EFFECTIVE STORYTELLING: HOW TO STRENGTHEN YOUR STORY THROUGH ITS CENTRAL THEME

Introduction

A story is like a necklace. The chain, made up of smaller beads, represents the plot—the thread that holds everything together. The larger beads are the fleshed-out parts of the plot, known as the scenes. The colors and patterns on these larger beads symbolize the theme. It adds depth and beauty to the necklace, making the piece of jewelry more captivating to the eye.

From this analogy, it’s clear that scenes are the essence of fiction stories and perhaps the very reason readers are drawn to them. Scenes allow us to “see” the story unfold. They are where characters come to life, where tension builds, and where excitement is generated. Skilled writers use scenes to subtly convey messages, develop their characters, and advance the plot. They know precisely which parts of the story to show through vivid scenes and which parts to tell through narrative. By crafting scenes that hook the reader, they create an immersive experience.

While the ability to communicate ideas clearly through words is essential for writing reports or essays, storytelling is a different endeavor altogether. It demands more than just narrative. If the prose in a story typically consists of four main parts: narrative, action, dialogue, and description, a compelling story weaves together all these into a seamless whole. This requires careful planning, particularly in deciding which scenes to portray and how to structure them to maximize their impact. Storytelling, therefore, is an art that balances creativity with intention, ensuring every element works together to captivate the reader.

While some storytellers organize their stories into three acts (a beginning, middle, and end) as they write, others must arrange the acts in a scrapbook to guide them. But what both types of writers must do is produce stories that portray characters through scenes and link those scenes together to create something entertaining, enlightening, and believable, a condensed picture of life. Writing and storytelling go hand-in-glove; if writing were a beautiful sculpture, storytelling would be its coating or glaze, that finish that makes us think, What a well-crafted masterpiece.

In this discourse, we will focus on the story as a composite where every part is connected, an art piece that ought to contain certain ingredients to have a certain type of coating that conveys a certain kind of thrill. I shall end by suggesting things you could do to connect the parts of your story better or re-craft it—repurpose it—so it imparts the message you want it to. (Notice I didn’t say ‘redraft.’)

Stories

Stories communicate. Stories communicate events and ideas. They communicate plots and themes. Unfortunately, the ideas or themes writers think their stories communicate may not be what they do. The problem with writers not communicating anything meaningful or ‘story-worthy’ in their stories is often due to a lack of character arc.

A character arc is the transformation or inner journey of a character over the course of a story—Wikipedia.

The writer may have written about a situation, soliloquized over it (in a character voice, or not), and ended with a message or punch line, but failed to make the reader appreciate the progression of this situation and how it affects and transforms the point-of-view character. That’s an essay or the lines of an unspoken word presentation. It’s not a story. Another problem could be with the writer communicating things of little or no significance to the (purpose of the) story. Or communicating too many disjoint ideas that make readers think, ‘What is the point of all this?’

The common problem with stories I encounter, generally speaking, is the lack of a clear underlying message because there’s no (internally) troubling event— no event of emotional significance, substance, or depth. Or because it has too many plotlines and nothing binding them together. Or the ending introduces a new idea when it should have conciliated an old one. This is why rewrites where we re-purpose our story are necessary.

Nancy Kress, a sci-fi writer and winner of both the Hugo and the Nebula, says, A novel makes two promises to the reader: a promise to entertain and a promise to educate. To put it plainly, when a story begins, the reader sets out on two journeys: an emotional one and an intellectual one. In your rewrites, look for ways to make both journeys rewarding for the reader. Your story should deliver a message or make a statement. This statement brings the reader’s intellectual journey to a close. That is why reading a story can be richly fulfilling for the mind and the spirit.

Let’s start with a brief refresher on what we already know about stories.

Internal/inner change is what all good stories are about. If it’s a story about a soldier who has his leg amputated, his state of mind before and after losing his leg should be the main purpose of telling the story. Reading about the event that led to his amputation makes this doubly gratifying, but it isn’t the crux.

Plot vs Theme

Plot is what happens in your story.

The plot is the series of events and the sequence in which they appear in a story. The theme is what your story is about; it is the crux of your story.

The theme is the repeating idea and underlying message in your story.

