circumstance, no matter how hopeless it seems; one should never give up and keep fighting through it." while I contrast it with "sometimes only way to move on is to give up."

Nah, I just write cool shit happening and enjoy myself. /j Really good video on themes and you bring up a lot of great points. Handling of themes is honestly what separates amateur from expert fiction. That being said, I’ve learned that I myself can still enjoy stories that aren’t thematically whole or rich. I read a web novel with nothing but mechs and lesbians fighting alien bugs and enjoyed every moment of it. I’ve also enjoyed critically acclaimed and thematically rich stories as well. I believe thematic richness is an indicator of quality, but not necessarily enjoyment. If you wanna write, having an underlying theme can really help glue everything together like starch in baking. But definitely get comfortable and write what you like. Because if you don’t like it, it’ll probably never get done.

For me personally, a story is like a tree. You can have multiple themes but you need an underlying theme (that's part of the central story) to tie them all into. If your themes are disjointed and disconnected from one another, then it's not going to be as good as when there's a main theme to glue them together.

*PANSTER HERE* Firstly, thanks for addressing us. it's so good to feel appreciated. Honestly, I feel like prioritizing theme doesn't make a story. It just makes a list of events. I find things go better if I write the story I want first and then focus on the more emotional element. Basically theme is a great tool for editing and revising my story once i know my characters better.

Okay, Your big secret at the 5 minute mark completely blew my mind. It's so obvious. I'm writing a story centered around a character who struggles with self-discipline and how their lack of it almost rules her life. Honestly, it never occurred to me to ask how do they gain self-discipline, and it immediately becomes a different story. That... I never would have thought of that myself. There's a like and subscribe for you

I just finished Station Eleven, which somewhat breaks a few of the rules here: it’s actually kind of ambiguous about what it’s saying, and covers quite a few topics: art, survival, the modern world and the apocalypse’s potential for connecting people and sapping them of their potential, memory, identity, performance and privacy, interconnectedness-however, all the themes sort of build upon one another and intersect in interesting ways, and it never feels like it’s “saying too much” since it keeps a lot of these themes subtle, intertwines most of them, and gives a broad sense of potential views without settling on one. Also helps that Emily St John Mandel was already a published author at this point and could be given more free reign, but it goes to show that while very difficult and tenuous, you can juggle thematic topics and questions (even those with no clear answer) as long as it still feels cohesive

I strongly agree that themes are a question and an answer. To take the original story premise and edit it a bit, I'd just edit the third point to instead be about a police officer committing murder and then trying to get away with it. Thus the question is asked, "What is the commonality of injustice in the system?", and the answer is "The system protects its own, and cares not for what the actual just answer may be". Suddenly you can have these 3 vignettes all tie together into one thematically cohesive picture, with a singular point and central thesis.

For me, when I write, I don't focus on a theme. I have a concept, and I then make a story of that concept, build around it, then at the end, have a look at my work and go "Ah yeah this seems to have X theme!"

Another certified hood classic

Thank you so much for this video! I'm currently a senior in High School, and after all these years of english classes telling me to write a theme, this is the first time I've understood how. A 20 minute video just covered what 12 years of English classes has failed to teach me. School taught me the "theme is topic" thing and I've never been able to come up with a good theme for anything i've written since. Just during the runtime of this video, I know how to rewrite multiple stories from the last few years with a better theme. I'm sharing this video with all my friends who like to write. Please, keep up the astounding work you've done in all your videos! You may have just given me my motivation to write back.

12:10 Ideological clashes are one of my favorite things to write about, as well as to read/write. It's the reason the Japanese writer Gen Urobuchi is one of my favorites writers, because fascinating ideological clashes oozes in every part of all of his stories.

Thank you so much for this! I was once told that within an epic fantasy novel with multiple character POV's, I was told that each character should have it's own "minor theme" while having an overarching "major" theme to tie them together. It sounds ideal, but it also sounds very complicated. Maybe too complicated.

I absolutely adore this channel. It’s one of the better writing-based ones I’ve come across.

