Author: mchurchw

By Marley Churchward

Often the intensity of a book’s storyline or theme can be so gripping you cannot stop turning the pages, despite knowing it is much past your bedtime. Does this ever make you think “how do writers do this?” “What gets the reader to keep turning each page?” Some of the most crucial factors of a theme are the characters, as well as key events, character development, and how the writer can create helpful plot points to keep things moving.

Let’s look at the Divergent series as an example of how the author expands on theme. The series is about a dystopian society divided into five factions that everyone should be able to fit into, except for one or a few. This develops into a theme of “you should always make decisions for yourself, rather than allowing society to make decisions for you.”

The main character, Tris, throughout Divergent really drives the development of the theme by making her own choices, despite her fear of what others might think of her for possibly defying the five factions. But Tris doing this was for the greater good of everyone else without even knowing.

A remarkable thing to take away from this is not only the character development through conquering her fears, but these moments through the story that drive to theme. This brings me to how these events keep your audience interested. When key events occur, it should bring character development with it as well as the development of the plot. This gives the writer the ability to expand the theme.

Diving into another example, where the key points involve the main character(s), Tris chooses dauntless rather than the faction she grew up knowing. Tris continues through with her choice when she realizes how physically demanding and scary the faction she chose was. The faction made her get on moving trains and jump off, and even fight peers to get accepted. The Dauntless faction is for protection because those who are willing to protect are brave enough to do so.

Furthermore, these choices bring about new characters, adding more development to the story. These characters also aid in building the main development and theme! Also, worth noting is understanding how your characters would act/behave in various different circumstances, this can aid you in creating helpful plot points that can drive a character into an action that supports your story’s theme.

An example of this is, when Tris meets Four not only adding another character but also adding more development. Through Fours character development you find out Four is like Tris and does not just fit into just one faction. Whereas Tris fits into all the factions, but four only fits in a few. With Four by Tris’s side he is able to give her new information about a developing plot to overthrow the current governing faction.

Using the main or developing characters to help plot points throughout the story not only gives further development of these characters, but also theme. As in the example above there are other developing characters that have other motives unknown yet.

In conclusion, you should be able to not only develop your main characters but also the key points developing your theme, giving room for expansion in many ways. Making sure to understand how your characters will respond in many situations can help understand how they respond to big “life changing” or key points in your storyline. All the more allowing you to develop your theme.