Finding the right theme to explore in a story can be a struggle. How can you make sure your theme is deep instead of shallow? What are some common mistakes writers make when selecting themes? Josiah, Rolena, and Daeus tackle these questions and more on today’s episode. Listen to their conversation below!
How do you choose themes for your stories? Let us know in the comments!
View the show notes for this episode here, and don’t forget to subscribe to the Story Embers podcast on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.
Great topic!
My WIP is dealing with the “How Questions of Lordship”. Salvation is often the goal of more simplistic genres of Christian fiction. But the harder question I wanted to tackle was the “What Now?” of seeking first the Kingdom of God.
I don’t see this represented much in fiction because it doesn’t lend itself to a distinct epiphany moment.
Salvation/Conversion/Accepting Christ as Savior is the beginning of an individual’s new life. It is the point where true supernatural discoveries begin because we are made alive in Christ, after being dead in Adam.
The most significant journey a person can undertake is learning to walk in a personal and deepening relationship with God. Corinthians 13:13 says “13 Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love – but the greatest of these is love. [1 Corinthians 13:13 CSB]” So, given these three Eternal Virtues, how should a Christian learn to bear these in their discovery journeys to learning Who They Are (Their Identities) in Christ. Romans 8:20-25 seems to indicate a future event in which the redeemed of the Lord will have a further identity revealed as they are perfected in Christ, under the cloak of His imparted righteousness. It is the whole point of the crowns given in reward for a life lived in increasing yieldedness to God to do in and through us what is impossible by our own effort. His strength, He tells us through the Apostle Paul, is made perfect in our weakness. Not mankind’s understanding of how to gain “strength”, but God does things in His own way. What is needed is an application of the implication or the Eternal Virtues. What does it mean to have Hope beyond this temporal life? What does it mean to walk by Faith? (Is Faith acquired or is it released to do its active work?) What does is mean to embrace the concept that “we” are Loved perfectly and realize the implications for our Identity and the valuation God places on us, as bought with His own shed blood at Calvary.
So, my WIP is a quest novel of fantasy that employs these themes to unfold the discovery story.
Its includes dragons, virtue stones which focus an inner yielding of the MC’s being to allow God to direct and intervene, despite the MC’s past betrayal and plaguing sense of inadequacy to be able to follow the call to lead. The key part of the MC’s arc is learning to surrender all of his baggage: the fear, the self-loathing, the anger, the regrets, the self-recrimination, the struggle with trust, and the desperation not to repeat the same mistakes again. He has to discover that God equips those He calls. His job is to surrender to the Power that Comes through Trusting God in Fellowship. I believe that is a struggle many Christians can relate to: How to walk in the New Life. How to know God as more than just the Solid Rock, the System of Laws, the Absolute Order and Judge of the Universe.
What is most important to know, is to relate to Him as “Abba Father”, the “Friend that sticks closer than a brother”, the intimate Lover of my soul, the Daddy who desires to give good gifts to His children, and Mature them as they encounter strongholds, tempations and threats in their new life.