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A review by josiahdegraaf
Writing Your Story's Theme: The Writer's Guide to Plotting Stories That Matter by K.M. Weiland
4.0
This is an ambitious book.
There aren't many works out there that I'm familiar with that seek to unpack a comprehensive approach to theme-building in fiction writing. (The closest I've found is Truby's Anatomy of Story, and it isn't even a work primarily about theme!) You have several that touch on the subject and some--like Weiland's earlier Creating Character Arcs that do an impressive job of hitting certain aspects of theme really well. But I'm not familiar with many that focus specifically on the subject.
This book endeavors to change that--with an exploration of theme that draws from a number of great writers and thinkers, contains a variety of philosophical and theoretical insights into the nature of storycraft, and offers a comprehensive approach to the subject.
The first thing potential readers should know is that this book is going to feel quite different from Weiland's previous books. It's not as "formulaic" or "model-focused" in its approach (as, say, Creating Character Arcs or Structuring Your Novel are), and it tends to spend more time unpacking the theory of storycraft than her previous books. (Which is not to say it isn't practical... simply that she talks more about higher-end concepts in this work.) In my mind, this fit the topic well, but it did take some adjustments on my end in what I was expecting. This book is less about presenting a model and more about establishing principles, and the chapters can sometimes feel disconnected from each other as a result.
Enough, however, about what the book is generally like. What about its content? If it's more about establishing principles, what are those principles actually like?
Unsurprisingly to anyone who's read any of her previous books or follows her blog, her principles are, of course, solid through-and-through. There are a lot of lists in this book that give a variety of helpful tips for tackling the various aspects of theme. I particularly appreciated her points about why themes don't need to be unique (simply powerful), how the plot of a story meaningfully grounds the exploration of the story's theme, and how theme effectively solves the plot vs. character debate. Her section on subtext was also quite excellent.
So how well does this book live up to its goals? It's one of the best unpackings of the Truth/Lie model of thematic development I've seen--not in a way that's focused on simply providing a model, but in a way that's focused on unpacking the theories and principles behind the model so writers know how to use it effectively. As a storyteller, I still find the Experiment in Living model to fit my personal writing style better than the Truth/Lie model when approaching thematic development. But I still learned several useful principles and techniques by reading this book and for writers who use the Truth/Lie model, this is pretty essential reading in my book for how to expand that into your plot, subtext, and side characters.
My recommendation would probably be to read Creating Character Arcs first to get the foundation of the character arc that will form the core of your character's theme. But after that book, this work is a very natural sequel to it that will be a fantastic guide for authors looking to take their story's theme beyond the character arc.
My one complaint about the book is that I read the digital version and I really need the physical version so I can mark it up appropriately. (It's in the mail as I write this.) You'll want to go with a physical edition of this work if possible.
Recommended.
Rating: 4 Stars (Very Good).
There aren't many works out there that I'm familiar with that seek to unpack a comprehensive approach to theme-building in fiction writing. (The closest I've found is Truby's Anatomy of Story, and it isn't even a work primarily about theme!) You have several that touch on the subject and some--like Weiland's earlier Creating Character Arcs that do an impressive job of hitting certain aspects of theme really well. But I'm not familiar with many that focus specifically on the subject.
This book endeavors to change that--with an exploration of theme that draws from a number of great writers and thinkers, contains a variety of philosophical and theoretical insights into the nature of storycraft, and offers a comprehensive approach to the subject.
The first thing potential readers should know is that this book is going to feel quite different from Weiland's previous books. It's not as "formulaic" or "model-focused" in its approach (as, say, Creating Character Arcs or Structuring Your Novel are), and it tends to spend more time unpacking the theory of storycraft than her previous books. (Which is not to say it isn't practical... simply that she talks more about higher-end concepts in this work.) In my mind, this fit the topic well, but it did take some adjustments on my end in what I was expecting. This book is less about presenting a model and more about establishing principles, and the chapters can sometimes feel disconnected from each other as a result.
Enough, however, about what the book is generally like. What about its content? If it's more about establishing principles, what are those principles actually like?
Unsurprisingly to anyone who's read any of her previous books or follows her blog, her principles are, of course, solid through-and-through. There are a lot of lists in this book that give a variety of helpful tips for tackling the various aspects of theme. I particularly appreciated her points about why themes don't need to be unique (simply powerful), how the plot of a story meaningfully grounds the exploration of the story's theme, and how theme effectively solves the plot vs. character debate. Her section on subtext was also quite excellent.
So how well does this book live up to its goals? It's one of the best unpackings of the Truth/Lie model of thematic development I've seen--not in a way that's focused on simply providing a model, but in a way that's focused on unpacking the theories and principles behind the model so writers know how to use it effectively. As a storyteller, I still find the Experiment in Living model to fit my personal writing style better than the Truth/Lie model when approaching thematic development. But I still learned several useful principles and techniques by reading this book and for writers who use the Truth/Lie model, this is pretty essential reading in my book for how to expand that into your plot, subtext, and side characters.
My recommendation would probably be to read Creating Character Arcs first to get the foundation of the character arc that will form the core of your character's theme. But after that book, this work is a very natural sequel to it that will be a fantastic guide for authors looking to take their story's theme beyond the character arc.
My one complaint about the book is that I read the digital version and I really need the physical version so I can mark it up appropriately. (It's in the mail as I write this.) You'll want to go with a physical edition of this work if possible.
Recommended.
Rating: 4 Stars (Very Good).