# finding themes



## Justin Rocket (Sep 1, 2013)

I'm working on a short story (about 5,000 words) which is to have a Lovecraftian feel.  A mid-sized technology company is developing a supply chain for rare earths.  They're developing a mine in the backend of  Russia.
Their scouting team was found dead at the site.  It appears to have been a muder-suicide.  A lead box was found with them. A green light oozes out around the lid of the box.  It appears that a member of the scouting team found whatever is inside the box and put it in the lead box.  One of the researchers who found the dead scouting party opened the box to examine the contents and became homocidally insane.  He's in an asylum.  
The box was put on the CEO's desk.  The CEO wants to find a way to safely find out what is  inside.  The CEO is a brilliant, innovative man who built the company from nothing, but sacrificed everything to do so.  His good friend, the CFO, has a family and the CEO, as he's getting older, is jealous of that.
Despite the murder-suicide at the site, the company is proceeding with the site project (getting the mine operational) because the company has sunk too much money into the project to back out.  It fights political pressure from Russia to stop.
The CEO becomes increasingly obsessed with the box and may be slowly going insane.  The box is on the CEO's desk and the CFO visits the CEO's office periodically to discuss the business.
A chamber is discovered at the site.  It is investigated and there is evidence that the site is an alien crash site.  Aliens are present in hypersleep chambers.  At this point, everyone at the site has gone insane and has a hive mind.
The story ends with the CFO visiting the CEO who is a patient at a mental hospital.  There's a suggestion that the CFO is going (or has gone) insane as well.

the problem I am facing is that, for some reason, I cannot figure out my theme.  Normally, I play around with my story until my  subconscious tells me what my theme is.  That's not happening here.

What do you do when you're having trouble figuring out your theme?


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## Robert_S (Sep 1, 2013)

Sounds to me, you have your theme already. Humans play with things beyond their social and intellectual ken and get in deep.


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## Justin Rocket (Sep 1, 2013)

Yeah, but its more than that, I think.  It has  something to do with sacrificing one's humanity in the name of pride (as evidenced by the CEO's sacrifice to build his company and his jealousy of the CFO's family).  I feel like I can see the shadow the theme casts, but am having problems seeing the theme itself (if that makes sense?)


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## Robert_S (Sep 1, 2013)

Perhaps take a day to write down underlying themes.


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## Outiboros (Sep 1, 2013)

To answer your last question: I don't really try out themes. They come with the story. Perhaps it's a symptom of an amateur writer not to care too much about themes.

You have jealousy, you have desperation of the company that becomes their downfall. You could put a bit of hubris in there somewhere. Hubris is always good.

I'd say write it. Themes don't have to overlay it all in a thick goop - they can be subtle. Little parts of dialogue. Hints. Personalities. You'll figure it out as you go along.


In any case, themes can be a bit ineffable, more an underlying feeling than something you can summarize in a paragraph. I wouldn't bother with making a list of them.


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## Justin Rocket (Sep 1, 2013)

Themes should always be subtle, but for outliners (I always create outlines for my stories before I write them), the theme informs the outline.  Not knowing the theme makes me stuck on my outline.  That's frustrating.


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## Jeko (Sep 1, 2013)

I never write with themes, but I always get them in the end. 

You don't _have _to have a theme. Instead of themes, I write with colour. My current WIP is very blue.

Instead of trying to think of a 'theme', why not think of a statement you're trying to convey? I sometimes do that, and it works like a theme. More of a 'moral' or message, but it can help inform how you want to structure the story and the general flow and direction of it.

You may be over-inflating the concept of a theme beyond its actual proportions.


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## Justin Rocket (Sep 1, 2013)

This is what I've got so far

_Our basic nature is to self-destruct.  We hold onto pride (such as the pride which leads us to try to master our environment) in an attempt to escape that inevitble slide into self-destruction, but we are headed towards self-destruction anyway.

_So, its a lot like Angel Heart.  The CEO has repressed childhood memories about a box like this one.  As he looks for ways to examine the box' contents, he remembers more of his memories, the site gets further along in being built.  At the moment that he fully remembers his memories and he examines the box' contents and the site workers burst into the alien chamber, everyone goes irrevocably insane.


