Pageturners 7: Motivation and Theme
Welcome to Pageturners, a book I’m writing in which I share what I’ve learnt – and am still learning – about comic writing, film writing, novel writing and how new writers can sell their stories. I’ll publish a chapter or a section per week, available for free here on Iconoblast. And I welcome your feedback or questions, so do leave a comment below!
Missed the Pageturners intro? Read it here.
Motivation
Last week, I talked about step breakdowns and finales.
If all that seems a little daunting, don’t be deterred, there’s a short-cut, a way of resolving all complexities. And that is through your motivation. Motive will make everything clear and potentially simple for you.
Why are you writing in the first place?
And just to get the obvious reasons out of the way – it’s not just because you like novels or comics, or because it’s better than a real job, or you think you could be famous and make loads of money.
And let’s bypass the work of predator writers who (supposedly) want to ‘pay homage’ to their favourite comic writers and characters by slavishly copying them, or even taking over their intellectual properties if they get the chance
And the hacks who just knock it out for the cash. That hilarious sketch in Little Britain comes to mind: the thinly disguised parody of Barbara Cartland dictating to her secretary while lying on a chaise longue, trying to stretch out a novel to the required number of pages with an umpteen-page scream! I remember reading novels like that as a kid and then avoiding further books by the same authors. One such example was the Flame secret agent novels of Eric Leyland. They were extremely popular, I believe, but even when I was nine, I knew they were mechanical and lacking in heart. I noted how they always seemed to end promptly on page 195, probably a stipulation in the author’s contract.
Motivation is something much deeper and, in my case, at least, darker. It’s more accurately described as the Muse.
But, before we discover the Muse, I need to go over the theme in more detail which acts as a mirror to the Muse. We will see her dark reflection in the themes we choose and you may or may not like what you see, but it’s who we are as writers and we are stuck with her for better or worse.
Theme
The theme is everything in a story. It drives the character and the plot. If the theme of Judge Dredd changed and he suddenly veered off in an entirely new direction, there would be uproar from fans. Yes, he can change location: Outer Space, the Hell world of the Dark Judges, or the Moon – but he still has to remain true to the theme of grim future justice. Sláine is pagan, but if he suddenly became ‘New Age’, my readers would hate him and lynch me. So I always filter out anything ‘pink and fluffy’ from my esoteric researches. If Accident Man became a good guy and a reluctant assassin (as American film producers specifically requested), British fans, at least, would have loathed it. Instead, Mike Fallon revels in ‘keeping it shallow’, which makes him highly amusing to read and also able to make some sly, subversive, hard-hitting points without appearing polemic. Whenever, very occasionally, his moral compass troubles him, he says he will feel better after a coke and a burger.
The theme is the story’s anchor, so here are some examples from other writers’ work as well as my own. There may be deeper levels to their themes, but here’s how they came over to me.
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn. Book and film. Evil begins and ends in the family.
Never Let Me Go. Film. We must accept our fate without fighting back. A theme that is so negative, people walked out of the cinema the day I saw it.
Line of Duty. TV series. Series 2. Everyone has a dark secret.
Homeland. TV series. An innocent, peace-loving United States is constantly under threat from its many evil enemies, apparently without any provocation.
Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse. The working class are smarter than the upper classes.
Accident Man. Materialism will always triumph over social conscience.
Marshal Law. Where do we find genuine heroes?
Charley’s War. The system is evil; we can resist, but ultimately we just have to put up with it.
Third World War. Exploring the effective ways of defeating an evil system.
Sláine. Discovering the magic and the savagery of our lost Celtic heritage.
Bourne films. The system is corrupt but can be put right.
The theme in action and adventure fiction is political. It is never truly neutral although I’m sure many thriller writers would disagree with me. That’s because when it’s right-wing and/or reinforcing the status quo, it’s seen as neutral and normal. In fact, it’s so ‘normal’ that readers barely notice because we are so conditioned to this Orwellian perspective (see Ian Fleming, John Buchan, Captain W. E Johns, Graham Greene, Dennis Wheatley).
