How does real life effect theme?

Hey everyone! I’m so excited. These next couple posts will be the last posts of this series and I am excited to get to the epic conclusion so you can have all the interesting writing information you might need about theme! So, without further ado…

Theme: How does real life effect theme?

I have asked this question before and been asked this question several times throughout my years of public education in English classes. I had several English teachers who answered this question through activities, and some tried to explain it in words. In the end I had one English teacher in my junior year of high school that actually really taught me how real-life effects theme. Through out that year of school she would give us books to read as a class or stories to read individually that we needed to write reports on. She was very strict about the way in which we needed to write our reports. The formatting was important but the part that she always remembered to mention was to make sure to research the author of everything we read and learn as much as we could about them. Most of the time the final essays didn’t require actual reports on the authors, but she still encouraged us to keep researching them.

As the year continued, I began to notice that the grades in the class were varied, as are most classes, based on the student’s skill levels. However, whenever we had to write essays on a book we read as a class I began to notice that the students who had done the research on the author received a better grade. Upon asking some of my classmates if I could read their essays I noticed that the students who understood the author somehow had more concise, understandable, and relatable essays which had a deeper understanding of the themes of the story. This was because the life of the author either directly or indirectly effected he themes of their stories.

Their real life effected their theme. But the question wasn’t whether or not it was happening, it was, “How?”

One a website on writing I once read a quote that I have saved and I used to have stuck to my wall, “Novels are about people undergoing experiences in particular times and places. These experiences – their nature, and the effect they have on the characters – will cause the reader to come to conclusions about some aspect of life.” Let’s take a moment to break down this quote. The people in the novel are the fictional characters and the experiences they have are the plot. The times and places in which these fictional people experience the plot are the setting. The conclusions on some aspect of life that the reader and/or characters come to are the themes of your story.

What if we observed your own life story as if it was a novel? You are the people undergoing experiences that create the plot and these experiences happen to you in a particular time and place that are the setting for your story. What things have you learned from specific points of your life? Have any of these conclusions effected your decisions in other parts of your life? Have any of them become so deeply ingrained in your personality that you don’t really think about it anymore? These are the themes of your life.

Sometimes, something that you have learned about life through your own personal experiences sticks with you so strongly that it becomes a driving force of your life. Or it simply becomes so ingrained in your personal beliefs that it effects how you act or believe without you even realizing its doing so. If these experiences or conclusions can affect your life in the real world, who is to say that they can’t effect your writing?

The interesting thing about writing a book is that no matter how fictitious or fantastic it is it essentially comes down to the fact that you, as a person, are writing a book about other people living a life. In the end, the things you have learned or believe are going to affect the way you write. Whether your characters believe the opposite you do or the same as you do there will be some effect.

Real life effects writing because life happens and life can sneak its way anywhere and into anything, even your writing.

I hope that this week’s post was helpful. Next week is the last post in the theme series! I am so excited to finish up this series and hopefully get everyone excited for the announcement of the next series which will be starting next year! Don’t forget to like, subscribe, become a blog page member, share, and follow me on social media at the links below. And remember,

Get Up, Get Writing, and Get Published. See you next week!