Popular Themes - Is There Anything New to Say? by Allison Symes

Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay images.

No kidding, Sherlock, I know but I suspect there have been a few love stories doing the rounds this month. Wonder why…  That said the thought of Valentine’s Day and associated tales led me to wonder about popular themes and whether anything new can be said to still make the best of them.

Naturally some themes will turn up time and again for competitions and markets because they will always appeal to us. The world isn’t going to run out of love stories. It doesn’t mean authors should stop writing them, far from it. Themes reflect the human condition, which is why we always identify with popular themes.  

The ideal then is to bring something new to the mix. My way into that is via the character(s). There has to be something about them which would make them stand out to me first, then potential readers. If the character doesn’t grab my attention, I can hardly expect them to grab the attention of anyone else. 

If I like the character, or can see something about them which provokes enough curiosity in me to want to find out what happens to them, then I will read on, regardless of what genre they’re in. I want to be rooting for that character to win (and if a villain to fail though there I also want the hero/heroine to earn their victory. It mustn’t just fall into their lap).

For any competition theme, I write down the initial thoughts which occur to me. 

I then see if I can think beyond that and come up with something which fits the theme but isn’t the “obvious” route.  For a love theme I would think along the lines of:-

Romance story (obvious fit for a love theme) but with characters who are unusual in some way. See below.

Older couple story (less obvious fit. I fail to see why love stories should just be for the younger generation).

Love for a pet where a character goes above and beyond for the sake of that pet. Again it’s a love story. Just not a romantic one.

My way into most of the flash fiction and short stories I write is to focus on working out what makes my lead character tick.

For a popular theme like love, I know already what will drive the character. What I need to figure out is if they are seeking love, rejecting it, or it turns up in their life unexpectedly. I am then interested in how they handle those possibilities. There’s my story outline. Given people react differently to situations, so will characters but for a writer, that gives good and potentially endless possibilities for story ideas.

 

So the challenge of a famous theme then is to work out what you will bring to your characters and their situations which will grab a reader. But in doing that you will have your unique story and add something of value to a popular topic.

Well worth going for, I’d say.