Themes and Messages: Telling Meaningful Stories

Regardless of genre, medium, or length, all good stories have a theme or a message, something that sticks with the audience, something they can remember when they think of the story. Films and television shows are no exception to this rule; to create a good film or television program, you need a solid theme or message to hit home with your audience. Let’s explore themes and messages and see why they’re so vital to a good narrative.

What is a Theme?

First, we must ask the question: what exactly is a theme? The word is thrown around in literature and film analysis spaces all the time, but what does it actually mean? A theme is the prevailing idea of the story – this can be something like love, death, good versus evil, coming of age, and many other key ideas you can include in a story. Themes can be both what the audience thinks of the story and what the story says about a specific subject that it centers on. Sometimes, a story’s theme can be summed up in a word or two– friendship, loss, etc.– and other times, the theme is the central question that the story asks– how far would you go to succeed? is an example of a central question that a story might ask the audience.

Why is Theme Important?

We’ve established that the theme or central question are vital to a good narrative, but why is that so? In a film, the theme has two purposes: connecting with the audience, and driving the story forward. The audience can connect with the story through the theme– if they see a story with themes similar to those in their own lives, they’re more likely to want to watch the story and connect with it.

At its core, the theme centers the story, anchoring it around a central idea that the plot always returns to. It poses an existential question for the viewer to watch the answer to it unfold over the course of the story, and it keeps the audience engaged the whole time – if you stray from this central question, then you lose your audience and the point of your story. Everything is a story– the entire plot– exists to serve the theme, to answer the existential question posed by the central idea of the story.

Establishing Perspective

There is a recent pressure in the film industry to appeal to as many people as humanly possible. This is a recipe for disaster if you’re hoping to have a strong central theme, because you risk losing your perspective. But what is perspective in a story? It can simply be the point of view that the story is told from– do we see through only the eyes of the main character, or are we seeing a more bird’s eye view of the story? But in terms of theme, perspective is the stance on the central question– two stories can pose the same question, but they may answer it entirely differently. That is your perspective.

The goal of filmmaking and storytelling is not to appeal to the widest audience possible, but if you have a strong perspective and well-written characters that center around a consistent theme, you may have a wider audience than you would if you had set out to appeal to that wider audience. While audience members may not all have had the experiences the characters are having, a strong universal theme can help broaden your audience because people can relate to and connect with that theme, despite not having had the same experiences.

Themes can be considered universal themes, such as good versus evil, loss, or coming of age, but it is about the angle that you take on that theme that makes it unique to your story and gives you a perspective. Your unique perspective on the theme should guide the characters’ actions and reactions because every step your characters take should be a step towards answering the central question or appealing to the theme.

Themes and messages in any story are the lifeblood of the narrative. Keep your theme close, and use it as a guide to direct your writing. Write from the heart, and your unique voice and perspective will shine through.

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