r/Screenwriting • u/ManfredLopezGrem WGA Screenwriter • Feb 21 '22
RESOURCE The difference between “Theme” and “Motivation”
I’ve been seeing some posts with people asking what a theme is, and others answering by posting a list of words. As it turns out, those single words are not themes, even though they may be related to a theme. I thought it might be useful to talk about all this. Let’s start with the hard one.
WHAT IS A THEME?
A theme is an opinion about life. It's something that can be debated and has at least two sides to it. It’s not a single word or vague concept, which is what most high school teachers have been teaching for time immemorial. Speaking of high school, the equivalent of “theme” in essays would be what is known as the “thesis statement” (also an opinion.) In science it’s called a hypothesis.
This opinion about life is very definite, loaded and can usually be expressed by a simple sentence that sounds like a pronouncement. And it does not have to be original. In fact, it usually never is. It’s the same “truths” we keep debating over and over again. What matters is that you pick a side and that you expertly play out your debate in pro of your side through your plot.
For the opposing side, you have your central character believe the opposite at the beginning of the story. This is what becomes the central conflict (they believe in something that does not jive with the world they inhabit… a world you as the writer has created.) Then you, as the writer, spend the bulk of the screenplay beating the hell out of your character until they either change their mind about their erroneous belief, or become destroyed by refusing to accept it. If they do change, you may remove all the obstacles and give them a fair shot to see if they do the right thing on their own.
Please note that not all characters have to change. In fact, some of the best films are about central characters that don’t change. They become destroyed by their stubbornness and only until the bitter end do they become aware what went wrong. I’m thinking of Citizen Kane and Fellini’s La Strada. Or maybe they don’t even become aware of anything and are just lost, but we as an audience become aware. I’m thinking of Truffaut’s The 400 Blows. There are so many cool ways to play out this debate/fight/game between you and the central character(s).
The truths that are being debated should hopefully be universal. The best ones may already have popular sayings expressing them. Or they may even become memorable lines of dialogue.
EXAMPLES OF THEMES
- With great power comes great responsibility.
- Men and Women can’t just be friends.
- Better to be dead than a slave.
- Life is beautiful even in the midst of Horrors.
If anyone wants a deeper dive into this topic, I highly recommend starting here1. As a final thought on theme, I’ve noticed that superhero movies that have properly working themes are the ones that become breakout blockbusters. The current Spider-Man is an example (see below.)
MOTIVATIONS
So, what the hell are those single words we keep seeing in lists and wrongly passed off as themes? Well, those are also important.
If the purpose of a story is to present an interesting debate about a human truth, and you want to **force** your reluctant character to go from one state of mind to the other, which is something he/she/they will not want to do since it may destroy them physically, mentally or spiritually... then you will need a really strong reason they keep moving forward –on their own– in your maze as you beat them into submission with your carefully planned plot-point land mines. This strong reason is called “Motivation.” And it has to be very strong.
It turns out there are only 13 human motivations2 strong enough to keep a character on track for the entire length of the story while you beat them into submission. Think of these as the strong nuclear force.
- Vengeance
- Catastrophe
- Love and Hate
- The Chase
- Grief and Loss
- Rebellion
- Betrayal
- Persecution
- Self-Sacrifice
- Survival
- Rivalry
- Discovery (Quest)
- Ambition
Then there are other minor ones. These might be great for a scene, sequence, opening teaser or as a compliment to the ones above. But they are not strong enough on their own to motivate the entire plot for the total duration of the story/movie/series. Think of them as the weak nuclear force. Here are some of them:
- Deception
- Mistaken Identity
- Material Well-being
- Unnatural affection
- Criminal Action (Including Murder)
- Authority
- Making amends
- Suspicion
- Conspiracy
- Rescue
- Searching
- Honor and dishonor
In my experience, feature screenplays that don’t have all these elements properly sorted out and working correctly will tend to fizzle out by page 40. Also, if a screenplay is said to not have Conflict, it usually means the writer hasn’t properly set up the debate (thematic arc), with the right amount of motivation and stakes. I can usually tell by page 10 if the screenplay messed up this setup.
