Theme

What is a Theme?

Your story is like a human body; the theme should be its bone structure; without it your story wouldn’t stand up. That is how important a theme should be! The plot of your story should merge with your theme completely. 

Breakdown of a Theme

To explain, I will be taking a theme from last year; Felix Felicis. 

• First of all, you do not have to include the potion, this is a point of inspiration. It can be included, but you are also allowed to play with the idea behind it
• ‘Liquid Luck’ — that tells me what will drive my story. ‘Luck’ means; ‘Success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one’s own actions’. From this simple idea, I can build my plot.
• Luck is not only ‘good luck’, you can also have ‘bad luck’ (sometimes it’s good to think outside of the box)
• This year, each theme will have a list of buzzwords rather than a long winded explanation. They are to help you interpret the theme, but DO NOT have to be used in the story. They can also help you with a more subtle interpretation. Make sure you look at the overall theme explanation and that your theme matches up with that too. Buzzwords can help build motive and purpose for your character. For Felix Felicis these buzzwords might be:
  • Gold
  • Obtaining treasure
  • Recklessness
• Research your theme to add other elements. My character cannot use the potion if I choose  to write about their bad luck, but when researching the potion, I might find that it is addictive, and this is something I can incorporate to bolster my theme and add tension to the story. 

A Subtle Interpretation

Sometimes we have some fantastic plot lines in mind, but they involve a more a more subtle interpretation. This is risky, because you cannot guarantee the judge will see it.  To help explain this I will use the Beauxbatons constellation theme: Circinus – The Compass; a journey or adventure, finding your way when you are lost. One Beauxbatons writer had lost points due to their main character — Alice Longbottom — not ‘overcoming’ within their story.

• In this story Alice had sought to connect with Neville through sweet wrappers; she began to overcome. 
• Neville overcame in his journey to accept his absent mother.

These interpretations are valid, and integral to the story. In order to prevent deductions for a more subtle interpretation, outline them in your author’s note. This author’s note should only highlight what is already present in your narrative, and it does not mean that you will automatically receive full marks. Your interpretation and execution is still being judged, and you get full points based on how well you have done this. We will be actively working with judges to support their judgement of more subtle interpretations.