When it’s left-wing, anarchic, counter-culture, or genuinely challenging the status quo, it’s often seen as ‘getting on a soap box’, ‘loony left’, polemical or ‘weird shit’. The usual solution for such minded writers is to wisely escape into science fiction. But whilst readers may be only vaguely aware of subtext, the State is very aware of it and takes the power and the danger of words very seriously. This is why in World War One and Two, all authors of note were recruited by the State to produce propaganda. Much of their role was kept secret and it is barely known about even to this day.
Thus in World War One, all the leading writers supported the war and the State rewarded them by wining and dining them, ensuring they stayed in print, giving them gongs and sending them on propaganda-gathering tours of the trenches. Conan-Doyle called those trying to stop the mass murder of the war ‘peace cranks’. Bernard Shaw claimed to be anti-war, but ended up supporting the conflict. H.G. Wells had his particular God supporting the war and wrote a best seller on the strength of it: Mr Britling Sees It Through. Somerset Maugham tried to reveal the dark truth of the state’s dirty deeds in his Ashenden spy stories, but his most revealing tales were censored and destroyed. Half the original draft was burnt after Winston Churchill declared that it would be in breach of the Official Secrets Act.
So politics is relevant to theme in action adventure, whether we like it or not. And today’s thriller writers mostly have to take the King’s Shilling, too, unless they write science fiction or fantasy.
The theme and subtext of Charley’s War is particularly effective because it is successfully subversive and serpentine, which – it goes almost without saying – was deliberate on my part. Or rather my Muse’s part. It’s a good example of my particular Muse in action. She knew how to slip the message past the censors, who are still out there today. Actually they are out there in even greater force today than when Charley was originally written.
People of all ages and political persuasions enjoy the series today, both here and in Europe, because its message is not too challenging. Apparently. Seemingly. The system is evil, but what can we do? We just have to put up with it. The hero Charley Bourne complains and fights back, but never really rebels, even though all around him are examples of the darkest crimes committed by the State, which few dare – even today – to call crimes. In the final story, he’s on the dole in the 1930s, still patriotically believing in a better tomorrow as Hitler is elected chancellor of Germany. He reflects the attitude of our forefathers, many of whom knew the actions of the State were criminal, but felt there was nothing they could do about it. That’s if they ‘felt’ at all. Often they were too shut down to feel anything.
In reality, whilst appearing relatively harmless, Charley’s War changed many lives. It didn’t just encourage many readers to be history teachers or curators of military museums, it stopped numerous kids from military families joining the army and made others question the dark machinations of the State. So my theme paid off and my Muse was satisfied. Of course I didn’t fool anyone in authority, sadly, which is why, in the centenary years, although it was optioned by a major film production company for a TV series, it never happened. Similarly, radio versions and documentaries on Charley that were seriously considered by broadcasting staff never happened once they went ‘upstairs’ for approval. The same applied to book publishers when I tried to do a series in the same ilk. Their excuses for turning it down were amusing and transparent. The establishment saw right through me and I saw right through them.
There’s another war going on today – for our hearts and minds – and writers are at the forefront of it, as they always have been.
To know which side you’re on in such a conflict is a matter of identifying your Muse: just what it is that inspires you. Your Muse may be for or against the status quo. I’ve no reason to believe the Muse has to always be as radical as mine surely is. Although I’m suspicious when she is a confused and contradictory mix of viewpoints, masquerading as intellectual affectation. That’s how Bernard Shaw’s clever, funny and emotional writings often comes across to me. I always have the uneasy feeling he was being consciously pragmatic, rather than genuinely erudite, so he didn’t have to listen to his Muse and could suppress her endless nagging voice. I have some sympathy, because finding your Muse and following her instructions will take you on a deeper and darker journey than you may wish to undertake. Being pragmatic, ‘sitting on the fence’, or claiming you don’t even have a Muse is a whole lot safer.