3 places to discover Theme in your screenplay

When a typical viewer watches your movie, they’re not consciously looking for the theme. They’re simply enjoying the experience, the genre entertainment, and how it makes them feel.

But… if that’s true and no one is paying attention to theme, then why should screenwriters even bother with it?

While the audience may not be consciously aware of it, they are absorbing the theme. They're taking in all of the elements you've chosen to deliver and ultimately developing a sense of what it all means.

That sense of what the story means is, essentially, theme. You can think of theme as the underlying meaning or understanding that the story leaves us with, even if it's subtle, subtextual, or subconscious. It's what the story is really about, beyond the plot.

A compelling theme helps your story connect with and move an audience. Your movie or screenplay becomes more than entertainment; it becomes a meaningful experience.

And if theme is going to do its job, it can't show up as one isolated moment. It needs to inform every element of the screenplay.

Ignoring Theme seems easier

It's complex and hard to pin down, and so theme is a topic that makes a lot of writers want to ignore it altogether.

But even if you choose to ignore theme in your screenplay, your audience will still try to make meaning from what they’re watching. It’s just how our brains are wired.

And what we find can vary a lot from movie to movie. Some movies have a clear message to deliver. In others, the theme may be subtle but visceral. In still others, the theme may be clunky or paper-thin. Different movies have different needs, and not every movie does everything well.

It’s when movies don’t take theme into consideration at all that the result can be most confusing for the audience.

Because theme connects every element, it's basically the story's organizing principle. And when the collection of choices and elements that make up the movie aren't informed by a common theme, they can end up feeling disconnected, arbitrary, and even in conflict with each other. That kind of clash between elements is confusing. (Perhaps the only time I’ll say conflict in your screenplay is a bad thing.)

A good screenplay feels like it’s having one conversation about one thing, and that “conversation” is really the exploration of theme, aka what it all means. All of the elements that make up the screenplay should contribute to that one conversation, otherwise they’re just talking over each other.

So that’s the ideal we aim for: the story's theme should permeate every aspect of the script.

But, again, that's a lot to think about, and I want to make it easy for you to start working with theme. So here are a few areas of a script where theme tends to shine the most brightly, and any of these make a great entry point when you're developing the theme in your story:

• The major decision your protagonist has to make
• The main philosophical difference between two important characters
• The protagonist’s character arc

When you’re trying to identify the theme in a movie you’re watching, these are good places to look. And if you bake theme into these aspects of your script, your story’s “one conversation” will be well established.

Let's take a look at the three areas in a little more detail.

1. The major decision your protagonist has to make

If stories are guides for life and the theme is a takeaway lesson about how to navigate it, then it makes sense that we’d see the theme demonstrated in a defining choice. In movies, we watch as the protagonist experiences the events of the story and then decides how to live his life from here forward, as represented by that defining choice.

For example, in Hell or High Water there comes a point toward the end of Act 2 where Toby is faced with a choice: he can fight for what he wants, knowing that doing so may hurt others, or he can give up and potentially die. The movie’s specific point of view is found in that choice. The story tells us that life is a struggle and survival is a zero-sum game.

2. The main philosophical difference between two important characters

In Michael Arndt’s great talk on endings, he discusses “philosophical stakes” or the idea that there are two opposing value systems in stories. Seeing which set of values ultimately wins out gives us a sense of the story's takeaway.

These opposing values tend to be represented in major characters, which makes sense because in screenplays ideas have to be dramatized. Sometimes the opposing values are represented in protagonist vs. antagonist. Sometimes they’re represented by two “mentor” type characters who embody opposing philosophies, with the protagonist caught between them.

Michael Arndt gives his example from Little Miss Sunshine:

3. The protagonist’s character arc

The overall change the protagonist goes through is another likely place to notice the theme. We see a character change in order to better navigate the events of the story, and that change demonstrates the lesson of the theme, as in: "It’s better to be this type of person if we want to succeed." (And the character arc goes hand-in-hand with the major decision mentioned above.)

A good example is Bridesmaids. Annie starts the movie clinging desperately to the way things are, even though they’re not making her happy. By the end, she accepts that change is inevitable and starts actively pursuing the life she wants. That’s the thematic idea, and we see it demonstrated in her transformation, aka the character arc.

Where does your screenplay's theme show up?

When theme is really working, it's the result of a cumulative effect across all the parts of your screenplay. So, ideally, all three of the areas we covered today work together, along with all other elements, to contribute to your screenplay's "one conversation."

But if you're feeling overwhelmed by theme, try starting with any one of these three areas. Consider how the theme you want your story to convey can inform that area of your script.

If you're trying to understand what theme your story might already be trying to convey, look to these three areas and see what they tell you about the true meaning of the story. Often there is a meaningful takeaway there that you can enhance and bring forward, even if you didn't start with a clear theme in mind.

In other words, you can approach theme from either direction: you can start with an idea you want to explore and build it into the story, or you can look at the story you've already built and discover the idea that's emerging from it. Either way, the goal is to bring all those elements into alignment so the audience comes away with a cohesive sense of what the story means.

And, strengthen your own theme-abilities by identifying the meaning or takeaway present in these three areas of the movies you watch. Once you have a sense of what the movie's about, go further by analyzing what other elements of the story reflect that theme.

Until next time,

Naomi