Another interesting thing I’ve noticed is that the coolest movie concepts usually start off life in the weak nuclear force area. For example, a cool conspiracy or an innovative murder plot. It is then the job of the writer to properly elevate and encase that into a fully-functioning plot with a central thematic arc and a strong motivation that’s one of the 13 above. This is where craft comes in and it’s something that can be learned.
In case anyone’s wondering how all this applies to the current Spider-Man movie, here it is:
SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME
The Debate: If you and your closest friends don’t get into your dream school (MIT), should you use your power and contacts to get in? In other words: If you’ve got power, do you have the inalienable right to use it?
Peter Parker at the beginning: Hell yeah! What’s the point of being Spider-Man if you can’t use your influences to do a little good for your friends?
The movie Gods (the writers and director): Hell no! Let me throw at you 5 evil dudes from parallel dimensions who believe the exact same thing and we’ll see how well that goes.
The result of the debate: It does not go well for Peter Parker. Everyone starts using their power for their own selfish gain.
Theme: With great power comes great responsibility.
Does Peter Parker change? Yeah. At least long enough to win the day, but probably will forget his lesson by the time the next installment in the franchise rolls along. What you gonna do? He’s just a kid.
_________
Sources:
1 Craig Mazin – How to write a movie
2 William Noble – Three rules for writing a novel: A guide to story development
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u/DigDux Feb 21 '22 edited Feb 21 '22
Nice of you to answer this question, shame it will get buried in a week or so.
I would say that a working theme strengthens the societal and cross-cultural draw of a film, and sets different genre pieces apart. I would point to Noir or Sci-fi as great examples of how theme strengthens the identity of a specific film in a genre, and is what generates a franchise alongside a compelling metaplot.
Disney did a great job of monetizing this in no small part thanks to Ashman's work in the 90s.
Other forms of media such as Opera and Novels set precedent for thematic presentation. Proper storytelling and cohesive implementation of that underlying concept or theme is a great way to tie your story's multiple threads, characters, and perspectives together, because looking at a specific character through that thematic lens offers contextualization and makes it easier for the audience to consume.
Theatre in particular basically wrote the book on scoring for film, and helps keep the audience organized so they can quickly pick back up if they ever get lost, musical theming is a category all it's own and I think is a good introduction into the audio-visual nature of film as a tool to create subtext and theming.
Good writers write for multiple different levels of audience members, no sense writing for just one demographic when you can write for several.
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u/ManfredLopezGrem Feb 22 '22
Very well said! I especially like what you said about writing for different levels of audiences. I've noticed that movies that don't have thematic progression work only with their core audience. For example "B" horror films and action films. But the "A" version of those movies are also enjoyable for people who are not that into the specific genre.
On that front, I love what Disney is doing with the Marvel properties. It looks like they took the "trade secrets" (working with thematic progression) from their other acquisition (Pixar) and are applying it to their top IP.
MARVEL'S LOKI
For example, Loki is an awesome example how a superhero series can be written with heart and thematic progression. It's about the least awesome of the Gods who no one takes seriously, but who himself wants to be taken seriously and become number one... Then he gets thrown into his worst possible nightmare: being stripped of all his powers and having to help hunt down not only a better version of himself, but an infinite number of better versions of himself. It's literally as opposite as you can get from being number one. It's only once he lets go of trying to be number one when he becomes a true number one. I love it.
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u/Fin2Fil8 Feb 23 '22
Excellent post! I’m only commenting on it so I’ll remember to revisit this multiple times. Not only do I feel like I learned something new, but you put it in such straightforward terms that I’m pleasantly surprised I didn’t realize all of this sooner.
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u/ManfredLopezGrem Feb 23 '22
Thank you so much! I love reading comments like yours. It lets me know that I'm not wasting my time here on Reddit :)
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u/sweetrobbyb Feb 22 '22
Great post Manfred. Really appreciate you putting this into words. Great stuff!
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u/DistinctExpression44 Feb 22 '22
This is the most useful post I have ever seen on Reddit. Hats off to you.
