The theme is the core question or thesis of a story.
To be clear, I’m talking about THE theme here, the core DNA story element. Not the umbrella or subsidiary patterns within a project that are also called “themes.” More on that in a moment.
The theme is a way of asking, what’s more valuable, A or B? Family or work? Work or love? Reputation or results? Individual or community? Fate or free will? Success or honor? Revenge or survival?
In storytelling for entertainment, the theme is often a question posed by a supporting character (overtly or covertly) in Act I. The journey of the hero examines this question from a variety of angles and ultimately comes to a conclusion in the battle scene in Act III, where the hero digs deep to defeat the obstacle and achieve the goal, and in doing so, answers the thematic question.
In entertainment, the theme is just as important as the hero, goal, and obstacle, and you can’t figure out how to structure the hero’s transformation if you don’t understand the thematic question you’re trying to answer. There may be many ways for the hero to pursue the goal despite the obstacle. There will typically be only one way that pursuit addresses the theme.
Stories for entertainment revolve around human beings (or anthropomorphized non-human entities, e.g. WALL-E). These stories are structured around emotional transformations which demonstrate how the thematic question is being considered and answered. For humans, given the general question of “what’s more valuable, A or B?” there are lots of options for what A and B can be. There are many possible emotional transformations.
In business, theme is not important in the same way. The reason is that stories for entertainment are journeys of emotional transformation, humans have emotions, and corporations don’t.
To be clear – human beings who own or work for corporations have human, emotional, transformative stories. There’s nothing about being in the corporate world that makes us less human or less emotional. This is a good thing for corporations because they need humans to do work, and enthusiastic humans who care tend to do the best work.
Corporate personhood – the notion that corporations are “alive” – has implications for understanding themes as key patterns in business storytelling. In this context, we humans are intermediaries for corporate transactions, and our human stories nest within the corporation’s narrative and the relevant umbrella and subsidiary themes.
The Big 4 umbrella themes in a business storytelling context are:
- Survival
- Growth
- Profit
- Mission/vision
Subsidiary themes relate to different “lines,” e.g. business lines, product lines, service lines, etc., each of which impact The Big 4 themes above. For example, some lines are valuable because they are profitable. Other lines may help a company recruit talent, stay in the good graces of the government, provide positive PR, etc.
In a way, a corporation is like a basketball team. There are players who are good at rebounding, assists, steals, defense, providing leadership… and by default, it’s understood that scoring more than the other team is the point.
In entertainment storytelling, for a human being, there’s no such default. Human beings can elevate abstract principles, emotions, and relationships above their own survival. Humans can be willing to die to reach their goals.
Humans get to decide what winning looks like, what “points” are, and how to count them. Humans can redefine the rules and nature of the game. Broadly speaking, corporations are all playing inside of the same game. That’s not a bad thing. It’s just a function of the difference between human and corporate persons.
So, for an entertainment story, you must know THE theme to be able to understand the story. For a business story, you only need the three elements of hero, goal, and obstacle. Within that context, there may be an “A or B” kind of question. The thing to understand is that typically, what you really need to do is clarify the goal. Questions like, what’s more important, profit or growth, talent or PR – these are better understood as questions of goal priority.