Feel like this channel gives me more helpful information than college ever gave me

Dude, thank you so much for this video and just your channel in general. Watching your videos have given so much writing advice which has beyond helped me in pursuit in story writing. This video specifically has helped a great deal with the issue of theme of was having with a story I’m writing. I always had a rough idea of the theme while planning my story and developing the characters, but this has helped develop something specific. Your channel is amongst my favourite channels on UKposts - you are awesome bro! Thank so much dude!

My man, this vid has already had a major impact on my WIP. On your advice, I stated my theme as a question, realized how limiting and uninteresting that question was, and asked a more interesting poignant question. This made me see that my current conflict is between factions that disagree as to HOW the past must dictate the future-when a more engaging conflict would over WHETHER the past must dictate the future. So the CORE conflict of my story needs to be between [the few people who want to forget the past and move on] and [the huge factions wrecking the world with their conflict about the past]. So now, the spectacular guns-blazing war being fought between the factions might be the visible conflict, but it’s not the core conflict at the heart of my revised-yesterday story! Thank you!

Just some extra advice since I am also a writer. If you are writing a story that has multiple themes, make sure not only to give an in-depth exploration to those themes but to connect those themes as well. To give example, I think Naruto does a fantastic job at this. One of the central themes of Naruto is the question of is it possible to change one's own destiny. Another one is how do we end the Cycle of Hatred? Now the story weaves these two themes together in many ways but for the sake of time, I'm just going to talk about Naruto and Sasuke. Spoilers alert for those who haven't watch Naruto but Naruto and Sasuke are the reincarnations of The Sage of the Six paths sons. Every time these brothers reincarnated , they would end fighting and killing each other, creating an endless cycle of violence and hatred. As such, Naruto and Sasuke were destined to fight and die at the hands of the other being apart of this cycle but because Naruto never gave up, understood, and showed compassion and empathy to Sasuke, he was able to break the cycle of violence and ultimately overcome the destiny laid for them. Now I am very much simplifying something that is way more complex but the point is I think the reason why the relationship between Naruto and Sasuke is one of the most iconic dichotomy is because it ties in all of the stories themes and ideas together. In short, if you can weave your themes and messages together, you are on the cusp of telling truely brilliant stories.

This is one of the best essays about theme I've ever seen. GREAT job! And thanks to you, I now understand that subconsciously I've been doing all you've said, like giving different characters opposing beliefs and testing their ideologies. I'm currently writing a YA book with the themes of should evil be given a second chance and is is based on your upbringing or is part of you. I'll definitely use your tips to tighten it up.

Thank you so much for this video!! I was struggling with whether I was writing my stories right or not (and currently struggling with applying a theme to a new idea I have), and writing down a main question for each story and what answer each character represents made a lot of things so much clearer!

I'd love to see you speak further on more unconventional stories or genre specific stories like horror and how to write within that genre. Most of what you've covered is perfect for epics and straightforward films but I think you'd make a very compelling essay about why The Shining or more recently Beau is Afraid are compelling/interesting. *I'm aware of your How to Terrify your audience video btw and it's great* but just more about writing out of the norm stories. Love your channel and am always happy to see new posts from you, this new one is one of my favorites you've ever posted

So theme POSES an idea in the form of a QUESTION, then ANSWERS it in the form of an ARGUMENT.

Great video and good advice. I was struggling with a story idea, but flustered by just too many things I wanted to cover. I had a lot of ideas of theme (as a statement), but rethinking it as a specific question has given me a clearer idea of what, and how, to focus on. thanks.

I normally watch this channel for help with my scripts but this one really helped with my schoolwork. I’m meant to be comparing two novels on how they present a theme and I picked the creation of evil. It was so vague and overwhelming that it really sent me. Expanding on one of the sub-themes of evil however has helped a hell of a lot so thanks!

You can't fool me, I know the internet historian when I see him.

I've been working on a book series that covers themes like virture and vice, nature and nurture, freedom and what we do with it, and failure and how to move on and grow from it. But I never thought about theme as a question. So this has been a big help and given me a lot to think about for when I start writing each book and finding focus. Especially since I'm about to start writing the first one soon. Hopefully it goes well

Thank you so much for this video. I'm revising my whole work right now as I'm planning to volume 1 of my comic. You gained a sub.

