One of the great discussions in the author world is whether
your book should have a theme or not. Of
course it’s going to have a plot. (Protagonist with a problem or goal and
obstacles to that goal – real obstacles that matter - which are resolved by the
end.) But does a book always have a
theme?
Usually when we’re talking ‘theme’,
we’re putting the story
into a more serious category. Margaret
Atwood (another Canadian – smile) tells a ripping good story in The
Handmaid’s Tale. But readers would agree there is a serious theme
underlying it, a warning, in effect.
Now, I write comedies.
Crime heists and romantic comedies, most recently. They are meant to be fun and
entertaining. So you can imagine my
surprise when I discovered recently that all of my books have rather serious
themes behind them.
Last Friday, I was interviewed for a CBC (Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation) mini-documentary featuring female Canadian crime
writers. During this, the producer got
me talking about the background to my most awarded series, The
Goddaughter. This crime caper series is
about a mob goddaughter who doesn’t want to be one, but keeps getting dragged
back to bail out her inept mob family.
I know what it’s like to be a part of an Italian family that
may have had ties to the mob. (In the
past. My generation is squeaky
clean.) The producer asked me If that
informed my writing. Of course it
did. But in our discussion, she stopped me
when I said: “You are supposed to love
and support your family. But what if
your family is *this* one?”
Voila. There it was:
a theme. All throughout the Goddaughter
series, Gina Gallo grapples with this internal struggle.
So then I decided to look at my other books. The B-team is a spin-off from The Goddaughter
series. It’s a funny take on The A-team
television series. A group of
well-meaning vigilantes set out to do good, but as this is comedy, things go
awry. In fact, the tag-line is: “They do
wrong for all the right reasons…and sometimes it even works.”
Was there a theme behind this premise? Was there a *question asked*? And yes, to me, it was clear.
In The B-Team, I play with the concept: Is it
ever all right to do illegal things to right a wrong?
Back up to the beginning.
My first series was fantasy.
Humorous fantasy, of course.
Rowena Through the Wall basically is a spoof of Outlander type
books. Rowena falls through a portal
into a dark ages world, and has wild and funny adventures. I wrote it strictly to entertain…didn’t
I? And yet, the plot revolves around the
fact that women are scarce in this time.
They’ve been killed off by war. I
got the idea from countries where women were scarce due to one-child
policies. So what would happen…I mused…if
women were scarce? Would they have more
power in their communities? Or would the
opposite happen. Would they have even less
control of their destinies, as I posited?
A
very strong, serious theme underlying a noted “hilarious” book. Most
readers would never notice it. But some do, and have commented. That
gets this old gal very excited.
I’ve
come to the conclusion that writers – even comedy
writers – strive to say something about our world. Yes, I write to
entertain. But the life questions I grapple with find
their way into my novels, by way of underlying themes. I’m not into
preaching. That’s for non-fiction. But If I work them in well, a reader
may not
notice there is an author viewpoint behind the work.
Yes, I write to entertain.
But I’ve come to the conclusion that behind every novel is an author
with something to say. Apparently, I’m
not as flaky as I thought.
What about you? Do
you look for a theme in novels? Or if a
writer, do you find your work conforms to specific themes?
Got teen readers in your family? Here's the latest crime comedy, out this month:
On AMAZON