In “Ars Poetica,” Archibald MacLeish famously wrote, “A poem should not mean / But be.” Had you not paid your money and were we not obliged to fill this hour, he might have been said to put the kabash on our whole topic. For isn’t that what “theme” is—the meaning of the thing? The question forever pours from readers: “What’s it mean?” Or in its slightly softer form: “What’s it about?”

Well, even if we reply, “It isn’t about anything; it just is,” chances are we lie. For, absurdists notwithstanding, everything “means” something; everything is “about” something. And even if we writers are so insidiously clever and subtle as to totally distill the “about” out of our story and leave nothing but a residue of pure being, we still will most likely have made use of theme in our building of the story.

To switch metaphors here, think of theme as the scaffolding upon which you stand and rise and you lay down the brick, the words of your story. When the story is complete, the scaffolding comes down, no longer needed. Your work stands alone.

Having a theme, knowing what you want your story to be about, will add depth to otherwise shallow moments, will help guide you in what to say, what not to say, which word to use. For example, consider the last several paragraphs of James Joyce’s story “The Dead” and Hemingway’s novel The Old Man and the Sea.

Not only does The Old Man and the Sea illustrate today’s topic, it also reminds us to keep it in perspective. Having noted the importance of theme, let’s do an about-face here and remember this: never, never, never allow theme to dominate story. Story is paramount. We are writing fiction, not sermons. If our readers want sermons, let ’em go to church. We are storytellers, not message mongers.

As the army does with reporters, your message should be unobtrusively embedded in the story. To the extent that it is visible at all, it should appear to rise naturally, organically, like thin smoke from the embers of your story. Do not pound meaning into your reader; allow it to fly off like a dove from your hand. This can’t be stressed enough: release, do not impose.

Unfortunately, this notion is not always embraced by readers. One of the more amusing outcomes that we experience as authors is to hear others tell us what our story means—which in at least half the cases is news to us. So take heart. If you happen to suffer a lapse and fail to include meaning in your story, don’t worry—your readers will.