External Conflict vs Internal Conflict

Often in a story, there’s an external conflict, something a character is trying to accomplish, and an internal conflict, something a character with a mindset must confront or overcome for his recovery to begin. Basically, the plot, or storyline, is what happens in your story. It handles the external conflict. But a good story also makes the reader appreciate the hero’s inner turmoil, i.e. his moral or psychological struggle.

Stories that portray a hero’s internal conflict are deep because they paint pictures of the human condition, the human struggle, the human mind, the human character, the human virtue, the human resilience, and more. These are all themes. Stories expand on themes. Themes are not as obvious as plots; they linger in the background while ‘the clear and present dangers’ (found in the plot) take centre stage. Internal conflicts generate themes. How characters with humanities resolve these internal conflicts gives stories their meaning or underlying messages, which are lessons that can be framed into single sentences called thematic statements.

Themes are the ideas that form the basis of stories. They give a story a reason to tell it. The theme has two parts: the thematic concept and the thematic statement (a concept and a statement). The story’s idea (concept) and what the author has to say about it (statement) are what make stories educative. Thematic statements linger with readers long after they’ve put the book down. They form the talking points of book clubs. Themes are the very things art buyers (in this case, publishers) want to see in the products you want them to invest in: that deeper, subtle storytelling behind the obvious one.

Now let’s get into their definitions.

Thematic Concept and Thematic Statement

a.k.a. Moral/Philosophical Concept & Moral/Philosophical Statement

What readers think the writer says about the theme, at the end of the story, is called the thematic statement. It should be clear, and not something only the writer can unearth. That is why we say it is what the readers think, not what the writer thinks. In a nutshell, it’s what the writer communicated with his story according to the readers (who are unanimous), and not what he communicated by his own verdict. Writers can be wrong about their thematic statements. Several independent readers have a better chance of being right about the thematic statement of a story than its writer.

The thematic concept is the topic or idea the writer tackles in the story. A story can have several thematic concepts, but it should have one main thematic concept, so it can make one clear thematic statement. The terms ‘theme’ and ‘thematic concept’ are often used interchangeably, but, in essence, the theme is two things: the idea behind the story (concept) and what the writer says about the idea (statement).

If a story is a necklace, the thematic concept will be the colours on the larger beads and the thematic statement will be the clip, which brings it together around your neck.

The Story Goal (Premise)

The term Story Goal is not a standard term in literature. It’s a colloquial term coined by some writers. Other writers, especially those in the movie business, call it ‘the premise’. The Story Goal is what happens in the story that leads to the resolution of the internal conflict, or to internal change. It is the plot that tackles the central/main theme. A story can have many plots, but only one of them should be resolved by the hero confronting his main internal struggle, which reveals the story’s central theme. The Story Goal is the plot upon which the resolution depends on addressing an internal problem facing the hero. Finding your story’s Story Goal is important to crafting a good story.

Story Goal = Plot + Central Theme

Plots focus on external problems. The Story Goal combines an external problem with the main internal one. It may not seem like the main plot out of several plots, but it is always the plot that ties in the main theme. In a Story Goal, solving an

external conflict depends on the protagonist confronting an internal one. (Notice that I keep saying central theme, not central plot.) In a Story Goal, a main theme is tied to a plot, which may or may not be the main plot. Your Story Goal is your story’s selling point.

Sometimes, internal change must occur before an external problem is resolved. Other times, the internal change occurs after the external problem is resolved. Whichever comes first, the realization of one leads to the other. Therefore, in the Story Goal, we can see a link between plot and theme: it is the plot with a strong correlation to the main/central theme.

Your Story Goal, as well as your central theme, reveals what your story is about. It is good practice to decide what they will be before you begin to write (and I’m talking about first drafts here). In your second draft, look for ways to make both clearer or better appreciated.

Example

Say you are writing a story about a man who needs to get his blood pressure down so he can undergo heart surgery. He can’t have surgery unless he can lower his diabetes-related high blood pressure. That’s the plot. How to lower one’s b.p. is the external conflict. Say that his doctor tells him to do this, he will need to cut down his food intake. 

So now, there are two goals/desires: 

• Getting his blood sugar level down so he can have surgery. 
• Fasting from food.

Both are related. Getting his blood sugar level down would mean reducing the amount of food he eats. Therefore, we have two goals, two external goals, but one external conflict: the challenge of abstaining from food. 