Lovely video, and a really simple but effective way to narrow down on theme. I like to write character arcs by pinpointing how honestly each one answers different aspects of the theme question, and then whether they are able to accept the lies they tell themself to let go of that aspect of the belief or go deeper into their own self-deception.

I loved Asteroid City, I wonder is it fits this criteria? There are a ton of different themes in that film, but somehow all of them fit together to make a very visceral feeling. I’m wondering how that works so well.

I disagree that Harold should have to get rid of two of his main ideas, when he could find a way to tie them all together. For example, one of Genshin Impact’s story quests talks about events from a long time ago, with these humanoid creatures called Melusines being integrated into the nation of Fontaine. However, most humans were fearful of Melusines and despised that many of them were part of Fontaine’s detective agencies. One of these Melusines, Carole, had a human cop partner named Vautrin, who was supportive of Melusines but skeptical that they could integrate with human society. One day, a group of humans had the idea to commit a murder and frame Carole for the crime. This caused massive riots throughout the city, and the police couldn’t restore order. The only thing that quelled the riot was when Carole committed suicide to make the rioters believe that justice was served. Vautrin was heartbroken by this. Using his contacts in the police force, he gathered a list of known extremists who likely caused the framing of Carole, and killed them all. Vautrin was sentenced to life in prison despite the crowd thinking that he was justified in his actions. Vautrin pretended to be furious at his friend sentencing him, but he actually accepted what would happen and knew that it was the best course of action. That questline in Genshin is amazing, and it handles all three of those main points Harold had amazingly, without having to exclude any of them. In addition, it asks the question: What good is a system of justice if it ignores corruption of those in power, while punishing those who fight back against them?

This inspires me to start working on the novel I haven't been able to start. I've got a really cool world in my head but I've never seriously written anything. Now I feel like I can get started with some short stories within the world testing different thematic cohesions and build from there. I really appreciate how concise and helpful your advice is!

I’ve been mulling over a story in my head for many months now and this is the video that cracks the case wide open for me. Thank you for sharing this.

I'm honestly shocked to hear you went with Identity as your 'theme' originally because its such a broad topic with all too much to say - the same can be said for the conceptual 'justice' theme, too. Its humbling to be reminded that even those I put on pedestals make mistakes, and I'm glad you found a way to learn from it and shared it with us all! Theme has always been about specifics, at least for me. You can put a broad umbrella word as a catch-all term, but good media and stories with great themes have a way of being more than just a buzzword topic, you know? It should always illicit an idea that provokes thought, as well as an answer to that idea, that 'question' if you will. Even if you don't agree with the way a theme is discussed by the media's narrative, at least it speaks for itself and doesn't require you to answer the question for it. Granted, this can work in certain scenarios, but thats a difficult thing to do.

Thank you. This really helps with the story I'm writing. It revolves around the theme of obligation, and asked the questions "What do we owe to society, what do we owe to our family, and what do we owe to ourselves?" Essentially, my protagonist is a man whose son has become a serial killer, and bcuse he loves him, and needs to keep him secret, he's burning himself out to try and help his son get away with his crimes. I've done a lot with this premise, and I love the outline, but this video has helped me a lot.

Awesome presentation. Entertaining, informative and inspiring. Keep up the excellent work.

I wish more creators, particularity writers, were as open about their experiences, especially their mistakes as you are, Henry. As you told “Howard’s” story it occurred to me that I went through almost the exact same journey with my book and I now believe wholeheartedly that if you learn how to approach theme the right way, the rest of the story(to a certain degree) writes itself. A brilliant lesson with a brilliant execution. I think this may be your greatest, certainly your most important video of all.

Dude... had to pause your video as soon as I saw your face. Just wanted to tell you that you look amazing!!! You changed your look and it suits you! And now I will return to watching your video.

Just noticed the Mathmos lava space rocket lamp in the background, good stuff

I love the way you explained this. Back in my high school English class, we were told that themes were much more specific than topics, but we weren't given much guidance in trying to identify them. I remember struggling a bit in that regard as a result, even though I did well in English as a subject. This taught me more about working with themes in 23 minutes than that class did in a semester.

