How to NOT Preach to Audiences (Writing Advice)

get ready cuz today we're going to discuss how to tell meaningful stories without sounding preachy by the way my name is Brandon mcnalty I'm the author of bad parts also the author of Entry wounds and welcome to my writing Channel I get a lot of questions from subscribers about theme and how to express a story's theme without sounding prey so I figured today we'll zero in on that we'll discuss what theme is how it fits into a story and I'll give you some tips for using it well and here's your spoiler warning for today as always the stories in red contain the heaviest spoilers all right let's start off by answering the question what is theme and theme is one of the trickiest parts of Storytelling so don't feel bad if you're struggling to understand it I'm actually going to give you two definitions today and first we'll start with a simple basic definition and we'll say that theme is an idea expressed through a story's characters and plot events and theme adds meaning and significance and it holds the story together and it's more than just the moral of the story or message it's a key element that overlaps with characters and plot for example the movie Rocky has a major theme of finding self-respect Rocky himself lacks self-respect at the beginning of the movie and we see this because he fights like a bum he lives like a bum and he works like a bum he has the potential to be a great boxer but he spends his days working as a lone shark that's how he makes his living but he's not living a meaningful life and the plot expresses the theme of finding self-respect by showing us how Rocky pursues a relationship with Adrien and how he Embraces the challenge of squaring off against Apollo Creed then by the end of the movie Rocky earns his self-respect he endures 15 rounds against the heavyweight champ and the movie ends with Rocky and Adrien declaring their love for each other okay so I gave you a basic definition now I'm going to take a more detailed one from km wyland's book writing your story's theme some of the advice in today's video comes from this book so if you're looking for a great guide on the subject of theme and how to build it in your stories check out her book I'll link it in the description below but wiland says that theme is a unifying idea or subject explored via recurring patterns and expanded through comparisons and contrasts now there's a lot going on in that definition so let's break it down first if we're thinking of theme as a unifying idea we're thinking about how it holds the story together there's usually a lesson that the characters in a story must learn and they all will be involved in this learning process in different ways ways so maybe the theme of your story is that people need to work together in order to accomplish great things now that theme can apply to your main cast but they'll all learn it differently maybe one character has to learn a special skill another has to teach the skill another has to stop being selfish another has to Rally the group and so on and so on next part of the definition involves recurring patterns in other words characters will explore the theme as they go through plot events we'll start seeing patterns as the plot continues on so if the theme is that people need to work together show them working together in different scenarios show how it can be difficult to trust each other at first but ultimately the characters learn to set aside their differences and get the job done together and then finally the last part of the definition is comparing and contrasting remember we talked about how characters learn and experience the theme in different ways that's how you expand your theme show different approaches to it different ways the characters struggle and engage with it maybe some characters learn the lesson While others don't maybe some have an easy time with it maybe some have to make sacrifices there are tons of possibilities and it's up to you to figure out how each character approaches the theme all right now let's move along and talk about how theme fits into a story and of course theme is a major story element it's right up there with character and plot and it acts as a glue that holds your story together so if you're writing a story and things aren't clicking right or they feel like a sequence of meaningless events it's probably because your theme is isn't strong enough or it's not baked into the story properly and one important thing to remember Here theme should not be tacked on that's why some stories feel preachy because the characters and plot events don't gel with the theme and then you have writers trying to force a message through dialogue or through unnecessary actions instead of tacking on your theme try to build it along with your characters and story and that brings us to the tips I want to share with you today I have five tips for building strong themes and the first one is to give your protagonist a serious flaw the strongest stories usually involve characters who are held back by a flaw that prevents them from being happy maybe they have a bad habit or maybe they have a harmful belief about themselves or other people now in order for them to have a better life they need to overcome their flaw and embrace the theme and typically your protagonist will be the character who has the most to learn in a story so if you're coming up with your cast and you're not sure who should be the main character figure out who has the most to learn for an example let's look at the movie Godzilla minus one and I just saw this one in theaters last week I absolutely loved it and a major reason why was because of the attention given to character development and theme now the movie opens up in the final days of World War II we meet our main character shikishima and we learn that he's a kamakazi pilot who couldn't