How Do You Find A Theme For A Short Story?
A short story may contain one unifying theme that deals with a part of the human experience, or it may employ several themes of equal importance. When writing a short story, it’s important to find a theme that’s revealed through one of the characters or directly through the author’s voice. Study other short stories for ideas. In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” the theme concerns blindly following tradition despite the end result. Nathanial Hawthorne’s short story themes involve sin and redemption. Many of Guy du Maupassant’s short stories, such as “The Inn,” have insanity as a theme. Develop your characters before writing the story. Think about a subject you’d like to express through them and weave a theme around that, like unrequited love, developing self esteem, individuality or fighting evil. Write a story and then find the theme. Sometimes streams of conscious writing can produce a powerful short story theme, as it exposes what’s in the subconscious mind and releases it unfiltered