Say the reason this man over-eats is stress-related: the stress of being estranged from his only son. Say coping with this pain led to his passion for cooking, and it’s this passion that fuels his food addiction. The Story Question will now look like this: 

Can a cordon bleu give up his food addiction, and his love for cooking, before it kills him? 

The Story Goal or Premise can be written like this:

To get ready for heart surgery, a cordon bleu must resolve to stop cooking the gourmet meals he loves. 

Giving up cooking will give him greater discipline with food. His passion is the starting point for his addiction. To achieve any one of them, he will need to deal with the internal conflict surrounding his estranged son. If it’s not obvious to your readers what your character has to do to resolve his internal conflict, that’s good because it means they have a puzzle to solve. 

So now, we appear to have two external conflicts: 

• Getting ready for heart surgery
• Losing weight

But they can be merged into one:

Getting ready for heart surgery by losing weight

There are two internal conflicts: 

• Beating a food addiction
• Giving up a passion for cooking 

These two internal conflicts have to do with a mental (inner) disposition. 

The resolution of one of these internal conflicts depends on our protagonist filling the void created by loneliness, by the absence of his estranged son from his life.

Let’s come up with our Story Goal. 

Remember, we said the Story Goal is the plot that contains a conflict/problem that a Central Theme’s resolution would solve.

A diabetic searches for meaning beyond food and cooking when his doctor informs him he needs a life-saving heart operation and must change his eating habits to be ready for surgery.

Or     

‘What is there to life without gourmet cooking?’ a retired chef ponders, as he stares at a life-saving heart operation that may not happen if he does not beat his food addiction.

Or

After learning his surgery is high-risk if he doesn’t lower his blood pressure, a cardiac patient resolves to beat his food addiction, but must he give up his passion for cooking, the one thing that gives his life meaning? That seems too much of a call.   

These summaries tell us what your story is really about because they reveal something about the internal conflict. Trying to beat an addiction is an external action that comes with an internal change. 

If you had said,

A cook struggles to lose weight.

That would be the plot, alone. The external problem is there, but the internal problem (even though it can be assumed) isn’t. 

When you know your story (from an internal conflict perspective), you can choose to introduce scenes/events that will amplify your thematic statement. Push your protagonist to the limit with (external) events and create a dramatic effect that will keep your readers reading. 

For our example story, you can do this in several ways. One is to show us how attached the retired chef is to cooking or food. You could say he runs a school for aspiring master chefs, and each year, his students enter a national cooking competition. He was thrice a runner-up in this competition, before retiring and starting a cooking school. The last time, his carelessness cost him first prize, and it still haunts him. Since he retired, he has dreamed of producing a champion.

He thinks he has a chance this year with a young promising student, a man who reminds him of himself in his younger days: enthusiastic, over-confident, and prone to negligence. He hides his life-threatening heart condition from this young cook because he knows he’ll try to discourage him from coaching him. They travel to an exotic location in search of a rare recipe they plan to improvise and use in the contest. 

So now, the plot follows the travels of two men in search of a secret recipe.

Now we have three external conflicts in our story:

1. Finding a rare recipe

2. Winning a cooking competition    

3. Lowering blood-sugar level/getting ready for surgery by losing weight

But there is one internal conflict:

• Beating his food addiction (and we know this might mean giving up his passion for cooking, his passion to win the cooking contest).

The internal change is what the story is really about, and internal conflict is where we can find the theme.

‘Beating a food addiction’ is the central theme.  

Of the three plots, the one that connects the central theme is number 3: Lowering blood-sugar levels/Getting ready for surgery. Therefore, this is the Story Goal or premise.

Now, we can see, in practice, the difference between plot and theme, as well as where they confluence: the Story Goal.

The topics or themes could be any of these: 

Passions, habits, aspirations, addictions, survival, winning, losing, etc.

In more than one word, the theme could be, 

• Searching for meaning beyond our hopes and aspirations in life 
• Giving up old habits 
• Replacing old habits with new ones
• Learning to love something new 
• Survival vs. sacrifice 

These are called thematic concepts or your story’s ideas (whether they’re one-worded lines or more elaborate phrases). 

