Master Theme in your Storytelling
Become Incredible at Writing Stories People Connect With
Your Guide to Crafting Stories
That Resonate with Meaning
This workbook gives you the techniques and strategies you need
to develop the thematic heart of your story.
Theme is the foundation of your story.
It centers the world, characters and plot – grounding them in reality, no matter where your setting is.
Themes are the parts of stories that resonate with people.
“To die for love”
“To work for what you believe in”
“A thirst for the truth to be revealed”
“To never give up for the sake of your dreams”.
They keep us watching for seasons of episodes of tv or reading all the books in the series.
But what if you struggle to know what that foundation is?
Do you find writing theme hard?
Have you been told to ‘have a strong clear theme’ without being told how to develop it?
Do you have ideas about plot or character but aren’t sure how to figure out what the story is about?
Does this sound like you?
Maybe you:
Struggle to understand and define themes within your story
Overload your story with themes trying to address too many ideas at once (which dilutes your message)
Oversimplify your theme—reducing it to a cliché or surface-level idea, leaving your story feeling predictable or shallow
Struggle to reflect your intended theme in your plot, conflict and characters
Ignore theme until the end, making it much harder to integrate than you imagined
Whatever your difficulty
this workbook is your guide to finding your theme
and writing with purpose.
This book will help you to:
Identify the central theme of your story
Understand the moral and premise of your story
Weave your theme seamlessly into the plot and characters
Focus on the themes that are most relevant to your story without losing its depth
Connect your characters' goals, conflicts and transformations with your story's theme
Support your theme through the plot
No more missed opportunities for depth because your plot and characters don’t reinforce the theme!
No more confusion and uncertainty!
What’s inside the workbook?
This workbook has four key sections:
1
What is theme?
Reviewing the ways ‘theme’ has been used to explore topics and discuss morality in storytelling. This sections gets us on the same page when we talk about theme in this book.
2
How to talk about theme
Learning language that makes theme easier to talk about. This section gives you specific phrasing to use as tools to describe the essence of your story and techniques to define your theme.
Demonstrating theme in your story
3
Showing the theme or themes you want to explore through plot and characters. The section walks you through developing a plot that explores your key theme and characters that develop that theme.
Creating complexity in your theme
4
Exploring how we add depth to your theme through world building and the variety of character perspectives. This sections gives you advanced techniques to further deepen your thematic exploration.
How will this book teach you?
This workbook uses a variety of methods to teach you the techniques inside.
Learn several ways to develop a premise or theme line – using these statements to guide your writing
Use practical exercises to implement what you learn as you go
Have consistent reinforcement of lessons
Learn a variety of tools and techniques you can take with you to any creative writing project
Structure of the workbook
Instead of creating a story from a plot or character idea, you’ll be creating a story from a thematic idea.
The book will take you through the process of identifying themes and concepts you care about and using these to develop a story.
You’ll:
Work through brainstorming exercises,
Develop premises and theme-lines to nail down ideas you want to explore,
Write a summary combining your premise with a basic plot outline,
And then you’ll move onto fleshing out a beat sheet based on your summary – so that you will have a blueprint of a story ready to support you in tackling your first draft (whether that’s a script, novel, video game or short story).
And then there’s the advanced techniques…
You’ll wrap up the workbook by learning advanced strategies and concepts to assist you in further developing your story’s exploration of theme through varying character perspectives and worldbuilding.
All this for only CA$25!
Testamonials
The Mastering Theme in Storytelling workbook is brand new!
But my Character Crafting Compendium has been out for a while and here’s what people had to say about it on Etsy!
“The questions posed in this Workbook ask us to consider the impact of life experiences, childhood beliefs, physical appearance and memories when creating a believable character. A must buy!”
“Amazing and really helping me sort out my character’s personalities”
“Anyone who struggles with character development or creating backgrounds that build a strong, believable protagonist or antagonist could use this wonderful tool.”
“Absolutely love it! Easy to download”
FAQ
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This workbook is perfect for beginner to intermediate fiction writers.
Anyone who is looking for clear guidance in developing their themes, or looking for tools to add to their writing toolkit in relation to theme building and exploration.
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It’s both! You will receive a ZIP file with 4 copies of the workbook.
An A4 printable version
An A4 pdf fillable version
A US letter printable version
A US letter pdf fillable version
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Absolutely!
This workbook is centered around fiction writing. Its gives you strategies, tools and techniques that are great for writing novels, screenplays, stage plays, short stories, video games, podcasts - and anything else you can think of!