Me and my (Imaginary) Friends

It struck me as strange the other day that some of the most successful novels and television series concentrate very strongly on relationships and friendships, yet the typical writer is very introverted - more of a lone wolf type character. So what's happening here?

Are writers able to absorb all these things from others despite their lack of personal interaction and bring it forth in a convincing way (in a variety of mediums), or am I just outing myself as a social misfit, and most other writers have huge circles of friends?

I was re-reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone the other day - the first JK Rowling HP book. You know that old Harry - greatest wizard in the world - does not actually do a single magical spell in the whole book? It's true. I checked. He does accidental magic at the beginning. He hops onto a broomstick and finds that he is an automatic natural at it. And there are vague references to him learning spells as part of his schoolwork, but you do not actually see him wave his wand and do a spell.

What you do see in the HP books is tons of stuff on relationships. A lot of time is spent on the building of relationships and the testing and proving of them. I think someone said once the HP books were like 'Famous Five with magic'. It's about the gang, not the magic - that is almost setting.

So, anyway. The portrayal of relationships and friendship is crucial to the success of fiction, and is a strong element in bestseller YA.

How can we, as lone wolf writers, learn to do this so well? Or are we just continuing our relationships with our imaginary friends from childhood into adulthood?

Use of Theme

Quiet a few years ago, as a critique circle newbie, the group I was with would set deliberate exercises to help us focus on various writing craft elements. It might be point-of-view, writing in various tenses etc.

One month someone proposed themes – i.e. looking at and articulating the theme of our current work in progress.

I can remember thinking at the time ‘Theme? Huh?’

I had never consciously put a theme into what I wrote, and expressed my puzzlement to the group. Someone immediately responded ‘You do though! You always have quite strong themes coming out in your stories.’ After having thought about it a little while longer, I realized they were right. I did actually have themes in my work (it felt kind of like looking at those 3D pictures hidden inside another photo - it leapt out at me when I looked for it), but these were emerging almost unconsciously through the struggles of my characters and the way I had constructed the plot. Yet it was all instinctual.

I do spend time thinking about what is the core essence of a book – essentially ‘what the book is about’ – but really in terms of the characters and their journeys. I don’t use a theme or series of themes as a deliberate cornerstone for my work.

I know that some writers do have themes or issues that they feel strongly about, even to the extent that this may be one of the key reasons they are driven to write in the first place. In this case, the theme, and consideration of how to express this, forms an essential part of their initial creative process and a central anchor to their whole project – something that they may return to again and again to see if they are ‘on course’.

Do you try to bring out a deliberate theme in your work, or is it something you just let happen? Do you think the consideration of a theme is essential to writing fiction?