Theme: Imbue your Story with Deeper Meaning
December 17, 2025 | Daphne Strasert
You want your story to resonate with your audience. You want to craft something that sticks with your readers long after they’ve turned the last page. You want them to stay up late at night thinking about your writing. I think all authors want that. So, what is it about great writing that gives it that can’t-stop-thinking-about-it effect? When it comes to lasting impact, you need to think about your story’s themes.
What is Theme?
Theme is the underlying meaning that an author addresses in their book. It could be a simple moral lesson or a complex exploration of society and humanity.
If your plot is what your book is about, your themes are what your book is about.
For example:
Legends and Lattes
What the book is about: A former adventuring orc settles down to start a coffee shop
What the book is about: Bucking society’s expectations and following your passion, showing that anyone is capable of change
Ninefox Gambit
What the book is about: A disgraced captain must ally with an undead tactician to retake a fortress and save their society from rebellion
What the book is about: the human cost of empires and the folly of believing in the good of a system just because it is in power
When a novel is just a character going through a plot, it can feel shallow, empty, or incomplete. Theme brings together your story elements in a way that feels bigger than the sum of its parts.
Your theme doesn’t need to be profound or philosophical. And including a theme is not about brow beating your audience with your message. Sure, some books do that, but readers don’t generally enjoy the experience. The point of theme, and weaving theme effectively, is for your readers to draw their own conclusions.
Discovering Your Themes
But what if you’ve already written your book and haven’t thought about the theme at all? Don’t panic! It isn’t too late! Often your story will already have themes, you just have to find them. Then, you can go back and ensure that your theme is present throughout. Revising with an eye toward your themes tightens your story and fills in the gaps in your plot or characterization so that your novel feels like a conclusive whole.
So how do you identify the possible themes in your novel? You can find them by examining your plot and characters. Plot, characters, and themes work together, influencing each other to create a comprehensive experience.
First, look at your characters. Ask yourself, what is important to my main character? What drives them? And how do they change (or not) to achieve their goals? Is your story about a son reconciling with his estrange father? Your themes may be about the importance of family or redemption.
Now think about your plot. What is the main action of your story? What is similar across all the conflicts in your story? Is your novel about soldiers trying and failing to rescue their comrades from a dire situation? Your themes could be about the futility of war or the importance of bravery in the face of impossible situations.
Your story’s genre will also hold clues to your possible themes. A romance likely has themes related to love, while fantasy often examines the nature of good vs. evil.
Not sure where to start? See below for a list of common themes in literature.
Common Themes in Literature
Good vs. Evil
Love
Redemption
Courage
Censorship
Revenge
Man vs. Society
Family
Fate vs. Free Will
Hubris
Justice
Power
Survival
War
Incorporating Themes
Now that you’ve identified your themes, how do you incorporate them into your writing? You want all of the elements of your story to be on message. Theme informs everything from your characters to your plot to your word choice.
The Big Picture
Your theme is an idea plus an opinion. For example, in Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand addresses the idea of individualism, with a theme of “individualism leads to the greatest good”. In contrast, though The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck also addressed the idea of individualism, the theme is “collectivism is necessary for survival”. The idea that these books examine is the same, but the conclusions that they argue—their themes—are at odds.
Think of your theme as your thesis statement in an essay. You don’t just state it and walk away. You include evidence. Evidence, in this case, is characters and plot elements that challenge your theme or show an alternative perspective.
So, lets think about a story with a theme of “Love Conquers All”. To showcase the theme, our character will face adversity but ultimately, she will overcome it and her romantic relationship will succeed. But in order for the readers to see the truth in “love conquers all”, alternative perspectives must be presented. Include characters for which this is not the case, perhaps a friend whose marriage failed after a series of hardships or a coworker who has sworn off love entirely. Incorporate plot elements that challenge your character’s resolve, like a promotion that takes up all of her free time or an illness that makes it difficult to physically be around others.
When you start to view all of your characters and plot elements through the eyes of your theme, you can see when something doesn’t serve the larger purpose. Ask yourself: is this just distracting or is there a way to reframe this so that it better supports my theme?
The Nitty Gritty
Once you’ve revised the larger elements of your story, you can focus on reinforcing your theme through the language that you use. Your use of imagery, word choice, and dialogue drive home your theme.
Imagery
The characters and setting that you use convey your theme, and how you describe them reinforces it. For example, in a story with a theme of “wealth hides corruption”, let’s explore some ways to express that visually. You can include elements representing great wealth (gold, jewels, expensive clothing) as well as signs of decay (mold, rust, odors). Some examples:
Paint covering mold/rust
Lattice windows
Air freshener overlaying the smell of rotting food
Heavy makeup covering scars
Repeated use of these images comprises a motif. It creates a common thread through your novel and may call attention to certain ideas. If corrupt characters are always depicted as wearing gold thread, introducing a new character who wears gold thread can help your reader understand their significance without stating it outright.
Word Choice
At the end of the day, your story is built with words, and each word you choose is important. For example, if I want to reinforce a theme that “prejudice is violence”, then I will look to incorporate words associated with aggression or warfare. Some examples:
Fight
Battle
Combat
Attack
Clash
Struggle
Siege
Invade
Bombard
Shoot
Kill
Conquer
Overwhelm
Destroy
Surrender
Dialogue
Dialogue is the true workhorse of fiction. So much is conveyed, both overtly—plot, backstory—and subtextually—character, theme. When writing your dialogue, it’s important to think both about what is being said and how it’s being said. Your characters’ appearance, actions, and tone affect how their words are received as much as the words themselves. There is, once again, what the conversation is about (topic) and what it’s really about (theme).
When you put all of these elements—character, setting, plot, imagery, word choice, and dialogue—together, your themes shine through and your story is imbued with deeper meaning.
Need help making that happen? Tomeworks editors are poised and ready to guide you through weaving theme into your story. Inquire about a Developmental Edit or Line Edit today!