Brilliant, thanks. Sooo helpful and insightful 👌

I disagree that theme is always necessary. For example, mystery/detective stories don't always have a theme. Forgive me, but I really can't find a theme in Murder on the Orient Express. At best, it'd be "good triumphs over evil", because I think "past misdeeds come back to haunt you" is really too far of a stretch to call it a core part of the story; in which case then at the very least, simple themes can still do wonders (but I really don't think that should be considered a theme. Man, it would've been nice if TheCloserLook defined "theme") Personally, I think that theme is just a really convenient way to make the ending feel impactful and for the story to feel complete; but there are still other ways in my opinion, such as the mystery stories' trope of The Big Reveal. I'm sure there are more ways that I'm not currently able to think of.

You said you outline all your stories. I think it could be great if you would describe how you go about this before you start writing. This is the main thing I struggle with, I want to write but I feel like I need an outline before I can properly start but then I get overwhelmed because there is so much to take into account.

Brilliant observations, I appreciate how you explain everything. Very motivational. 👍🏽 First time I'll be using Nebula in a while.

discovered this account like 2 days ago, watched a few videos, and damn, they really are helpful. not that i've worked on it very much but the comic i would love to publish is super weak on account of the fact that its simply just missing so many things but i already got several ideas on how to improve the worldbuilding and just the story in general lol

I have a question: What if your story has multiple genres in one? For example, you wanted to write a story with a lot of action and fantasy that explored the theme of "Can there truly be a person who is powerful enough to conquer all?" That theme would be the main, overarching theme throughout the series and there would be characters who disagree (protagonist) and do agree (antagonist). However, as the characters begin on their journey to try and stop the villain, there is a some romance involved and you wanted to explore the theme of "Can love be a manipulation?" or "Can you tell the difference between true love and fake love?" or "Can fake love turn to true love?" You would only be exploring one of these of course. (These questions would also make sense considering the world that this takes place in.) But is there a way to have smaller hidden themes while still looking at the big main theme? Is there a way that I can do it that it wouldn't be too much? Could I take those smaller themes that are part of the story plot, but is technically a part of a different topic than the main theme, and still explore that smaller theme in my story while at the same time explore the overarching main theme? I would probably explore the smaller theme very subtly and not have a whole "yes or no" side, but more of a thought-provoking question that leaves the characters in confusion. It would maybe even change their perception of the world a bit. More character-arc kind of things. I don't know, it's hard to explain without giving context or tell you my entire story, but I just had that thought.

goddamn it's like someone took something i've been telling anyone who'll listen for years and turned it into a concise video essay, very nice!

Thanks for this! This is what I needed to get over the hump for my short film I'm writing. Present the theme as a question... great advice.

This was a useful video since im currently working on my themes and this does fit in nicely as a step to my process. For me its really important to look for theme "halfway down" like, if im startj g with "i wanna write about x" i tend to limit myself- but you cant really not do theme, as mentioned. So i tend to focus on worldbuilding and characterization, get a few key scenes in mind. Then take a step back and look for the common thread. Or with this mindset look for the question that keeps being asked. Then figure out how many ways you can answer the question. I also write with a lot of symbolism though, so my themes are layered on like coatings of semitransparent paint. They all build to a bigger picture.

now i'm scared of taking a pen

I'd like to see a youtuber discussing scenarios where popular stories arguably don't have any central theme at all. What happens if it's a "plot oriented" story focused on pacing and intrigue? Where it wants to explore a cool idea, rather than challenge a belief?

Loved this video a lot as not an aspiring writer, but a visual arts student dabbling in creative writing with a few original characters and worldbuilding. Decided to finally get a Nebula account to see more of this =) Your content might be on the niche side but it's reached the right audience for sure - thanks for your work!

