# Agendas vs. themes



## Lydia14 (May 23, 2015)

Hi all,

After seeing some reviews for a movie today that has some very divergent opinions -- some consider it feminist and some consider it very strongly not so -- it got me wondering, is it just hard-wired in us to assume that everything written, be it a screenplay, novel, short story, whatever, is written to further a particular "agenda"? By the same token, as writers, wouldn't that be what we would consider "theme"? Both agendas and themes are a work's way of making a point or touching on an overarching topic, correct? The only difference I can see between the words is that one has a negative connotation, while the other has a positive one. I would say that they're the same thing. What does everybody else think of this? Are there major differences that I'm not thinking of? Are there things agendas do that themes don't, and vice versa? Where's the line, if there is one?

(And yes, I know I overthink things, I get it all the time. I'm just curious to see if anyone else has opinions one way or the other.)


----------



## stevesh (May 23, 2015)

The way I use the words, a theme is an underlying meaning to a work, where an agenda is a particular point ( too often political, these days) that the author wants the reader to agree with. The difference is the intent of the author, I think.


----------



## EmmaSohan (May 24, 2015)

Interesting observation. I can think of when some of my so-called themes are also agendas.

But not in my books. My WIP has the theme/message "I can do it". But I didn't start out with the idea of saying that. (And although nice, it's not particularly important to me.) Instead, it evolved out of my story.

But sometimes a story sounds like the message came first and the story was built around it. Then it feels like an agenda.

The main character of Blind Spot has macular degeneration. Reading that book has to improve understanding and tolerance for people with macular degeneration. And since the author has macular degeneration, that had to be important to the author. So it's an issues book. But really? The book never read as having an agenda. It read as an author trying to write an interesting story for me to read. I didn't appreciate that until now.


----------



## BeastlyBeast (May 24, 2015)

When I hear theme, I think of a universal truth that the book tries to convey - almost like a moral. At the very least, it's a central idea that the book or parts of the book revolve around. For example, it could be said that the abuse that a neglectful drunk parent can inflict onto a child is a theme of This Boy's Life. An agenda is almost like a call-to-action, an ulterior motive, something that makes you think, this guy didn't write this story just to write a story. I guess it could be said that persuasive papers in school are perfect examples of writing with agendas. I'm writing with the goal of getting you to think about something or do something. So, in short, a theme is a central idea the book revolves around, while an agenda is a bigger reason why something as a whole was written. Perhaps a theme is part of the book, but the book is part of the agenda.


----------



## KellInkston (May 26, 2015)

The matter here is that they are intrinsically connected. A theme is a message, and all messages mean to say something, as such it bears to an agenda _no matter what_. Even a simple theme like "Dying is bad" or "Family is important" still follows the ideologies that these themes are proper lessons that should be taught to the reader, or at least a proper message that they should be aware of.

I think largely people should get over the idea that either themes and agendas being an overtly bad thing. In essence it is simply a writer displaying what he or she believes in- which could be a good or bad message. An overt message is not instantly bad, or the mark of bad writing, it is more so the mark of a person who wants the message to be clear.

I don't think there's too much of a difference to the terms, as while the theme is the face, the agenda is the rest of the coin; if you catch my drift.


----------



## ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord (Jun 3, 2015)

I agree with KellInkston. Themes/messages aren't inherently bad, even if they are overt. I just think that if a theme becomes more important than the story itself, then it's a problem.


----------



## tabasco5 (Jun 10, 2015)

All writers have biases, but not all have agendas.


----------



## Kevin (Jun 10, 2015)

Agenda is a demand; theme is a display


----------



## bdcharles (Jul 23, 2015)

I suppose the difference is in intent. With an agenda, a writer would want the theme to be taken up, and used as some sort of agent of change (goes off on mental tangent wondering if there is a link between "agent" and "agenda". Anyone? Anyone?). Just a theme, though; I think a theme just puts an idea out there as food for thought. 

Of course with differing intent the execution would probably have to vary. I read the Left Behind series and would be fairly certain the 2 writers there have a strongly Christian agenda, which probably explains why the writing was so clunky. Actually I thought the books were a right old guilty pleasure...


----------



## Terry D (Jul 24, 2015)

The theme of a book is what the author is trying to say. An agenda is what he/she is trying to accomplish.


----------



## Sam (Jul 24, 2015)

I don't have any agenda when I write, other than entertaining the reader.


----------



## JustRob (Jul 24, 2015)

My angel and I have a saying "it's a story." I have in the past observed that while a reader is expected to suspend disbelief in the content while reading a story they also need to suspend belief in the existence of its writer. As long as they think about the writer existing they will be reading analytically and looking, whether consciously or not, for loopholes, style deficiencies, agendas and so on. If they succeed in suspending belief in the writer's existence and just regard the story in its own right then they may see it differently, as the writer intended in fact. After reading they may _wonder_ whether the writer had an agenda but they will _know_ whether the story had a central theme.

As a complete novice writing my first novel it bothers me that readers might be thinking that anything in it that they don't understand is most likely an error on my part. If I have an agenda at all it is to reward those who read without such prejudice and leave traps for those who don't. This doesn't mean that I place such traps intentionally but that I don't go out of my way to avoid criticism by those who choose to be critical. For example, I have what appears to be a _deus ex machina _in my story. It is an escape from a plot dead end that isn't explained there and then, so could be seen as such, but an astute reader reviewing all that they'd been told previously could work out how the escape occurred. This means that my readers, if I had any, might divide into those who saw it as a flaw, those who realised that it was potentially a clever twist and those who reserved their judgement until it was explained much later in the story. The theme of the story may be seen as that people can be misled by their own assumptions, but whether that is meant to apply to the reader, the characters in the story or both depends on whether the reader thinks that I have an agenda.

Posts here have mentioned that an agenda relates to a writer's intentions, which are ethereal things at the best of times. Strangely another theme of my story is how much people's intentions direct events. Even if the writer does have an agenda, in the end it's just a story if the reader views it as such. In real life writers exist but in their stories usually they don't.

I'm rambling again, aren't I?


----------



## aj47 (Jul 24, 2015)

Sam said:


> I don't have any agenda when I write, other than entertaining the reader.



That's the kind of agenda I like the authors I read to have when they write.  If I wanted a sermon, I'd go to church.


----------



## JustRob (Jul 24, 2015)

astroannie said:


> That's the kind of agenda I like the authors I read to have when they write.  If I wanted a sermon, I'd go to church.



Hear hear! I dislike soapboxing within what's meant to be fiction or even in the sections where a writer can legitimately speak their mind. When a writer explains all their past life and the research that they've done and all the famous people whom they've consulted and all the holidays in exotic places that they've had to endure to make their work authentic I realise that they don't actually need me to read anything of theirs, so I don't any more. It just makes us readers feel so insignificant next to such a writer that we really don't need to exist at all, just like the characters in their story. Personally I find it quite adequate that my fictional characters suspect that I may be a god but my readers can decide for themselves. Let's keep our personal illusions and agendas inside our heads where they belong.


----------



## K.S. Crooks (Aug 9, 2015)

I find that some of my themes are unplanned and I only realize it's there when most of the story has been written.


----------



## Newman (Aug 24, 2015)

astroannie said:


> If I wanted a sermon, I'd go to church.



_Straight Outta Compton_ just made over $100m and it has a theme and it's not preachy.


----------