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## Folcro (Sep 1, 2013)

I would more or less back what cadence and outiboros said. Themes, unless remarkably well emphasized, which itself would get boring when done too many times, can make for a remarkable read. Like Orwell or Vonnegut: dry prose, but powerful themes and accurate styles. Personally, I prefer to read and write stories without a solid theme: think Game of Thrones. You can argue there is a theme, but someone else can easily argue a theme completely different. 

If you're familiar with Shakespeare, Hemmingway or the New Yorker, they speak to the simple concept of people being people. A broad theme, but effective when properly delivered.

For a beginner, if you are going to worry about themes, save that for last, at which time it should be easy to put something together and change a few small things to support it--- if it means that much to you.


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## Robert_S (Sep 1, 2013)

Justin Rocket said:


> _Our basic nature is to self-destruct.  We hold onto pride (such as the pride which leads us to try to master our environment) in an attempt to escape that inevitble slide into self-destruction, but we are headed towards self-destruction anyway.
> _



Hmmmm...self-destruction is in our nature?  I'm not convinced and I'd like to discuss this in greater detail, but I don't want to derail the point of this particular thread.

Back to the thread, you could forgo the theme analysis and just let it happen. I think in the end, a theme will naturally work itself out. I believe you already have the theme, but perhaps you want something more complex.


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## Justin Rocket (Sep 1, 2013)

I think we can explore the idea that self-destruction is in our nature while working on thematic analysis for my story.

I really do write better if I have an outline.


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## Robert_S (Sep 1, 2013)

Justin Rocket said:


> I think we can explore the idea that self-destruction is in our nature while working on thematic analysis for my story.



I posit that we have a survival instinct at our core and we are not self-destructive by nature. Some may be self-destructive (suicides as a case in point), but that is not the whole of us and many that are suicidal is simply suffering from emotional issues. However, I will concede that if destruction is eminent, we can and would go out in a "blaze of glory." Now, destruction can mean many things, loss of identity, loss of life, loss of freedom, etc. It's usually something that person or group identifies as being the fruition of their existence, such that without it, life means nothing.

Another way, as long as that person or group has what they hold dear, they want to live and perhaps share it. The may even be willing to trade one good for what they hold most dear, such as the case of people surrendering freedom for safety or vice versa.

People can change though. What they once held dear may seem inconsequential without some other thing they gave up. If people sacrificed freedom for safety and then find they can't do anything without it being known, the safety may seem more like a cage than a castle.


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## Justin Rocket (Sep 1, 2013)

I believe that if self-destruction was not in our nature, then we would not have so many examples of people acting self-destructively.  What I've seen is that people tend to live for an idea (to sublimate their own egos for the sake of an idea).  That idea can be a group identity (such as Stockholm syndrome), a value (such as those people who rate everything in dollar values), a behavior (example, "my value to my family is in how much money I bring home"), a status, etc.


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## Robert_S (Sep 1, 2013)

Justin Rocket said:


> That idea can be a group identity (such as Stockholm syndrome), a value (such as those people who rate everything in dollar values), a behavior (example, "my value to my family is in how much money I bring home"), a status, etc.



All of those are examples of people valuing something they hold dear and willing to sacrifice something else for it. Stockholm (someone elses mental health, which equates to their safety over freedom), a value (money over people), behavior (family wealth over free time). I don't believe it's self-destructive by nature. I believe most people understand that death ends all of that, what they value and what they sacrifice.

Now, I'm not counting people with mental issues, such as anorexics. I'm only considering the reasonable person.


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## Justin Rocket (Sep 1, 2013)

Your assertion seems to be that valuing something else at the cost of destroying one's self isn't self-destructive.  I believe it is.  So, how do you define "self-destructiveness"?


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## Robert_S (Sep 2, 2013)

Justin Rocket said:


> Your assertion seems to be that valuing something else at the cost of destroying one's self isn't self-destructive.  I believe it is.  So, how do you define "self-destructiveness"?



I guess I define it as something the individual didn't intend. One clear example is Amy Winehouse. Sure, from the outside, her behavior was self-destructive, but she didn't care and was happy with her existence, even as she was lumbering off to her grave. Who am I to judge her for the way she wanted to live? She was more accomplished than I, even if she didn't live as long.


