So, I used to hate this assignment. I didn't understand it as well when I first started with this Prep and definitely for several years when i started writing. However, finding your theme and being true to it is actually an amazing thing.

I haven't been in the forum much for the last few days because I've gone to my yearly writer's workshop attached to ICON (Iowa's oldest science fiction convention). Every year we gather and critique each other's work - which is an undertaking that we spend an entire day on in one room - plus some educational opportunities within the weekend con.

The piece I took is the novel I feel like I've been working on forever, though it has gone through so many different iterations. This year, I have the main storyline nailed. I have a few good threads and my protagonist's emotional arc is related to my theme and it works through the story from beginning to end. The specific excerpt regarded the contagonists (Yes, a real world that I'll link a definition to in a minute) and whether or not they were understandable. Consensus says more work, that they're more world-building than emotional arc, and I trust them.

The bad news is i have an insomnia issue when I forget my sleep meds, so instead of sleeping last night, I was turning over all that advice about those two chapters I sent. Then it hit me. The overall theme that is for my main protagonist also fits for those contagonists, that's why these stories are linked even though you can definitely not see that from their introduction in the beginning of the book. My theme echoes really well if I line them all up, and pull out my favorite character that I kept thinking didn't really fit in this book. Maybe he does. Maybe he's what I've been missing all this time because he's the one who all of them end up fighting against, whether it is a face to face thing, a signing of a bank loan, or just losing an opportunity.

So while you look for the theme, there's a list that's linked. It's a start, but it's probably not going to be where you need to end up. My theme is linked to a game. The contagionists and the protagonist echo a setup of the game that one of my space crew is teaching the others, and tha antagonist is against them all. My protagonist's love interest explains the rules of the game succinctly and this book follows rule number one.

Like the premise, your theme may go through many iterations, and I didn't figure out this one until after I'd drafted the book. Now I have to find that scene to make sure I'm remembering the next steps properly. Happy Writing!

Bonus: Contagonist is a powerful and often important character, who acts as a secondary antagonist to the protagonist.