Christian Writing, Plotting

How to Create a Unique and Meaningful Theme (With Free Workbook)

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Theme. Whether we realize it or not, it’s the backbone of our stories. It’s what sets them apart; what makes the reader care. It’s what gives our stories meaning; makes them stick. Even stories meant purely for entertainment have some kind of theme.

It’s intuitive to the storyteller in a writer. Stories show how people change themselves or their environment. Some stories are purposely meant to teach a lesson. While there shouldn’t always be an obvious “moral of the story” (because that can get cheesy) there’s always an underlying theme.

Why You Should Plan Theme

With theme comes power. Whatever your theme is, it’s your take on the world. How your characters are rewarded and punished for acting certain ways, the plot moves forward and gets more complicated, and scenarios play out shows what your theme is meant to show. Even in a plot-driven story, there’s theme in practically everything. We must learn to take advantage of it. It’ll be there whether you like it or not.

Even if you don’t consider yourself a plotter, if there’s one thing you should plan before you write, it’s theme. Theme is at the heart of your characters and your plot. If you want to make the most of it, you must plan ahead, simply because of its nature. It’s harder to edit in theme than it is to plan it out.

TL;DR: Theme is very, very important.

Plus, when you plan theme, you have more opportunities to incorporate themes in multiple aspects of your story, without having to completely rework it. And of course, when you know your theme while pantsing, you can come up with natural ways to enhance your theme as you write.

However, if this doesn’t work for you at all (hey, everyone writes their own way!), you can also use this is a guide to edit theme into your story if you’ve written it and it’s not quite developed. If you do this or have another method, share in the comments! I’d love to hear what works for you.

Step One: Brainstorm

You shouldn’t necessarily go with the first theme that comes to mind. There are many ways you can use theme in any given story, so make sure you’re choosing the theme that will work best with the plot and have maximum impact on the reader.

First: think about your passions. What ideas do you hold to be true? What advice do you often give to those who are younger or less experienced than you? “Write what you know” is most important in theme. Being passionate about and having human experience with a theme will make it more genuine.

Then, compare themes that you are passionate about to themes that will work with your story. Look at where the two lists match up. Those are the themes you will want to consider for your story.

Step Two: Develop

Story theory can be pretty complicated here. However, here’s the basic rundown:

Main character believes in and acts on a false idea, and in order for his situation to improve, he must believe in or act on a true idea, which seems unappealing or unbelievable.

If this intrigues you, read books like Story by Robert McKee, Dramatica, or Creating Character Arcs by K.M. Weiland. However, that’s the main principle of theme as it relates to plot and character. As you can see, theme is intertwined with both. Think about how your characters act and what happens to them. How does every scene reflect the lies and truths that exist within your theme? Where can you see the truth and lie at work?

It’s important to note; however, that you shouldn’t try to “play God” in a sense — similar to duex ex machina endings. Things shouldn’t “just happen” because your character was good or bad. He shouldn’t get the new job he wants because he’s nice to his family now, nor should he have it rain out on an important event because he was rude. Actions should have reasonable consequences. For example, the classic “guy interviewing for a job was rude to the lady at the front desk who ended up being his interviewer” situation.

Step Three: Implement and Enhance

Once you’ve come up with your basic theme, its truth and lies, and how it should generally affect the plot, you can implement the theme to your plot. If you enjoy lots of plotting, work the theme into every scene. If you don’t like to plot much, write a list of key turning points and actions that affect the plot.

It’s important to make theme as realistic to life as possible. Explore every gray area. Don’t let the reader necessarily know what’s right and wrong; allow them to explore it within the story. Know how traumatic events affect people, and how fast or slow it takes someone to completely change.

At this point, you should be able to give a short summary of your plot as it relates to the theme. From there, dive deeper. Work this into your outline, keep notes as you write to keep you on track, or edit these things in.