Thematic Statement

At the end of your story, how the internal conflict is resolved delivers a final message called the thematic statement. The thematic statement is not necessarily something you spell out, but something your readers can decipher from your story. 

For instance, if the retired cook dies in the end, the thematic statement could be, 

• ‘Some passions are too hard to give up’ 
• ‘Hopes and desires are what sustain life’ 
• ‘Giving up on our dreams means giving up on life’ 
• or simply put, ‘Aspiration is life’

Now, let’s add some context to our story. 

Let’s say loneliness—the loneliness that started with widowhood coupled with his only son’s estrangement—was what began his love for gourmet cooking, and this led to his food addiction. Now, if our hero lives in the end, you could say it was because he beat his addiction, and he did it with the help of a friend. Bonding with his young apprentice meant he wasn’t lonely anymore: he had replaced his son, and no longer needed to take his mind off things with food. If that is the resolution you’ve chosen, then it means that when rewriting your story, think of ways to craft it to show how the deep friendship between the two characters develops.

It may (if you choose) also mean ending your story before he undergoes his surgery—even before the start of the cooking competition. Why? Because the internal conflict has been resolved, and the road to his recovery (emotionally, at least, if nothing else) has begun. 

Do you remember when we said internal conflict or internal change is what a story is about? This means the story is not about the surgery or winning the cooking competition. It’s about beating loneliness. Success with this will result in him kicking his eating habit. Our hero, after finding a ‘son’ in his trainee, has overcome his food addiction or is on the path to doing that. And this means he is also on the road to getting ready for his surgery. 

Let’s look at the story again. 

These are our plots:

• Lowering blood-sugar levels/getting ready for surgery by losing weight
• Finding a rare recipe
• Bonding with an apprentice
• Winning a cooking competition    

We still have our internal conflict:

• Beating a food addiction/giving up a passion for cooking.

We now have the specifics of how he beat his food addiction: by bonding with an apprentice and ending his loneliness.

The specifics of how conflicts are resolved are important in making your story believable. Yes, even fiction needs to be believable—good fiction, at least.

The specifics of how an internal change is achieved, or how an internal conflict is resolved, do not need to be disclosed in the Story Goal/Premise. (You don’t need to decide on it before you start to write.) But you’ll need to disclose it in your Overview/Synopsis. Many writers discover the specifics as they go along, as their story develops. And often, they discover it’s better, more organic, than pre-planning it. You can leave it out of your story pitch, which is to entice publishers, and your preview/blurb, which is to entice readers.

Our central theme is beating a food addiction (and the internal change that goes with it). The plot/action that leads to getting ready for surgery is exercising or starting a dieting plan. But before this can happen, an internal change must have occurred. It takes an internal change to break from old habits and embark on new ones. So, what is the plot or external action that leads to this internal change? Did you get it? If you said:

Bonding with his young apprentice. 

You are correct.

By doing this, he will find a ‘son,’ or a close friend who loves him. If at the beginning of our story, we see our protagonist trying to patch things up with his estranged son, that would have been one more plot out of many. If we leave that out and include a scene where he reveals to the apprentice the pain he feels over his son’s estrangement, then we are witnessing them getting closer. You may need to describe the moment he realizes the apprentice loves him (or deeply cares for him) and how this changes his outlook on life. Doing this will make the message in the end (the thematic statement) clearer.

Time for a short quiz.

Write a thematic statement for the scenario where our hero survives. If you’ve followed the lesson, coming up with a few statements shouldn’t be hard. Start thinking about it. I’ll get back to it later.

Now, to other matters. 

How to solve thematic problems

1. By finding your Story Goal and revising your story.

If the message in your story isn’t clear to readers, study your story to discover the Story Question. 

The Story Question—sometimes called the Story Problem—is the core question to be answered in the story. Answering the Story Question is the goal of the primary plot line. It’s what drives the characters to act as they do. It’s the story’s catalyst–essentially, why the story exists. Answering the Story Question leads to the discovery of the Story Goal.

For instance, What does the chef need to do to care more about his life—to care about being fit for surgery? Answer: He needs his son back or someone who loves him (like a son) to remove his sense of loneliness.

The parts of a plot are exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. 

The three-act structure is a model used in narrative fiction that divides a story into three parts (acts), often called the Setup, the Confrontation, and the Resolution.

