Everyone has their own motivations for writing a book. You may just have an idea in your head that wants to get out. You may just want to tell a story. Or you may have a big, giant message that you want people to get. Or it could be a little bit of both. But how exactly do you figure out what you're trying to say, and once you do, how do you get that point across?
The whole "bigger picture" thing may not come to you right away. You may even get through your entire first draft without having one. You may never have one, and that's ok, too. I've always thought that my main motivation for writing a book is just to entertain. I want to write a book that at least some people will like (and hopefully most people won't throw rotten fruit at me when I walk down the street). Not every story has to be complicated, or have some sort of message to get across. I call a lot of my story ideas "fluff" stories, maybe just because they feel a heck of a lot easier and lighter than my main WIP. Fluff can be great (and lots of fun to read!). But not every story is fluff. Some stories are a bit more complicated.
That isn't to say that I think my book has one big message. If people assumed that, they would probably get it wrong. I do think that it does have several smaller messages, some of which I'm still trying to figure out. So how do you figure it out? How do you know if your story even needs one? And then how do you get those messages across?
It's probably something that you'll figure out along the way, or maybe you already know what your message is before you write the first word. Every story is different. It all depends on how subtle or obvious you need your message to be. How important is it that the reader gets it? If they don't get it, will the story still work? All of these factors will go in to your thought process as you're figuring it out.
And there are plenty of ways to get a point across. Think about all of those English papers you had to write in high school. Themes, motifs, symbolism, characterization. When you start trying to crack a story open, you can figure out what the writer was trying to say. So when you're the writer, utilize these tools. Put some symbolism into your book. Have a character represent something bigger. How often you do this will depend on the story, and you obviously don't want to overdo it so that you're hitting the reader in the face (didn't I talk about this before...?).
The first step in telling a story is to just tell the story. The next step may be to figure out what it is you're trying to say. The first person who has to "get it" is you.
Ever write a story with a message in it? How do you utilize themes and symbolism?
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The overall message of my five book series became "Get inspired to achieve your dreams" and I ran with that as the marketing campaign.
ReplyDeleteMy steampunk series is purely for entertainment. It's an escape. But I do have a literary background, so a few of my readers have picked up on some of the deeper themes hidden in the "simple" adventure story line. That's fun for me. Like Easter Eggs.
ReplyDeleteI dove deep into Jung psychology in my second and third books, and a handful of readers picked up on it. I love doing that. It's like having a secret discussion among like-minded people.
I wrote a novel once in college that I hadn't really planned out in terms of messages or symbolism or anything like that (or anything at all because that's how I wrote in college, and kind of still today), but my professor kept going on and on about all the beautiful symbolism I had woven in. I decided to just go with it.
ReplyDeleteFor my books, if there's a message in them, I don't plan it. The message usually just slips in there while I'm writing it. But when they do, I run with them. :)
ReplyDeleteMy current WIP was by far the most challenging concept and perhaps why I wanted to pursue it. It addressed social issues around gender, religion, and slavery. And because I wanted to tell the story from three different perspectives, it was a whole other ball game. But I think that's why we want to write. To tell a story that can't leave us. :)
ReplyDeleteI admit I don't do much with symbolism. I don't plan messages, either. However, themes always emerge.
ReplyDeleteLike Alex, I don't try to do much with symbolism. However, I have been told by several readers how they interpret different scenes and I'm always surprised.
ReplyDeleteI'm motivated to write because of issues. Each of my books has at its core something I feel strongly about. My biggest job is to not let those issues override the story.
ReplyDeleteIn poetry, you may think you're writing a bunch of random poems without connection. The majority of the time, you're wrong. There is glue there.
ReplyDeleteI think it's the same for a novel. Most stories we tell have messages and points. We may never see them, believing it's pure fun but they're there. If you think back to some of the reasons man became a storyteller, it makes sense.
I've heard and read some great authors talk about this point. They always joke about how they would have failed the test in English class on their own novels because people put meaning to their stories that is true to the reader and wasn't usually the intention of the author. Isaac Asimov addresses this as did Garth Nix when I heard him read. Writing is like any kind of art form, the audience it finds will relate to it in their own way--and that's awesome!
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