Themes

Either consciously or subconsciously, I imagine most authors know what the theme of their novel is. Not me! I'm not even sure my current novel has a theme.

This manuscript, unlike most of my others, doesn't have one big thing that happens. While it has a few inciting incidents, it's more of a journey where little events add up to a (hopefully) satisfying conclusion. In that regard it will require patience on the part of a reader ~ instead of flipping the pages eagerly to find out how the main character "gets out of this mess", it's more like hacking through a thick forest of vegetation to finally reach a clearing. 

And what is its theme? If there is one, it's pretty weak. "She finds her true self at last"? "She finally knows what she wants"? 

Oh.

Good old Google's AI says:

Some common themes in literature include:

Good versus evil

Coming of age

Loyalty

Betrayal

Justice 

Power

Nope. None of those apply. Sure, a few of them exist within the story, but they're not going to be a reader's takeaway. I suppose the closest would be "coming of age", but I tend to think of that as the young hero finally defeating...blah blah blah...and my main character isn't young. She's "young-ish", but certainly no teenager.

The one thing I've been consistent about throughout the course of writing this book is that my main character is ambivalent. I didn't set out to make her that way deliberately. I actually didn't know whether she wanted a career in music or not. In a way, that made the story more interesting to write. When she's forced by her label to endure humiliating experiences, she's ready to call it quits. But anytime she's on stage, she glows. Even in the first half of the story, she admits to another character that her mother pushed her into singing at the expense of having friends and a normal life, but on the other hand, she only feels alive when she's doing it. Not exactly a "theme" a reader can latch onto. 

It's possible that once I finally write the ending, my theme will become clear. (No, I don't know how it will end.) 

But somewhere within the story, preferably sooner rather than later, a reader is going to need to know if it's worth sticking around for.