June 30, 2022
The Cascade Christian Writers Conference was a great time to get reacquainted with old writing friends and make new ones, as well as receive instruction in writing and marketing. Not to mention the excitement of winning a Cascade Award for best middle grade book. (Abbie’s Woods: Defending the Nest) The picture above shows me walking up to receive my award. Do I look happy??
One class I attended was on marketing and finding our theme and our audience. Christy Award-winning author James Rubart had our class do an interesting exercise to figure out our life theme. Want to try it? First, pick your 3-5 favorite movies of all time, ones you like to watch over and over. Then look for the common thread in those movies. You may have to dig a bit, but it can be fun to figure out.
My Theme
It took me three days to come up with mine. My favorite movies: Lord of the Rings, Sound of Music, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Shawshank Redemption. A bit of variety in there! One a fantasy, one a musical, one about a lawyer and prejudice, and the last about prison. Can you see an underlying theme in them? What I came up with was: individuals fighting against powers of darkness using weapons of light. Frodo and Sam defeat the evil Sauron through sacrifice, not firepower. The Von Trapp family takes a stand against the Nazis through music. Atticus Finch has the courage to fight legally for an innocent black man, despite the hate arrayed against him. And Andy Dufresne is motivated by love to help his fellow prisoners and bring down the cruel prison warden.
That theme does run through at least some of my writing. In Abbie’s Woods, Abbie finds that revenge does not work, and she has to reach out with forgiveness and understanding before her problem can be solved.
What is Your Theme?
What about you? Want to give it a try with your own favorite movies? If anyone tries it and comes up with a theme that you think fits, I’d love to hear it. But I won’t try to figure it out for you—because only you (and God) know your heart. It may or may not work with kids, but it could be fun to try it with older children.