Small Ways to Enhance Theme

One of my favorite ways is to have the side characters believe different variations of lies according to the same or a similar truth the protagonist is facing. Think of it like a dystopia: everyone has different opinions on the same government. This keeps your characters cohesive and helps you explore theme.

Another way is to use symbolism. Colors, figures of speech, or any type of symbol you can think of can be used to enhance your theme. Characters seeing reminders of who they used to be can show just how much they’ve changed, for better or worse.

What Makes a Theme “Unique” or “Meaningful”?

Theme will never truly be unique. Throughout the history of fiction, writers have explored many themes shown in the human experience. What makes your theme “unique” is your different way of looking at it. Most importantly, you have to use your own experience and emotions to fuel your writing, because that is the most unique thing you can contribute.

What makes a theme meaningful can be many things to different people, but here’s my take: you have to make the reader think. Don’t tell the reader flat-out what you want them to take away from the book. In fact, what they take away might not be what you even intended. But getting people to talk and think and consider? That’s what brings change to the readers. That’s what makes a book powerful. That gives a novel the power to impact society.

Conclusion

In summary, the best advice I can give you is to think and put effort into your theme. Don’t just wait for theme to find you, and don’t express your theme explicitly. If you work for it, your theme will already be much improved.

Want to a worksheet to help you use these steps to plan your novel? Click here or the image above!

What’s a book with a powerful theme that has impacted you? How do you make your theme meaningful? Share in the comments!

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Writing Life

How to Set and Achieve Your Writing Goals

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It’s hard to make writing goals. You can’t anticipate writer’s block, or force yourself to have ideas when they’re just not coming. Setting writing goals is walking on thin ice.

As we’ve talked about before, creative productivity is different than regular productivity. A couple weeks ago, we talked about general creative productivity, but today, I’m going to talk specifically about writing goals and productivity.

Potential Problems with Goals

How do you make goals that motivate you to do more than normal, but don’t drain you or make you feel like a failure? When you focus too much on meeting goals rather than writing your book, it’s easy to get caught up in quantity over quality.

Plus, focus on writing goals can cause you to compare yourself to other writers and pit yourself against them. Sometimes, writers focus on being faster and better than other authors, and see them as competition. In reality, other writers being successful is not detrimental to your own success.

Writing goals can also cause an ungodly focus on ourselves for Christians. While we can be happy when we achieve goals, it’s not good to make a habit of celebrating in ourselves and our own achievements. Our value and success is in Jesus alone, so “no man can boast.”

The key to overcoming these problems is to remember the point of goals: to help you be productive, nothing more. Goals don’t define you or give you worth. They’re your assistants.

And trust me, I’m not trying to act like I’m better than anyone else — I’ve experienced all these problems and more! This is just what I’ve learned after many years of writing and experiencing road blocks.

Know Yourself

The first step to creating good writing goals is to know yourself. Don’t just do things because your favorite writer says they do them.

Track your writing. How much do you normally write in a day? How much time do you have to write? What motivates you the most?

It’s also important to know what types of goals work best for you. You can track word count, time spent writing, pages written, or progress made. It also depends on what stage of writing you’re in. Time spent might be better for outlining or editing, while pages and word count might be better for drafting.

Take notes on what works best for you, so you can take advantage of that when you make your goals.

Start Small, but Dream Big

Let’s say you write about 100 words a day 4x a week. 2000 words every day is likely not the best goal for you. Start off small.

Try to write every day, no matter what the word count, as long as you’re consistent. Then, climb your way up the charts. This is where it’s important to know how much you can write. If after 1000 words you’re basically writing gibberish because you’re tired of the story, stop there. The last thing you want to do is burn yourself out.

Create a Schedule, but Not Too Far

It’s great to set a schedule for yourself, but if you plan too far in advance, you’ll find things will have changed. If you write in detail your writing plans for the next ten years, one novel not working out or a drastic life event will make all your planning useless.

Instead, write out a general idea of where you want to be in the future. Make it flexible. It should be motivating to keep you on track.

I’d recommend setting goals for yourself every month, then breaking it down week by week, and from there, day by day.

