Naomi Dawn Musch

There's nothing very mystifying about unearthing themes for your series. Sometimes theme emerges out of the plot, setting, or period elements naturally. At other times it is the very idea that first churns up a story in your imagination. For instance, in the latter case, after someone you know tells you of the twists and turns they faced with foreign adoption, you may have an idea burst upon you for writing a story about the myriad issues involved in foreign adoption, thus beginning with theme. On the other hand, if this theme were to emerge later, from the plot, it might work more like this. You may think, I want to write about a childless couple who longs to adopt. Then, later you realize, they'll adopt from a foreign country. Oh... there are issues surrounding that!

Usually, when it comes to discovering a theme, you don't have to think much further than the situations and ideals that stir your heart right now.

Your concerns, those passions that are dear to your heart, those struggles you've faced and lessons you've learned are the best source of inspiration for choosing theme. I often find that when a Sunday sermon pricks my heart or thrills my soul, a story theme won't linger far behind.

Most often, new themes emerge in each book one writes. But when writing a series, I've noticed it's entirely likely passions will still be at the same stage from book to book because I'm still engrossed in a continuing saga of recurring characters. As I move from one book to the next, however, I don't want to keep repeating my themes.

Thankfully, universal themes -- grieving loss, discovering love, suffering spiritual or relational disillusionment, paying the demanding cost of pride, and so on --each have a hundred different spins to them that can make them truly unique. As a writer, your job is to take these universal themes and reflect on how you are affected by them in your own life. What conflicts have they been known to  produce? What outcomes? What lessons?

Love is probably the most written about of all the universal themes. Think of the myriad ways it is expressed, won, lost, and sought after. When I wrote The Green Veil, Empire in Pine Book One, I thought of how we are often encouraged to follow our hearts in seeking love. But this produced a conflict in my reasoning, because Scripture tells us that our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, and that we can barely know or understand our own hearts. So what happens, really, when someone blindly follows his or her heart? Or at least, what might happen? This is the primary theme that emerged in the plotting of that novel.

Themes give stories their layers.

The really cool aspect of this when writing a series is that you can start to see those layers developing further in each book, thus producing a series arc. I realized as I wrote books 2 and 3 in my Empire in Pine series that the women in a particular family all disliked sewing. It's a generational series in which an impatience toward the craft was apparently passed down. On the other hand, these gals were crafty and artistic in other ways. By the time I reached Book 3, The Black Rose, on which I'm doing re-writes now, I discovered that this simple character trait resulted in a theme -- a poor self-image -- feelings of being unaccomplished and inferior. I'm working now on exploring that theme further.

So, are some themes over-used?

To answer, let's look at the theme of faith, or lack of it. Writers settle on exploring aspects of faith again and again. The entire genre of inspirational fiction is built around it, in fact. Because issues of faith are universal, it can never be overdone as a theme. People will continue to struggle and either search for faith or draw away from it. Therefore, it becomes the characters themselves that make the theme unique. As writers we create characters whose personalities, hopes, sorrows, and situations resonate with readers. In any of a thousand different combinations, the theme develops and finds its sticking place in readers' hearts.

So, explore your passions. Allow yourself to hope and dream and feel anguish. Read and grow and agonize. In all of your zeal and new understanding, you'll unearth themes that weave their way into your series.

Write on!