Thank you. I needed this one

This makes me think about the vanderhoven starship troopers movie He had a theme of dictatorship but he failed because what he portrayed was ultimately easily justified by interspecies war of existence and an apparently high standard of living among other things It created a mess that made the society depicted look mostly free, and allowed for an unending debate til this day where people argue that a variant of the SST govt is their preferred state

This is perfect, I was just trying to nail down my themes lol

this is absolutely the best writing “tip” i have ever encountered. I was becoming wildly overwhelmed with my current story will so many subjects to tackle while treating my theme as a wide topic I now have a much more focused idea on what I want this to be about. thank you for posting

The Closer Look, it’s crazy how much I look forward to watching your videos !

If vsauce was a writer

Not every story is a concept piece. I think you're getting tunnel vision about the purpose of narrative. Some have more in common with a painting or a song. They convey what cannot be stated, otherwise it might have been better to just write an essay.

an interesting piece of advice i found is that a theme can also just be a topic that the text interacts with. it's not necessarily a question but more so a dissection or observation of the themes presence in the story

You have saved my story and helped me finally understand what i was doing wrong for a long time, my gratitude is immeasurable.

I have a question: While watching this video, I applied the "theme in the form of a question" method to a few of my ideas, and a few times a question beginning with "What happens when..." came up. Is this also a valid type of question to use?

Weird take: Do you NEED to say something with your media? Can't you just tell a fun story?

As a pantser, this video was beyond helpful! it Gave me a new scope to analyze all of my current work to help trim the fat and refine what my characters SHOULD want within my world building and plot. I kept basing wants off of the happenings of the story, yet the take of "beliefs + thematic question = wants" really helps solidify what each character should be focusing on.

Thanks for this! It landed in my scroll right after the table read of the 1st draft of one of my plays, and the tip to pose the theme as a question will really help clarify the 2nd draft!

Thank you. I wanted to know about themes right now and you divined and delivered

I saw “To Sleep in a Sea of Stars” on your shelf. Glad to see your a Paolini enjoyer

Hello! Great video! You're as great as usual!!!! Just one question : What's the microphone that you're using?

I love your videos so much!! THey are so helpful, except im stuck on ideas, do you know how to think up ideas for stories?

6:33 I am doing a screen0lay for my phase 1 of short films for a theme like this, as always, ur videos are really helpful. I'll use that advice in the future

Regarding that hope thingy… I’m currently exploring the boundary between hope and irrational optimism. Currently trying to publish a theater play about Cassandra who has hope until the end to just be heard with her warnings about the Greeks and that wooden horse (but she fails and Troy falls). While I’m waiting for the answer from publishers, I’m musing about writing about the Miracle of house Brandenburg with an irrationally optimistic Frederick the Great who maneuvered himself into a quagmire at Kunersdorf, and after a bunch of flashbacks to other misadventures, a prayer actually causes the director to talk as a deus ex machina to the Austrian and Russian troops so that they do not attack Berlin and Frederick’s ass is saved, leaving behind a totally befuddled general who just a moment ago wanted to make the kind abdicate to save Prussia.

John Truby poses the thematic statement but I like your idea of the question more. It' much more active and inspires thought and debate. Great work. Helped me a lot.

Amazing breakdown. Thank you!

I truly appreciate not only your intense attention to detail, but also your humility in using yourself as an example. Too many writers these days lack humility which is evident in the garbage churned out these days and lends you the authenticity that compels me to really pay attention and, yes, take notes on your videos. Thank you very much and please keep up the excellent work! ❤

As an aspiring author, all of your video essays have been invaluable to me. You are knowledgeable, entertaining and inspiring. Thank you for what you are teaching all your fans like me. Naturally, I am a longtime liker, sub and bell ringer. Thank You for sharing with us all. Blessed Be. x

I'm not kidding when I say that I was just wondering about the themes of a story I'm working on when BAM! This video shows up. This video not only was extremely helpful, but it helped me with improvising my story. I had trouble deciding on what "topics" to focus on, but by seeing my stories' theme as questions, mine being about trust as freedom, it made my planning a whole lot easier, and I'm gonna continue working on it! Thanks so much, The Closer Look! (Oh, this is unrelated, but I wanted you ask this: I was watching your Wonder Woman video, and around halfway through, you mentioned that you were planning to release a first screenplay that you wrote and filmed when you hit 1 million subs, and I was wondering if this was put on any of the streaming platforms you've mentioned before or not. Again, this is unrelated, it's just something I'm definitely interested in. Either way, both this and that video are great!)

i’m literally gonna try creative writing this new year and i wanted to know how to explore themes when writing… literally perfect timing

Thank you! So insightful. This is exactly what I needed to hear.