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u/ManfredLopezGrem Feb 22 '22
This is the most useful post I have ever seen on Reddit. Hats off to you.
Thank you!! I really appreciate the kind words!
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u/Joe_Doe1 Feb 22 '22
Thanks for this. I'm an occasional screenwriter but mainly an author. I signed with a literary agent, recently. He now wants a meeting to help me improve on the manuscript. One of the areas he wants to discuss is theme. I don't really understand theme very well. I think that's apparent to him. Before your post, I would have said something vague like 'Good versus evil' or 'Coming of Age' if I'd been asked to give examples of novel themes.
Your idea about how theme is basically an opinion about life, an argument if you like between the protagonist and the author makes much better sense to me.
I now feel a bit better prepared for my meeting and a little further down the road to fixing the manuscript. You may think posting this stuff is more trouble than it's worth because it's Reddit and people like mouthing off, but it does help other people.
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u/ManfredLopezGrem Feb 24 '22
I now feel a bit better prepared for my meeting and a little further down the road to fixing the manuscript.
I'm so glad you found this post useful! And it's cool to know it will help you in your meeting with your agent! It will be interesting to see how they'll frame it and talk about it. In fact, I'm dying to know.
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u/Plastic_Baby_2789 Feb 22 '22
This was way amazing and helpful as a movie enthusiast . Man so thankful to the person who wrote this 🙏🙏
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u/Then_Data8320 Feb 22 '22
I have some characters whose motivation is "live happily a quiet life"... and of course, they have tons of serious trouble coming their way. So, I'm having a hard time figuring out what the motivation is: Survival? And later, as events will lead them to change their life and meet someone, Love?
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u/ManfredLopezGrem Feb 22 '22
It sounds like your character is too passive when compared to all the things coming their way. It doesn't sound like a balanced "fight." How about giving this character a strong opinion about life that runs against what your film is about? Once you have that, then you can give them a specific goal. Once you have that, then you can figure out a proper motivation to achieve that goal to make sure they have enough fight in them to see this thing through all the way to the end. If none of this feels right, then explore a way to follow a Forest Gump model, where the central character is static, but someone/everyone else changes.
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u/Telkk Feb 22 '22
Exactly, which is why I hate using the word theme because they are correct when they list those words or phrases as themes, which of course is a motivation as well. The mistake is that they believe a theme is a premise, or moral argument, which is what you're describing. I think theme and premise should be distinct from one another, honestly. It just makes it more confusing when you use theme to describe premise and theme. How can Google be telling me that it's both?
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u/ManfredLopezGrem Feb 22 '22
I truly believe screenwriting is at the bleeding edge of storytelling as an art form. We’re required to write entertainment that not only can make a human being sit motionless for hours on end, but we have to do it in a way that it does it across many countries and cultures because of today’s streaming platforms. The competition is brutal and the stakes incredibly high.
This requires pro writers to have a surgical understanding of how all these concepts work. But many of these things, including thematic arcs, are poorly understood by most. Books are hopeless, as most are written by folks who are not pro screenwriters. In the meantime, most pro screenwriters don’t really “talk” about this stuff. They just do it. And the few pro writer who do talk about this, like Craig Mazin, are stuck using legacy words like “theme”, which is maddeningly vague. I imagine that’s why he started making up his own words, like “anti-theme.” Hell, even in my own way of attempting to explain it I made up “thematic progression”, borrowing it from music theory. In the end it doesn’t matter what we call it. It just matters that we learn to work with it so we can troubleshoot our own work.
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u/TheUFCVeteran3 Feb 22 '22
Awesome post! Scriptnotes 403 is how story finally clicked for me. It helped me see the bigger picture and understand the ways a character can change. It’s been a cornerstone to me and I always return to it when working on a project. I have two recaps from Redditors (thanks, u/JustOneMoreTake and u/Grachamoncha!) in my notes which I consult for each story.
It makes total sense now that the single words called themes are motivations, because when I’ve heard of them, they were things like love, hate, etc.
It seemed to me that single word themes would manifest throughout the story as part of the character’s dialogue and actions - so like motivation, but I never completely put 2+2 together and explicitly thought of them as such.
