21.8 Thematic Revision

Thematic revision is the stage of the novel revision process concerned with a manuscript's underlying ideas, concerns, and meaning, examining whether the themes present in the story are developed with sufficient clarity and consistency, whether the plot, characters, and structural choices support and express those themes effectively, and whether the manuscript's various elements work together to produce a coherent thematic effect rather than pulling in unrelated or contradictory directions.

Theme as an Emergent Property

Unlike plot, which can be described as an explicit sequence of events, or continuity, which can be checked against a definite factual record, theme is typically an emergent property of a manuscript, arising from the cumulative effect of its plot, characters, imagery, and structure rather than being stated outright. A novel's theme is what the story is, at a level beneath its literal events, actually about: the questions it raises, the values it examines, and the perspective it develops on its own subject matter through the particular choices it makes in depicting character and event.

Because theme emerges from the interaction of many elements rather than residing in any single one, it is not always fully under a writer's deliberate control during drafting, particularly in manuscripts developed through significant discovery during composition. A writer may draft a novel that expresses a coherent theme without having consciously planned that theme in advance, or may draft one whose various elements express several different, not fully reconciled, thematic impulses. Thematic revision is the stage at which this emergent thematic content is examined deliberately, evaluated for coherence and effectiveness, and, where necessary, reinforced or adjusted.

Core Concerns of Thematic Revision

Identifying the Manuscript's Actual Themes

Before a theme can be revised, it must first be identified, and thematic revision often begins with the writer articulating, based on a completed draft rather than on original intentions, what the manuscript actually appears to be about: what questions it raises, what values or tensions recur across its plot and characters, and what perspective the story seems to take on its own central conflict by virtue of how that conflict is resolved.

Consistency of Thematic Statement

This stage examines whether the manuscript's various elements, its plot resolution, its characters' fates, its handling of secondary storylines, are consistent with one another in the perspective they imply on the story's central themes, or whether some elements appear to undercut or contradict the thematic position suggested by others, an inconsistency that can leave a reader with an unclear or contradictory sense of what the story is ultimately saying.

Depth and Development of Thematic Material

Thematic revision assesses whether a theme, once identified, is explored with sufficient depth and complexity across the manuscript, rather than being asserted once and left undeveloped, or repeated in a single, unvarying form without being tested, complicated, or examined from more than one angle as the story progresses.

Avoiding Over-Explicit Statement

This stage also considers whether a theme is conveyed through the organic development of plot, character, and image, or whether it is instead stated directly by a character or narrator in a way that substitutes explicit commentary for demonstrated meaning, a common target for revision since thematic content conveyed through what characters do and what consequences follow is generally considered more effective than thematic content conveyed through what a character or narrator explicitly says the story means.

Alignment Between Theme and Structural Choices

Thematic revision examines whether structural elements, the story's ending, its use of parallel or contrasting subplots, its handling of a recurring image or motif, are aligned with and reinforce the manuscript's central themes, or whether a structural choice made for other reasons, such as pacing or plot convenience, inadvertently undercuts the thematic effect the rest of the manuscript is building toward.

Common Techniques

Retrospective Theme Articulation

Writing a brief, explicit statement of what the completed draft appears to be about, based on a careful reading of the manuscript as it stands rather than on the writer's original intentions, provides a concrete reference point against which the consistency and development of thematic material across the manuscript can then be evaluated.

Cross-Referencing Character Outcomes Against Theme

Reviewing what happens to each significant character by the end of the story and checking whether those outcomes are consistent with, and reinforce, the thematic statement identified for the manuscript, since a character's fate often carries implicit thematic weight regardless of whether that weight was deliberately intended during drafting.

Motif and Image Tracking

Identifying any recurring image, symbol, or motif across the manuscript and tracing its appearances to verify that its use develops or deepens over the course of the story rather than remaining static, and that its final appearance carries an effect consistent with the manuscript's overall thematic direction.

Relationship to the Broader Revision Process

Thematic revision is closely intertwined with developmental, plot, and character revision, since thematic coherence is often achieved or undermined through the same structural, plot, and character choices those stages directly address, and adjustments made for thematic reasons frequently take the form of the same kinds of changes made during those stages, altering an ending, adjusting a character's arc, or reworking a subplot. Thematic revision is typically considered during or shortly after those larger-scale revision stages, since a manuscript's theme is a property of its content and structure taken as a whole, and cannot be reliably assessed or strengthened until that content and structure have reached a relatively settled state. It precedes line-level revision, since the specific wording used to convey a scene or image is secondary to the question of whether that scene or image is, at a structural level, serving the manuscript's thematic content in the first place.