go through with his Deadly Mission instead he saves himself by claiming that his plane has some mechanical issues and that brings us to our theme and it's about valuing life our protagonist refused to follow orders and crash his plane into an enemy ship and now he gets to live but that comes with a cost because when he returns home to Tokyo people are disgusted with him they blame him for Japan losing the war and for civilians dying in the conflict shikishima has to Bear the guilt and it becomes so great that he begins wishing for his own death wishing for another opportunity to give his life for his country and this creates the story's internal conflict we wonder how will he make amends for his mistakes AK will he overcome his guilt will he find a way to forgive himself will he learn to Value life again tip number two create supporting characters who fit the theme and this can include your hero's allies as well as the villains and they should represent different values in the story and they should challenge the hero to grow in different ways for example I talked about Rocky earlier and in that movie Adrien needs to learn the same lesson as Rocky she needs self-respect more specifically she needs to learn to stand up for herself and after she and Rocky start going out together she becomes more assertive and independent especially when her brother paully tries to control her another character to look at here is Apollo Creed he's the heavyweight champ and he has so much self-respect that he becomes overconfident he doesn't take Rocky seriously as a fighter and that enables Rocky to survive 15 rounds in the ring tip number three is to balance your themes this means you want to show your character struggling with their flaw overcoming a flaw will usually lead a character to happiness but but it shouldn't be an easy Journey they should be tempted to fall back into their old ways and they should struggle to make big decisions for example in Fight Club the main character's flaw is that he's complacent and afraid to take action then a charismatic man named Tyler Duran challenges the protagonist to stand up for himself and abandon his consumerist lifestyle the main character does start taking some initiative along the way but at the same time he falls back on his flaw again and again and he follows Tyler's lead until it becomes clear that Tyler has dark and deadly intentions and that brings us to tip number four which is to show both sides of a thematic argument remember stories are Battlegrounds for ideas and when a story expresses a theme the story is arguing for how we should live our lives and of course any good argument should highlight the positives and negatives involved and Fight Club does a good job with this one of its Central themes is that consumer culture makes people weak and easy to manipulate and when Tyler Duran critic izes consumerism throughout the story he makes a lot of great points but he also takes things to an extreme toward the end and causes major harm in the process Jurassic Park is another example one of the movie's main themes is whether it's acceptable for people to tamper with nature John Hammond does this by hiring scientists to clone dinosaurs and we see how this can be both good and bad it's good because it can create positive things like scientific advancement educational opportunities and The Wonder of seeing live d URS but at the same time it's also bad because tampering with nature can have deadly unforeseen consequences and then tip number five is to be careful when expressing theme through dialogue usually when people complain about a story being preachy it's because characters deliver theme in a way that feels forced and heavy-handed they might say something that doesn't need to be said they might make bold statements that nobody else challenges or they might just Express the theme in a Cheesy or clumsy way remember that if if characters discuss the theme the dialogue should be necessary it should arise naturally in a conversation or argument and if characters are having an argument make sure we get to see counterarguments a great example of this is the lunch scene in Jurassic Park you have John Hammond and the lawyer they're talking up the Park's potential while the scientists are expressing their skepticism Dr Malcolm criticizes Hammond's methods then Hammond fires back with a counterargument they go back and forth debating the theme and every person at the cable expresses their Viewpoint and that makes the scene all the more interesting so I hope this helps question of the day what theme is at the heart of your favorite story let us know in the comments section below thank you for watching if you want to support the Channel please pick up a copy of either one of my books and be sure to leave reviews on Amazon bad parts is great if you like smalltown horror it's about people trading away their sick and injured body parts in order to get healthy again and then entry wounds is great if you're like Thrillers it's about a guy who picks up a haunted gun and he can't put it down till he kills six people with it also be sure to check out my other videos like share and subscribe and as always remember to keep on writing

Channel: Writer Brandon McNulty

Views: 103,102

Keywords: Writing, Writing advice, Writing Tips, Fiction, Creative Writing, How to write a book, How to write a novel, novel, book, storytelling, story, theme, theme in stories, story elements, message, preachy, preach, how to write theme, screenplay, script, godzilla, godzilla minus one, jurassic park, audience, audiences, rocky, star wars, fight club, km weiland, character, plot, idea, ideas, themes, mistakes, character flaw, character arc, dialogue, mistakes new writers make, Writing Your Story's Theme, help

Id: SnESTfHZas4

Length: 10min 8sec (608 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 28 2023