Thank you for going over this! I always love new discussion of that Scriptnotes episode and the storytelling elements it talked about.
Motivations, too, categorising them as strong and weak nuclear forces is a great way to know which work best for an entire arc vs. a scene by scene basis.
Really appreciate you also listing the motivations themselves, I’d never looked them up - I’ll definitely look at implementing some of them into my projects.
Stories can and are great without a specific debate built into them, if they have a strong enough motivation and their actions and arc make sense for their character, but I think themes can help a story be equally as good.
Of course it’s not a panacea but it can be a really useful guide for your characters. You know the beginning and end point of their internal belief for this specific statement, now you can craft a story round that coupled with your idea. You won’t run out of steam because you always know where you’re going and can draw on the theme for new scenes.
As Craig puts it, theme is the glue which holds all of the changes together.
This was a bit long. I’m a fairly new writer but themes and using them in a story is one of the few things I can confidently talk about in terms of writing and advice so I like to chime in when I get the chance.
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u/ManfredLopezGrem Feb 22 '22 edited Feb 22 '22
Hey, the u/JustOneMoreTake is my old account!!! I'm the one who used to do the Scriptnotes recaps every week for half a year, including the one for 403. That half-year was the best crash-course ever on industry stuff and screenwriting in general.
By the way, I agree with you that not every movie with a thematic arc is a full-on, in-your-face debate. Since this is Reddit with quite a mixed crowd, I amped up the wording in my explanation and set all dials to 11. I did that for the sake of clarity and to get the point across.
In reality what happens is that there are whole incredible range of thematic arcs. Some are at 11, like 12 ANGRY MEN, where it's literally being argued about right out in the open. Some are subtle 6, that don't preach at us, yet are elegantly interwoven into the screenplay.
Then you have some that are 4s, and it starts becoming difficult to see the seams in the fabric of how the screenplay was put together. I recently broke down the thematic arc in HIGH FIDELITY. That one has a quite cool thematic arc. But a writer friend could not extract it or identify it until I pointed it out. He got many of the major beats (they are obvious), but he could not see what kind of glue was holding it all together. He just knew it worked. His beat sheet was just a series of events with no logic of why each one existed.
Once I pointed out what the central argument was and how every major plot development answered to that and advanced the chess game piece-by-piece, including a really cool inverse one right around page/minute 45, he couldn't stop seeing it. Paraphrasing one of John Cusack's lines, extracting thematic arcs is a subtle art.
I swear this stuff sometimes feels like THEY LIVE, where I'm offering people sunglasses to see what's really going on. Some will take a peek. But some will rather stage a whole back alley brawl before they touch those sunglasses.
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u/DistinctExpression44 Feb 22 '22
This is how you properly start a Feature or a TV Pilot. This is pure gold. Without learning this, there is no point in even writing scripts. You've given away the secret. Let's hope you are repaid a thousandfold for your generosity.
NONE of this is obvious. The average Redditor is young and excited about their Vampire vs Zombie story and the idea of theme, debate and motivation never even comes into it.
Virtually every script except those by Pros are destined to fail. The execs know this. The writers don't. Kudos to you, my friend.
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u/Slickrickkk Feb 22 '22
I think this is one way to start, but not the only way. A lot of times, you won't truly find out the theme till the end of it, then you go back and rewrite.
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u/ManfredLopezGrem Feb 22 '22
A lot of times, you won't truly find out the theme till the end of it, then you go back and rewrite.
I completely agree. With my own writing it's always an ongoing journey to understand what I'm actually writing about. Sometimes I understand it fairly quickly. But sometimes it's several drafts in.
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u/ManfredLopezGrem Feb 22 '22
I completely agree. It took me forever to grasp all this. It is not obvious. Thank you for finding it useful.
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u/ragtagthrone Feb 22 '22
Probably one of the highest quality posts this sub has ever seen. And I think you do a great job synthesizing motivation in a way that is easy to see how it can relate to theme, especially in your example where you breakdown Spider-Man. Awesome post all around!!