As a writer of non-fiction and a teacher of expository of writing, especially writing about fiction, I believe in thesis statements, have thought a lot about how to write them, and tried to teach high school students to do the same.
A thesis statement in the context of a literary essay is a claim about an idea in a story or poem. A very simple example, from Jack and the Beanstalk, is Jack is foolish. The idea is foolishness. The ‘about’ is Jack’s actions.
To go one step further, an even better thesis statement presents a roadmap for how you will argue your thesis, in this case, that Jack is a fool. The road map to my Jack thesis is something like ‘because he sells his mother’s cow for some beans, steals from the Giant, and returns to risk his life some more. Notice that the road map is in grammatically parallel form. Also, this order signals to the reader that you will present your three arguments in that order. First the beans, then the stealing, then the return.
However, in the approach I’m taking to writing stories, my discipline is to never have a thesis. In other words, I never want to start a passage announcing what the passage is going to show. Rather, I want to just go ahead and show it and let the reader draw the conclusion.
For example, I started a recent chapter by telling the reader that this high school baseball game was the best game Lenny (my protagonist) ever played in. Then I went on to tell what happened in that game.
When I began revising the chapter, I realized I had begun it with a thesis and cut it out. If I narrate the game successfully, then the reader will be able to conclude that this was a darn good game for old Lenny.
‘No thesis statements in fiction’ is one of a number of disciplines I’m trying to practice in my fiction writing, to let the reader discover the meaning that the events of the story imply. Good fiction, even Jack and the Beanstalk, is full of ideas. Readers don’t have to be told they are there.
Leave a Reply