I absolutely love this. Literally applying right now to see if it hones in my story draft. I'm curious how you might suggest applying this to a series of books? I'm thinking a series like The Expanse, Dune, or something else the spans many years. Do you pick an overarching theme and a subtheme for each book? Do you just pick a theme for each book but tie the story together through setting? Curious on people's thoughts.

I dont know, but at 4:20 if you remove "justifiable murder" you have the pretty good theme of police incompetency and malice, rather realistic one too. There are plenty of "questions" you could have as the theme, "is the police a necessary evil", "is there such a thing as a good cop, if the institution ...", etc

I've seen this video twice now a few months apart while ruminating on a story idea. Before my first watch, my theme was: "Class, gender and power." Just vague topics with a guiding influence from The Ship of Theseus and The King in Yellow. After my first watch, the theme grew into: "What is the value of a human life." Still broad but with more shape. Now with this most recent listen, I have a much more refined and finalized theme that people can actually take sides on: "Can anyone escape the corrupting influence of power?" The answer is obviously no but I think it can make for a good exploration into horror and I'm far more excited to write THIS iteration of the story. Thank you so much!

Great explanations here!

Thanks, stepping back and trying to frame the theme of a story as a question is an interesting perspective shift worth trying

The way I learned theme from another UKpostsr I wish I could remember their name but this has helped me actually like my writing for example; The Truth? You matter(the secret truth your MC ignores or is ignorant to) The Misbelief/Lie? You DONT matter (this is what your MC believes) The Origin of the Lie? What is the moment that leads the character to believe this lie? Maybe they were abandoned. The Patterns? Your MC acting on the lie rather than being vulnerable to the truth. They may not allow themselves to be loved or love another in return? They often leave people before they have a chance to hurt them. The truth? The big moment. This is what you have waited for, your character no longer fears and is unable to escape this truth. Whether it's an action they have made or an action of another. I think there's other steps but that's about it. I've done it for my story and I find it very useful and helpful, simple yet impactful.

This actually a brilliant advice, even though I want to use it with a graphical story rather than a novel, I can already tell how much better working this way could be. One problem, though - the theme I've chosen and the question most fitting for the story I've already got in my head is tough as hell (to the point where philosophers could not answer it clearly to this day). Oh, how I love making things difficult for myself...

I like to picture this central thematic argument/sentence as an affirmation in the case of a short story, and as a question with multiple answers for a long story. For example: "Power corrupts absolutely, even when placed in the hands of a wise, compassionate person surrounded by good people." => It suits a short fiction as it is not about exploring the multiple facets and implications of the central argument, but to depict it clearly, not wasting time and space by limiting your writing to this self-contained, clear-cut framework, and to deliver on core thematic impact all the way through in a condensed manner. "When given enough power, does a person always turn out wrong no matter the circumstances, forsaking his values in the pursuit of maintaining his position and gaining more power?" => Here, it's all about exploring in detail the different facets, implications and details of the argument. The one thing to keep in mind is to structure your work in order for it to progress towards some sort of thematic resolution: basically, it's installing one major affirmation (one major answer to the big thematic question) for each arc/book/movie while laying out details, nuances and contradictions to that statement along the way (for instance, answering some minor questions related to different terms or parts of the main argument through short story beats or secondary/tertiary characters). We can structure it like an essay using the dialectical thesis-antithesis-synthesis (yes-no-maybe/yes-no-yes&no)(regarding the argument I put as an example, the "yes" would be: "Power corrupts absolutely, even when placed in the hands of a wise, compassionate person"), but you can do it in a more blended and intersectional way although it requires more skill to do that with clarity and efficiency. Edit: typo

Honestly, this helped me a lot. Thanks!

I loved this - you just reinvigorated a story I put down 10 years ago. Thank you /bow