Make Your Writing Space Rewarding

Do you love coffee? Do your writing in the morning, and only drink it when you write. Replace “coffee” with some drink or food you love and start doing the same thing. Your brain will start to associate writing with all the other wonderful things you give yourself as you write.

Now’s the time to light candles, sit in the comfy chair, and listen to your favorite music.

Speaking of Rewards…

Do rewards/punishment systems work for you? Then set them up! A simple way to do it is to have rewards set for when you achieve a goal, or alternatively, tell a friend your writing goal and have them check up on you.

This all depends on if it works for you. If you find that you get into your rewards before you’re supposed to (guilty!), or “punishments” only make you feel upset when things haven’t worked out, don’t bother with them. Ultimately, writing is the reward.

Finally, Remember Your Why

This is the most cheesy blogger thing to say, but it’s true. Remember why you write and who you’re writing for. If you keep focused on your why, achieving your goals will be easy.

At the end of the day, regardless of whether or not you made your goal, be happy with the fact that you wrote. Don’t beat yourself up over not writing and suck all the joy out of it. Writing goals are meant to help you grow in an art you love.

How do you set writing goals for yourself? What have you found works best for you? Share with me in the comments!

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Editing, Writing Life

8 Steps to Overcome Your Writing Weaknesses

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Writing is hard. No questions asked. Writing is subjective. What makes a good piece of writing depends on who you ask. Writing is made up of many different facets: character, plot, prose, description, dialogue, conflict, theme…

No one person will be good at everything. I consider myself better at character and theme, kinda-okay at plot and conflict, and not that great at description and dialogue (I have almost no visual imagination). However, luckily, there are always ways to improve and grow. It all starts with step one.

Recognize Your Weaknesses

Before you can overcome a writing weakness, you have to know which ones you have. It’s good to improve on everything, but it’s more effective to focus on your struggles.

Sometimes, it’s glaringly obvious to you what your weaknesses are — so much so, that you drown in self-doubt. Sometimes, though, you know there’s something wrong with your writing, but you can’t quite tell what it is.

There are a few ways to help yourself see your weaknesses. First, look at your strengths. What are you good at? What are you most confident in? This can give you a hint. Whatever’s not on that list? Take a loser look.

Another important step is to read your writing from a reader’s perspective. Where do you get bored? What do you feel is missing? Do you care about the things the writer wants you to care about?

Take action: analyze your writing. Read it from a reader’s perspective. Write down your strengths and weaknesses.

Unfortunately, sometimes you can’t know what’s wrong with your novel until you learn more about writing. This might mean writing “practice” pieces and learning more about writing. This brings us to our next point.

Read, Read, Read

Once you know what your weaknesses are, read as much as you can about them. Struggling with realistic characters? Read every recommended book on character you can find. Can’t come up with a good first act? You should be reading every article you see about it on Pinterest, not just saving them for later.

If at first things don’t make sense, keep going. Sometimes, all it takes is one person to say just the right thing for something to click within you. Also, make sure you’re reading in the right order. Don’t go reading Story or Dramatica yet. Read books that are mean for those who are struggling before you read books about advanced craft.

Take action: Remember, other writers have struggled with these things before us. Learn from them!

Practice

Sometimes, a story just isn’t working. Outside of your main project, practice what you’re struggling with. Don’t pressure yourself to edit into your story if you can’t figure it out yet.

Write short stories, follow writing prompts, and try challenges. For example, if you’re struggling with dialogue, you might try writing a story with only dialogue to learn how to write it more effectively. You can also enter writing competitions. Sometimes, writing competition judges will provide feedback for all pieces, not just winners. However, the mere pressure of entering a competition can help you step up your game.

Take action: Overcoming your weaknesses takes more than learning. It takes application. Spend a day, a week, or even a month on “practicing.”

Evaluate

Now that you have some knowledge and experience under your belt, take a close and critical look at your own writing. Problem-solve. You know what’s not working. Now, try to figure out why.

