In a post on her blog, C.S. Lakin discusses how to use theme effectively in your work, without being too obvious, nor too opaque. “If you build it over the entire novel, weaving it in as your characters experience life and learn and grow, the theme will deepen and become entrenched in the heart of the story,” Lakin writes. “As you plot out your scene, you’ll want to always ask yourself how you can tie your theme in with that moment in some way, however subtly or blatantly. It’s not so much the universality of the theme, though, that determines how powerful an effect it will have; it’s how well you develop it throughout your story.”
Lakin advises building your theme gradually. “You want to be careful that, in your desire to send a message to your readers, you don’t sound like you’re pontificating or pushing your moral standards on your readers,” she says. One way to convey theme is to have a character adopt an opposing view, and then gradually embrace your preferred way of thinking over the course of the novel. In many cases, characters change in this general order: opinions, attitudes, values, core beliefs, self-image. Realistically, these changes don’t happen after one conversation, but over time, as a result of many interactions and experiences.
