Do You Know What You’re Writing?
Yes, of course we do. We spend hours thinking, planning and of course writing what we know. But I was drafting my senior project, so I’m prepared for it, and I want to write about love, it’s not something I write solo on, and I’ve decided to tackle the task, so I started drafting and planning and thinking as one does, and I was explaining to myself what kind of relationship I wanted to portray. I was asking obvious questions: who are my characters?
where do they live?
what do they do?
why do they do it?
So on and so forth and as I was thinking I realized I ignored one of the most important questions: What is love? The popular song aside, this question is kind of a big one to answer. That’s the problem with themes and the broader elements of the story, we kind of assume we know what they are. That’s not a bad thing by any means but, something that has been drilled in me since philosophy class, you have to define your terms. It’s non-negotiable. I think we need to add this practice into when we think of the theme in our story. They are important because the theme is what the writer wants the reader to know but the only way they can convey that is through words which build their characters and plot which work in tandem to make the story. Theme is the finger that pushes the domino of story. So, we need to know…