The Setup = the exposition in the plot

The Confrontation = the rising action, and the climax in the plot

The Resolution = the falling action, and the resolution in the plot

A plot summary is a brief description of a story’s plot. It does not contain discussion of any deeper meaning, opinions, resolutions, or even extensive details about the work. It gives you the basics of the plot (what happens in your story in one sentence) and nothing extra. For example, for The Little Mermaid, the plot summary is, 

A mermaid wants to live on land so she makes a deal with a witch.

A plot summary can be used as a story pitch.

A plotline is a connected series of occurrences that form the plot or part of the plot in a story. A plotline gives a list of events that will happen in your story, whether they are fleshed-out scenes or narrated sequences. 

A plot outline gives a list of scenes in your story.

A sequence is a collection of scenes that are connected or related in some significant manner, either dramatically, narratively, or thematically. 

Scenes are dramatic sequences.

The transitions between scenes are narrated sequences.

A well-structured story should be a thematic sequence (from beginning to end).

• By finding what your story is about: what is the main idea behind it, and what is the message you want it to impart?

Now that you know what your Story Goal is, you may need to make the internal conflict and the central theme clearer. Sometimes, it takes adjusting your ending. Other times, it may mean plotting out your story to show how your hero’s internal change occurs. And you can do this through scenes that depict your character in development. 

• By planning your story. 

Pencil out, in a rough memo, the plotlines you intend to portray and the order they will appear. This is called the spine of your story. It tells you the sequence to follow as you write (and if you’ve missed any scenes, to fit them in). To do this effectively, first, you must know what your story is about, both in idea/concept and statement/message.

• By developing your characters with theme enhancement in mind.

In your rewrites, develop the point you will make with your story by developing your characters. Since stories are essentially about characters, look for complexities to work into your plot that will bring out your characters, things that will create more drama, heighten the tension, and challenge the moral values/choices of your characters. In the end, all these will enhance the lesson in your story (the thematic statement). 

In our example, I increased the stakes by introducing a cooking competition into the plot. The reader now understands why the chef cum foodie is reluctant to give up his passion for cooking, his cooking school, and his vocation as a chef trainer. Somewhere along the line, it stops being about coping with a feeling of emptiness—this is what started his addiction—and becomes about fulfilling one’s dream. This will make the reader appreciate his stubbornness and even make it heroic. His ultimate sacrifice (if that’s the ending you’ve chosen) will bring tears to some eyes. What an emotional journey that would be.  

• By increasing the stakes, inner-conflict-wise.

Increasing the stakes magnifies the internal conflict and makes the thematic statement more emphatic. Put your hero in a position where he stands to lose something that means so much to him if he does what your readers will be rooting for him to do. 

• By detailing the complexities of a desire (an external conflict), especially one that will bring about internal change (the Story Goal).

This is another way to make your central theme clearer without spelling it out. Once the internal conflict (what your hero needs to do to resolve a weakness) is clear, readers can appreciate your theme. (The plot is always obvious.) That means they know what your story is about (in concept), and this sets them up for the impression you’ll make in the end (with your statement). 

A story without a thematic concept is shallow. 

A story without a thematic statement is pointless. 

A story without a Story Goal makes no sense, it’s just a jumble of disparate incidents (plots) with nothing connecting them. 

The Story Goal is the confluence of a plot and a central theme. This plot may or may not seem like the main plot, but it is. The main plot is the storyline that drives or tracks the story. 

Generally, we don’t say main plot and other plots (or major plot and minor plots); we say plot and subplots.

From our example, it may seem the main plot is ‘Finding a rare recipe’ to use in a cooking competition because it’s what drives the chef and his apprentice on their exotic vacation, but the main plot is veritably the way their friendship develops. It’s what we read about, mostly. We follow their quest for a rare recipe and watch them bond over their shared interest.

• In your plot outline, think of scenarios/situations that you can work into any of your storylines/plots to heighten your readers’ experience, both emotionally and intellectually.

Achieving this could mean changing entire scenes and adding context/complexities to the situations you’ve already created. E.g., by introducing new perspectives, new puzzles, new characters, a different climax, a different opening, and a different ending, etc.—all aimed at deepening the inner conflict and making the internal change more pronounced.