What is your story about? Don’t tell me it’s about a guy who robs a convenience bank to get the money to pay for his daughter’s cancer operation. Tell me it’s about income inequality and the lack of affordable healthcare. That is the difference between story and theme. Even though they’re different, they play off each other and feed off each other. In order for the story to be great, the theme must be powerful.
What are you trying to say?
I have heard many people compare themes to morals. Is the theme the moral of the story, like from an Aesop’s Fable or a Brothers’ Grimm Fairy Tale? In its most simplistic form, the answer is yes. However, there should be more to it than that. A message can be a part of a higher moral idea stating you shouldn’t do this or you should do that. The idea of a theme goes deeper than that, however. A theme gives a story a point of view. It tells the audience they’re seeing more than something that will entertain them. It will inform them. It will make them look at an issue with a new perspective. It will challenge them in ways that may be unexpected.
The theme is an emotional statement.
A screenplay’s theme often directs us to how we feel about the film we’re watching. Movies are at their most powerful when they elicit emotional responses. Having a powerful theme is one way to stir up that emotion. Think about the idea mentioned above. A story about a man robbing a bank suggests ideas of action and suspense. The script could be a thriller, or it could be a drama. Movies like Dog Day Afternoon or Heat come to mind. However, once you add the idea of income inequality and the lack of affordable healthcare driving a man to desperation to save his daughter, the idea becomes its own. It becomes a unique and fresh idea about fatherhood, family, equity, and humanity. Those are emotional ideas that bring depth to a story that will further engage your audience beyond the surface level of what they’re seeing on screen.
Strong themes bring subtext.
Adding subtext to a screenplay is one of the most difficult skills for new screenwriters to develop. Adding strong thematic components to your script is one way to add subtext to your arsenal. Subtext is the art of implying ideas without directly stating them. The best dialogue is written with subtext. It makes the dialogue feel more natural and adds depth to the characters and their relationships. In the overall story, the theme should come across in a subtextual way. No character should ever have to come out and say, “I wouldn’t have to rob this bank if it wasn’t for the insurance company denying my claim!” That point should be made by the action, the relationships, and the flow of the story. If the screenwriter and the filmmakers do their jobs properly, the theme of the story, the writer’s point of view, and the story’s emotional context should be obvious to the audience.
The Theme is What Makes Us Care.
The lessons that we glean from stories, however subtly they’re delivered, provide the stories’ emotional spine. We need to care about what the protagonist cares about. What the protagonist cares about is generally reflective of the story’s theme. The protagonist’s growth is also reflective of the theme. The protagonist often starts the story with certain attitudes and beliefs, which often change over the course of the story as the protagonist learns and grows. Depending on how likable the protagonist is, the audience should root for the protagonist to make the changes she needs to make to become a better person and ultimately accomplish her goal. What the protagonist learns, we should also learn.
Not Necessary, but Helpful
Do all screenplays have significant thematic elements? No, they all don’t. However, using them will almost always make your script better. If you’re writing a genre picture like a straight action film, a comedy, or a horror movie, you can get away with omitting strong thematic components. But even genre films work better with them than without them. Think about your favorite genre films. There’s a good chance that even your favorite action film, comedy, or horror movie has some thematic component that sets it apart from the run-of-the-mill entries into that specific genre.
A movie’s prime directive should be to entertain. Some films are made to inform, others to expose a particular point of view, but all movies should elicit an emotional reaction from the audience. Presenting a point of view, some kind of lesson to learn, or the idea of growth from believing one thing to believing something else facilitates that emotional engagement by giving the audience something to care about. A movie’s theme ultimately provides that emotional engagement.