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## Justin Rocket (Sep 2, 2013)

Whether a person is suicidal or a Darwin Awards candidate, self-destruction still occurs.  As for judging how people (generic unspecified people) live their lives, we should all do it.  What becomes dangerous is judging specific people whose lives we don't know.  But, we should still judge them (e.g. "you shouldn't judge me just because I cut off my lover's penis and threw it in a blender!  you don't know my life!"  I don't need to know you to know that penis colladas are bad.)

But, I think you're focusing on a different question.
My point is that everyone engages in self-destruction.
You seem to be arguing that sometimes, such as in the case of Winehouse, that self-destruction is positive.


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## Robert_S (Sep 2, 2013)

Justin Rocket said:


> You seem to be arguing that sometimes, such as in the case of Winehouse, that self-destruction is positive.



Perhaps I'm focused on the legacy. Life doesn't have a happy ending. Everybody dies, but if you can create something that lives long after death, that as close to immortality as we can hope to get.


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## Justin Rocket (Sep 2, 2013)

I posit that we can leave a lasting legacy without being self-destructive.  So, I miss the relevance between our mortality, our legacy, and our self-destructiveness.


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## Ripslaughter (Sep 2, 2013)

Folcro said:


> I would more or less back what cadence and outiboros said. Themes, unless remarkably well emphasized, which itself would get boring when done too many times, can make for a remarkable read. Like Orwell or Vonnegut: dry prose, but powerful themes and accurate styles. Personally, I prefer to read and write stories without a solid theme: think Game of Thrones. You can argue there is a theme, but someone else can easily argue a theme completely different.
> 
> If you're familiar with Shakespeare, Hemmingway or the New Yorker, they speak to the simple concept of people being people. A broad theme, but effective when properly delivered.
> 
> For a beginner, if you are going to worry about themes, save that for last, at which time it should be easy to put something together and change a few small things to support it--- if it means that much to you.


 
Wait, wait, wait, you're saying that Shakespeare doesn't utilize or concern himself with theme in his works? Because I can tell you right now, his plays and sonnets contain some of history's most extensive and deliberate uses of theme in the English language--and no I'm not talking merely about the overarching theme of "people being people" (which is present by default in any remotely believable story involving people). The mastery with which he links nearly every word back to a story's particular underlying themes is one of the primary reasons his works have remained popular for centuries. 

At any rate, I don't think you can underestimate the value of theme to a story. Even in the example of the Game of Thrones, theme is intricately woven through every part of  the story. What might be misleading you is the fact that the books are comprised of the stories of dozens of characters, none of whom really take precedence over the others. As such there are many 'stories' and even more themes at play. Even still, the books _do_ have a few all encompasing themes. One of which is the power of perspective to shift perception of events or people. That is to say, reality is in the eye of the beholder. One man's triumph is anothers doom, one man's raison d'etre is another greatest taboo, one country's hero is another's villain, etc.


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## Robert_S (Sep 2, 2013)

Justin Rocket said:


> I posit that we can leave a lasting legacy without being self-destructive.  So, I miss the relevance between our mortality, our legacy, and our self-destructiveness.



I'm not making the connection. You said we are by nature, self-destructive, but now it seems you're saying we are not. I didn't mean to say self-destructive people are the only ones that build legacies, only that I don't judge the few people that spiraled down while making one, except to say so unfortunate.


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## Justin Rocket (Sep 2, 2013)

We're having a failure to communicate.  Let's start over.  We are, by nature, self-destructive.  Now, without  using any example of people who created legacies while self-destructing, state your counter-position.


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## Robert_S (Sep 2, 2013)

I think we're simply disagreeing on what self-destructive means. Perhaps it's a matter of word choice, I don't know, but I do not see people sacrificing one thing for another as self-destructive, unless it is detrimental to life. Self-destructive to me means destructive, not shorting one aspect to gain on another.


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## Justin Rocket (Sep 2, 2013)

A heroin addict is self-destructive and, yet, all they are doing is trading their life for the next high.


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## Robert_S (Sep 2, 2013)

Justin Rocket said:


> A heroin addict is self-destructive and, yet, all they are doing is trading their life for the next high.