Confidence is important here. Don’t second-guess yourself. Now is not the time. For once, pretend like you know everything. This might seem prideful, but it’ll help you to think critically.

Take action: underline everything in your writing that sounds off. Note where the description is boring, where you start to lose interest, or where things just don’t make sense. Brainstorm solutions.

Get Feedback

This can be scary the first time you do it, but it’s extremely effective. Everyone has their weaknesses, so no one should judge yours. You can ask a writer or reader friend. If you can’t find anyone, look for online forums. Often there are dedicated places to get and give feedback.

Remember to take everyone’s advice with a grain of salt. What’s most important to note is the parts they don’t like. You don’t have to take their suggestions on how to fix it, just note where to fix it.

Take action: get feedback on a piece of your writing, and in exchange, give someone feedback.

Take a Step Back

If you’ve tried all of these but you still can’t figure out what to do, it may be time to take a break, at least from the piece you’re struggling with. When you’ve been working on one project for so long, it’s easy to lose perspective.

Never underestimate the power of taking a break, and don’t get down on yourself for stepping away as long as you need to make your writing better.

Take action: if you’ve been working on one project too long, take a step back. Even if not, remember to take breaks between writing phases.

Watch and Learn

It’s not only important to read books about writing, but to read books, period. Read popular books in your genre and find out what makes them lovable. Read classics, new releases, and books outside your genre. Write your own reviews and analyze them, even if no one else reads it. Read good books and see what makes them good; read books you don’t like and recognize why.

You can also learn from art. I’ve talked about this in previous posts if you want to learn more. I believe writing is an art, because art tells stories.

Take action: make sure you have dedicated time to read for fun and learn how to analyze books.

Hire an Editor

You’ve written and edited your book thoroughly. You know it’s not ready to pitch or publish, but you don’t think you can fix any more. If this describes you, it might be a good time to hire an editor.

You can spend a lot of money on a professional freelance editor, but there are many talented new editors looking for experience. They’ll offer good feedback at a lower rate, often in exchange for a review.

Take action: if you want to publish your book and you’ve done all you can by yourself, consider hiring an editor.

One of the marks of becoming a better writer is being able to learn by yourself: being able to diagnose and problem-solve. While no one can ever be perfect, I hope these steps help you grow as a writer.

What are your biggest writing weaknesses? What is your plan to overcome them? How have you overcome writing weaknesses in the past? Tell me in the comments!

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Uncategorized

Guide to Creative Productivity at Home (and how to find balance)

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Due to recent events, many of us have more time at home than we usually do. For us creatives, maybe this means we finally have time to work on the project we haven’t had time to before. It’s almost crippling trying to figure out what to do with all the extra time. As a life-long homeschooler, I’ve learned a few things about working from home.

Why You Don’t Have to be Productive

Allow me to start with a disclaimer. First, I understand that staying at home and being able to work on projects is a luxury right now.

Aside from that, we are going through a stress-inducing time. We’re watching the news more than ever, hearing about death rates constantly, and we’re trying to rebuild our economy. This is not equivalent to a home vacation. So, don’t feel like you need to use all of your time to be productive. This is actually counteractive. If you try to force yourself to be productive when you don’t have the mental capacity to, you’ll end up crashing.

My first tip here: don’t go in with the mindset that you have to be productive. (At least, outside of your normal jobs and responsibilities.) Instead, think in the terms of “This is something extra I’m doing that makes me happy.”

Don’t add stress to an already stressful situation. Instead, you’re looking at this as a positive thing that is adding to your life.

How to Manage Your Time

Respect Your Own Schedule

The only way you will be able to get things done at home is if you respect your own schedule. This means that if you decide to work on your writing for an hour, you’re going to do it.

To do this:

Make sure the goals you set for yourself are reasonable. If you plan on writing for ten hours straight, it’s simply not going to work.

Set times for breaks. If you don’t schedule a break, you’ll end up taking one anyway when you’re not supposed to.

