Does a story need a theme?

[CharlesEBrown]

There are two types of stories with themes:

Stories the author wrote to illustrate a concept or idea using said theme (a lot of allegorical fiction falls into this account) or

Stories that developed a theme organically (sometimes without the author's awareness - by way of example, C. S. Lewis started "The Chronicles of Narnia" with a book he never intended to have any theme beyond "English school kids have a magical adventure" and wound up writing one of the strongest and most blatantly Christian allegorical novels of all time, "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" - and then ENDED the series on a book that was meant to be an allegory for The Book of the Revelation to St. John which wound up more of a pure adventure novel (and, IMO, the weakest book in the series), "The Final Battle").

And Literature Professors love to discover and dissect themes in books, whether they exist or were meant by the author or not.

Note that while it is nearly impossible, perhaps impossible, to write anything of substance without a theme it IS possible to have multiple themes.

 

[Ananias5]

Been told every good story has a theme, a core message that is conveyed when reading it, even if it’s never expressly said as such.

I’ve found a lot of eastern light novels manwha/manga especially isekai fantasy kind of lack a theme and is just character going from place to place and series of events happening.

Despite a lack of any narrative message I’ve still found stories like that enjoyable so I was wondering if people think a story needs a theme,

In my personal opinion. No story needs a theme, but a good story has one. And despite what readers might say, I have first hand experience with an old story I wrote. My theme was on loss and struggles but I broke away from the theme and my readers found the story boring and started dropping it left and right. I set up a goal for my MC and I failed to follow through on it, that was my mistake and I don't blame any reader from leaving.

I think the first chapter shouldn't be short. If you want multiple themes find a way to put them all in the first chapter. Even if that chapter is 30 pages long. Meld the story together. Every story is a reflection of the author, and if the author has struggled or has loved or even hated. If he's good he can put that in his story for his readers. But what makes characters great is learning, adapting and growing. This can be applied to any theme, from lack of confidence to happiness and even harems.

 

[Jemini]

Been told every good story has a theme, a core message that is conveyed when reading it, even if it’s never expressly said as such.

I’ve found a lot of eastern light novels manwha/manga especially isekai fantasy kind of lack a theme and is just character going from place to place and series of events happening.

Despite a lack of any narrative message I’ve still found stories like that enjoyable so I was wondering if people think a story needs a theme,

Well... this is a little complicated. If you're talking about those super long-run series in eastern fantasy that have migrated over to the west in the form of webnovels (such at the ones on this very site,) they are often divided up into story arcs, which are something like shorter mini-stories that in turn serve the larger story. Several of these arcs have their own individual themes.

A lot of those long stories also have a theme to them as well. Martial arts stories often have one or both of 2 possible themes. Either the cruelty of the world or a striving for constant improvement, or perhaps some variation there of. Shonen stories usually also have that constant improvement theme, while swapping out the cruelty of the world theme for a theme of friendship. (Think about literally any of the big long-run Shonen anime and think about it for a bit, and you'll clearly see they really do have those two themes.)

So, I very much disagree with the idea that these stories you're talking about have no theme. It's just that they don't hit you over the head with it. And, I might add, a lot of the best shorter form traditional western-written stories don't hit you over the head with their theme either. You need to be paying attention in order to really put your finger on what that theme is.

So, knowing what I know, I think a story really does need a theme. It helps tie a story together and focus it, and it adds a sense of soul to the story that improves the overall quality. It's one of the contributing ingredients to that X-factor that really makes a story good.)

(I call it an "X-factor" because no one component of... whatever this is has the ability to add that quality on it's own. It's definitely a confluence of several factors, but it also seems it's not a consistent set of factors either. Those "ingredients" can be changed and still produce that X-factor. We can also often identify what some of those ingredients are when we notice that X-factor is there. Also, stories that lack that X-factor are always just kinda bad for reasons you can't immediately identify. It just feels wrong. You could start identifying what some of the problems are if you really analyze it, but on a first watch, you just notice something's off about it if it's missing that X-factor.)

 

[Dieter]

Most children's stories start from a theme or singular idea, and are then fleshed out around that life lesson.

I obviously didn't mean non-fiction authors when I said that. That said, alright. Basically people who write pedagogical stories / nonfiction, or tell chat-gpt to write stories for them start with a preconceived idea, or theme. But so does anyone who writes a story with an idea starts with a theme? I still don't understand what theme means.

 

[MajorKerina]

The mere choice of what words an author uses in a story even if it's chasing after the big titty classmate is part of theme. No story can go without themes. Even randomly chaotically throwing words together still is a theme. Because the theme is the choice of the story.

 

[anonjohn20]

Been told every good story has a theme, a core message that is conveyed when reading it, even if it’s never expressly said as such.

Yes.

I’ve found a lot of eastern light novels manwha/manga especially isekai fantasy kind of lack a theme and is just character going from place to place and series of events happening.

Slice of life and/or random journey are still a premise. look at "Frieren Beyond Journey's end."

And now it is a smut technophile novel.

Bring me the robot babes! 10/10

if you have a plot, you have a theme.

Best way to distill it is: Plot is what matters in a story. Theme is why.

Correct.

I still don't know what theme means. It's clearly not what everyone assume what theme means, because no one starts writing their story with a core-message in mind which basically amounts to a corny-quote, or likes having their story summarized into a single sentence.

Have you ever played any Fallout game? The theme is how "war never changes" (ignore all the biased critics claiming that its an anti-capitalism theme), even as a war destroyed the world, people are still finding dumb reasons to commit more violence.

 

[2wordsperminute]

It does need a theme, at least. Because I wouldn't enjoy the story if:

• It starts off as an isekai fantasy
• but then it introduces dinosaurs
• who are refugees from space
• and now we are in space ships, traveling to a black hole
• suddenly, after arriving, it turns out we are in Transformers fanfic.
• And now it is a smut technophile novel.

At least have a fixed theme that keeps the story together.

I would read that (at least until the transformers fanfic).

I still don't know what theme means. It's clearly not what everyone assume what theme means, because no one starts writing their story with a core-message in mind which basically amounts to a corny-quote, or likes having their story summarized into a single sentence.

I've heard theme described as a question that the author tries to present a possible answer to.

 

[Avery_Line]

People see faces in tree trunks, piles of laundry, rocks, or whatever. The mind is always putting together connections to form cohesion out of data.

If you truly have no theme to a work, people are going to put one in.
If you do put a theme in, people still might draw a different conclusion than you intended. However, author intent and cohesion will convey, even if it's implicit.
For example, take The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Six seemingly unrelated stories. But by the end, it's pretty clear that the Coens are making a statement about how we distract ourselves from the terror of mortality. Each of the six stories has a dramatic reveal of death, which was misdirected by amusing or absurd stories leading up to it. That kind of thing comes through even if it is not explicit.
Compare that to ABCs of Death, also an anthology of stories about death, but without any thematic unity. It's a hot mess.