Now we're back to people with mental or emotional issues, not the reasonable person. You saying we are by nature self-destructive means that even the reasonable person is self-destructive.


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## Justin Rocket (Sep 2, 2013)

Why?  Why are they "unreasonable" while somebody who works all the time isn't?


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## Robert_S (Sep 2, 2013)

Justin Rocket said:


> Why?  Why are they "unreasonable" while somebody who works all the time isn't?



Define "all the time" and what is he/she sacrificing for it? And what are the other conditions of the situation?

With the heroine addict cited above, we have someone injecting narcotics, getting addicted and while you didn't say he was spiraling out and living on the street, I'm sure that's the picture you see as do I.


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## Justin Rocket (Sep 2, 2013)

"all the time" = works overtime at his/her place of business constantly, maybe double shifts at the detriment of his family and health


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## Robert_S (Sep 2, 2013)

You're citing an unreasonable person. I can see 1 hour OT everyday, 2 hours on occasion, but you're talking about someone who is being unreasonable. I've met one person like that in perhaps my entire life. He and I played WoW together. He had three kids, his wife did not work and he had a job that probably paid maybe $12/hour. He would tell me his wife complained about him working all the time and not spending time with his kids, he said he wanted to make sure his family is supported. He was a nice guy, but I think he was unreasonable.


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## Justin Rocket (Sep 2, 2013)

You keep using the word "unreasonable" without defining it.  What makes a drug addict or a person who works all the time "unreasonable" and other people "reasonable"?


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## Robert_S (Sep 2, 2013)

reasonable

First definition in Websters:

_a_ *:* being in accordance with reason <a _reasonable_ theory>    
_b_ *:* not extreme or excessive <_reasonable_ requests>    
_c_ *:* moderate,  fair  <a _reasonable_ chance>  <a _reasonable_ price>    
_d_ *:* inexpensive 

b and c fit well. It's someone who balances out the aspects of their life to achieve the fullest of each without undo sacrifice. Many people do make some sacrifice to some degree, but those who take it too far are not reasonable or unconscionable in effect on those closest to them.

For your CEO, since he doesn't have a family, he has no one close to him, so who is he hurting?

I could C&P the Wikipedia discourse on the legal definition of "reasonable person," but after a cursory read of it, it seems there is no absolute and concrete definition.


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## Justin Rocket (Sep 2, 2013)

"reasonable" seems, like "pornography", to be undefinable and, therefore, useless.  At best, it seems to mean "they live their lives in a way I think is healthy" which raises the question "does someone in the throes of insanity know they are insane?"


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## Robert_S (Sep 2, 2013)

Justin Rocket said:


> "reasonable" seems, like "pornography", to be undefinable and, therefore, useless.  At best, it seems to mean "they live their lives in a way I think is healthy" which raises the question "does someone in the throes of insanity know they are insane?"



If you use the legal frame of reference for reasonable.

The problem with insanity as a comparison/analogy is you have to define reality with a frame of reference. Is reality defined solely with reference to the individual? Then nobody is insane, because they can define their own reality. Being insane isn't even a crime. You have to break a law on the books before they can even make a legal judgement on your state of mind.

I think reasonable is less subjective than is the idea of self-destructive.


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## Justin Rocket (Sep 2, 2013)

Robert_S said:


> If you use the legal frame of reference for reasonable.
> 
> The problem with insanity as a comparison/analogy is you have to define reality with a frame of reference. Is reality defined solely with reference to the individual? Then nobody is insane, because they can define their own reality. Being insane isn't even a crime. You have to break a law on the books before they can even make a legal judgement on your state of mind.
> 
> I think reasonable is less subjective than is the idea of self-destructive.




At this point, the debate is starting to resemble "how many angels can dance  on the head of a pin" with crucial dependence on words such as "reasonable" which you aren't defining.  I have no interest in continuing this.


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## Robert_S (Sep 2, 2013)

Justin Rocket said:


> At this point, the debate is starting to resemble "how many angels can dance  on the head of a pin" with crucial dependence on words such as "reasonable" which you aren't defining.  I have no interest in continuing this.



I thought I had defined it, twice. 

Such as it is, I need to get back to work anyway.


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