Write your goals down. I recommend using Google Calendar, but anywhere you’ll remember works.

When the time comes, start working. It might take a few minutes for you to get focused, but honor your time commitment like you would your meeting with another person.

Find Your Best Work Time

This comes in a variety of ways. You need to find the best time of day, the amount of hours you can work, and the best work/break schedule for you.

To Do This

Try working at different times of the day. Wake up early, stay up late, work through the afternoon… see what works for you and stick to it.

See how long you can work straight before your quality of work diminishes and you need a break. If you’re the type of person who deeply focuses, maybe you’ll prefer 50 minutes on, 10 minutes off. If you have a shorter attention span, try a classic pomodoro. Personally, I like to break projects down into tasks and reward myself per task completed, so I don’t interrupt myself when I’m in the middle of something.

Determine how much time you have in a day. How much time do your normal responsibilities take? How much rest do you need? After calculating this, see how much time you have left.

How to Stay Focused at Home

Clear Distractions

Clear whatever distractions you can, but learn to ignore the rest. It’s ideal to put away your phone or whatever else distracts you. However, the hard part about working from home is that there are really endless distractions. The secret is discipline.

To Do This

Give yourself time-limits and goals. As the adage goes, “Work expands to fill the time available for it’s completion.”

Remember why you’re doing this. Why is this more important than playing Animal Crossing right now?

Tell yourself just to work for five minutes. Typically, once you’ve started, you’ll get in focus and forget about what’s distracting you.

Take Breaks

Not just short breaks between tasks. It’s also important to have time away. As I’ve talked about on my blog, I’ve been stuck with “long-term writer’s block.” Giving myself almost a year off was so, so worth it. Now I have more motivation and ideas, and I’m happier compared to then. I was forcing myself to work and feeling guilty when I didn’t.

How to Know When to Take a Break

When something that used to bring you joy to do instead feels like an obligation. Take a break to remember why you enjoy what you’re doing. Consider what’s stressing you out.

When your work quality has dropped dramatically. If you’ve worked so hard you’ve exhausted your creativity the best solution is to take a break. Look at why you’re feeling overworked. What can you change?

When you want to try something new. If things are beginning to feel routine, or like you’re not improving in your craft, take a break to learn more about it.

Good luck working from home, everyone!

What are your tips for working on creative projects at home? Have any of these tips worked for you? Let me know in the comments!

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Lifestyle

Morning Motivation: 20 Ideas for Your Morning Routine

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Morning routines. Whether you wake up at 5am or 10am, everyone has one.

Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash

What you do in the morning sets you up for a successful day ahead. Your morning activities set your mood for the day, prepare you for activities, and can even advance your study or career.

No one’s morning routine will or should look the same. My own morning routine varies on a day to day basis, so instead of simply sharing mine, I decided to share some of the morning activities I do, have tried, or even just have heard of and liked.

Creative Morning Activities

We are at our most creative in the morning, so put the time to good use. For those who are trying to find time to be creative between school or a job, the morning is an especially good time to utilize your creativity.

  • Journaling. Write down your thoughts, goals, or what you’re grateful for. If you’re an aspiring writer, you can clear out just a few minutes of your routine to commit to writing a little bit every day. Or, if you’re already a writer, try something outside of your genre.
  • Consume art. If you’re a musician, listen to music; if you’re a writer, read a book; if you’re a journalist, read the news. Take some time to enjoy what you like. Sometimes, we creatives get so caught up in creating that we forget to enjoy what others have created.
  • Learn something new about your art. Read an article or watch a video. Since there really is no one right way to create, there’s always something to learn that will make you a better creative. One goal that I’ve particularly enjoyed is the goal learning something new, even something small, every day.
  • Expand your creative horizons by delving into a new art. I’ve talked before about how I believe all the arts feed off each other. Even if you don’t consider yourself talented at something else, there’s nothing wrong with starting at the beginning, and it will help you grow in your own medium.

