I Have a Problem with Theme Copy. Here's Why:

By and large, I’m not a big fan of theme copy. Why? Because it all sounds alike in that it almost never says a thing. For example:

High school began for us as freshmen, when we looked upon a new horizon in our lives like the rising sun. We walked the halls each day and worked hard to achieve our successes. Endless possibilities to join clubs, play on sports teams, take different academic classes and meet new people greeted us each day. It was a chance to start fresh and make each day count. Alas, going through the motions of everyday life is often so heavy that we got to value the one that was getting us through our days: ourselves. #

See what I mean? It fills a hole on a spread, and nothing more. This next theme block is even worse:

Because we are the most awesome and uniquely original student body of all time, we: Listened to lectures about history and math. Crammed before tests. Finished project after project. Burst with pride as we laughed and cried. Drank water when we were thirsty to keep ourselves hydrated. Yelled at pep rallies and games. Met our friends in the halls and locker rooms and other places of congregation. Met challenges as we worked our ways through each day toward the end of our days as high school students.

Now, we look back at all the memories we have compiled during our four years of high school. These memories will accompany us throughout the remainder of our lives as we move forward with ambition and dedication. The future is ahead of us, but our high school horizon has passed, and the sun has set, but we must take heart in knowing that tomorrow is another day. #

There aren’t enough tomorrows for anyone to ever read this, but, of course, that doesn’t matter because it’s not meant to be read. It’s meant to fill a hole on a page. The theme must be more than a cute gimmick or a slick sales pitch. It should embody the essence of this specific year at this specific place with these specific people doing these specific things resulting in these specific feelings, thoughts and reactions. Think of the theme not as an arm or leg or other extension of the yearbook’s body but rather as the yearbook’s DNA. So, how do you come up with meaningful theme copy?

• Be specific

There’s nothing substantially wrong with the following sentence, but it’s mushy: Is it the dread you feel walking to your first class of the day?

This sentence is much more muscular: Is it the dread you feel trudging 50 yards in 105-degree heat and 80 percent humidity to the poorly air-conditioned Career Ed portables?

• Define your terms 

For example, I was working with a staff whose theme was “Let’s get a little rowdy.” So, I asked, them, “What does ‘rowdy’ mean?” It can mean “chaotic,” as in organized chaos, so they described stomping up and down in the bleachers during the pep rally before the big game against their big rival.

It can mean “unbridled,” so they described the seniors finishing an assembly by bellowing “Do it. Do it. Do it. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop, over and over and over.

It can mean “unhinged,” so they described the feeling a junior girl felt when she broke the school record in the 800-meter run. They also described what it was like for a freshman to sing “All I Care About” in the fall musical, Chicago. They also described what it was like for the newspaper editor to write something that got him in trouble.

• State the theme clearly 

If you can’t state your theme in one sentence, then you don’t know, and you need to do more reporting and more brainstorming. So, let’s assume you’ve done that. You return a second time with a coherent theme statement. Now, work it, bend and stretch it. Give it shape and voice. Determine whether it will be first, second or third person. Who will be the speaker or narrator? What will be the tone? Will it be conversational, formal, sensitive, raw, melancholy, ebullient, sarcastic, sardonic, or some combination of all of the above? 

• Be consistent

After you collect your quotes, anecdotes, examples and so forth, assign one person to write all theme copy. Don’t assign every editor a slice. You want a single, coherent, consistent, natural voice, and that’s highly unlikely if it’s written piecemeal. If more than one person is writing theme copy, it means no one is writing it. It’s merely being composed. 

So, let’s return to the “Real” theme. Note the difference between the two pieces of theme copy. This one is blah blah blah.

High School. Is it the dread you feel walking into your last class of the day, when you’re exhausted and drained? Or is it the impact that your English teacher made on you during your sophomore year? There are thousands of us who wake up, get ready, and take different routes to the same destination for five days out of the week, every week. To an outsider, we all seem the same. And what we have to realize is that we all are, in fact, the same. We are just another high school in another part of the country, but that does not make us any less real. It is not about the shiny trophies, or prestigious awards that every school loves to brag about, but about the people who worked for them. It’s about Being Real! # 

The next one is so much better. The original voice is a result of interviewing the right people, asking the right questions, observing, and explaining what it all means. It goes like this:

High school. Really? It’s the topic of countless books and films and TV shows, which begs two questions: Are they real, and are these the best or worst years of our lives? 

Will we look back in 20 years and say to ourselves, “That last class of the day was pure misery.”? Will we remember our sophomore English teacher, who taught us to love “The Lord of the Flies” even though we hated it at first. Will we miss the crowded halls, the crammed locker rooms, the long cafeteria lines, the endless repetition and redundancy? Or will celebrate when we’re no longer tied to rules and procedures we barely understood?

 The answer, of course, is “Depends on who you ask.” If you ask senior class presidents Jackie Mason and Faith Hall, they’ll tell you they’ll never forget the rush of being elected and cheered at their first assembly. If you ask sophomores Katie Crown and Jake Russo, they’ll tell you they loved hanging out, chatting in the bleachers after 6th period.

If you ask seniors Bobby Morrow or Margaret Mead, they’ll tell you they hope to never hear another PA announcement again. Ever. So, high school is mostly what you make of it and occasionally what it makes of you. To members of the varsity football team, it was a shiny gold trophy for winning district. 

For English teacher Judy Allen, it was a stack of essays on “To Kill A Mockingbird” left ungraded. For custodian Wally Cleveland, it was lipstick on the bathroom mirrors. For each of us, it was our own American Graffiti, our own Romeo & Juliet, our own Glee or Gossip Girls. They may not be real. But they’re real to us. #