Student Morning Activities

I know — all the time sometimes as a student you just want to take a break from everything. However, the morning is a good time to improve your academic ability beyond just doing something for a grade, or to help you study for your classes.

  • Review your notes from the previous day. Your brain is at its peak in the morning, and studies show you retain more of what you learned when you review it within 24 hours. Improve your retention from what you learned the day before with a quick review.
  • Play a learning game. There are many fun apps for “brain training”. Or, find a gamified learning app, like some of the more fun study options on Quizlet or apps like Khan Academy and Duolingo that utilize points, leaderboards, and streaks. 
  • Take a few minutes to study for your next test. Yes, even if it’s months away! Maybe it’s November. You have a midterm in December on the whole previous semester, so brush up on what you learned in September so you don’t forget. Maybe you know you have to take a test like the SAT. There’s never a bad time to study ahead and there’s no such thing as a waste of study time if you’re learning new things.
  • Make sure you have everything you need for the day: your syllabus, your books, your pens, your notes. Never assume you have everything without checking.
  • Relax. You can’t reach your full potential if you never give yourself a break. Give yourself a few minutes in the morning just to sit, destress, and live in the moment.

Spiritual Morning Activities

The morning has always felt spiritual to me. When I was younger, I didn’t enjoy reading the Bible every morning, but I managed to read a couple verses. However, I went to a summer camp a couple years ago. There I read my Bible outside and watched the sun rise over the mountains, and it became special to me to enjoy the quiet beauty of the morning with the Lord. Morning is a perfect time to do your spiritual activities to keep yourself focused on God and help prepare you for the day ahead.

  • Read your Bible. I recommend going through one book at a time then breaking it up so you read a little bit every day (you can do this easily with the free version of the Logos app), but do what is best for you. On days when I have less time or motivation, I love reading my devotional, The Red Letter Words of Jesus. 
  • Learn about what you read. If you don’t understand something, don’t leave confused. Look into it. Even if you felt you fully understood the passage you read, learning about the context, the original language, or another perspective can help you learn more than your initial thoughts.
  • Pray. Pray for the day ahead, pray for your needs, pray for the needs of others, pray about your worries.
  • On a similar note, remember to take time to praise God and thank Him for what He’s done in your life. As Christians, it’s important to remember to give the credit and glory to God. Think about it: when we do nice things for others, we like to see that the person appreciated what we did. Recall about the story of Jesus and the 10 lepers.
  • Be in community with a fellow believer. Pray with a loved one, read the same passage of Scripture as a friend then discuss it, or find some other way to connect with another Christian.

Fun Morning Activities

Let’s face it. You’re never going to be excited to wake up in the morning if there’s nothing that is fun for you. Yes, sometimes you’ll be motivated to get up and hustle, but not always. Sometimes you’ll want to do your habits and New Year’s resolutions, but not after January. Keep something in your morning routine that will happily get you out of bed.

  • Watch a YouTube video/part of your favorite show. Here, it’s important to know yourself. Will saying, “My reward for waking up early is watching something entertaining” help you get up earlier, and will you follow the rules you set? If so, it could be a great reward to motivate you and help you cut back on binging videos by using it as only a reward. However, if you know that you’ll fall down a rabbit hole, keep the addictive stuff out of your routine. 😉
  • Coloring books! These are stress-relieving and a rewarding activity over time.
  • Work on a new skill or hobby. Is there something you’ve always thought would be fun to do? Give yourself some time in the morning to try it, just for fun. The key is not to pressure yourself and let yourself enjoy.
  • Take extra time to an otherwise mediocre part of your routine. Try making a new coffee recipe or making yourself a fancy breakfast, put on a face mask or try a new look, or set up a speaker to play music.
  • Watch the sunrise. This will obviously be harder depending on where you live and what time of year it is, but watching the sun rise is a natural way to help you wake up and simply enjoy the aesthetics.

Those are all of my morning routine ideas! Share your favorite part of your morning routine with me in the comments — I’d love to hear from you.

-Josie

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