Themes, Symbols and Motifs

            When I was in high school and college, I took courses in which I analyzed books, plays and poems for hidden meaning, themes, symbols and motifs.  The instructors wanted to teach me to write with meaning in mind and not necessarily for the purpose of the story.  It kind of ruined the experience for me.  I hated doing that and was never very good at it.  I just soaked in the obvious and went on my way or wrote about how the message of the story related to my personal experiences.  I found it difficult to pull out anything that wasn’t totally apparent.  Perhaps that’s because I’m a WYSIWYG, a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of girl.  No smoke and mirrors here.  

When I started writing my novel, I never intended or even imagined there was any kind of theme or repetitive symbol or motif that held special meaning.  I wasn’t looking to leave behind a message or an impression of artistic rectitude or morality.   I just had a story to tell and I told it.  It started with a premise, a question I wanted to answer:  Could a genuinely good man be driven to do something truly evil and somehow find his way back to the man he used to be?   I even wrote a post about how I analyzed my own work for a theme.  (You can read it here, if you’d like.)

While this post has become one of my most popular and widely read, I think I might have been a little premature.  Yes, my book does deal with issues of forgiveness, or how the inability to do so turns the protagonist’s life upside down.  But because I’ve had to read through it so many times while editing and revising, I found themes and symbols I never really intended. 

Primarily, my novel deals with how the protagonist, Skylar Karras, deals with his inability to change.  He believes himself to be genuinely good, a moral man who follows every rule.  He doesn’t bend and his relationships with his brother and wife suffer when he won’t accept how they’ve changed even though they’ve done so because of decisions he’s made.  They are forced to work around the law instead of within it.  Then something earth shattering happens. 

When his wife’s life is disrupted by the crimes a stranger, she asks for Sky’s assistance, but he refuses to help and begs her to be patient while the authorities handle her case.  But she ignores his plea, takes matters into her own hands and winds up dead.  Sky can’t accept his role in her death and falls into a tailspin of depression, macerating his grief in alcohol instead of dealing with it.  His grief turns to rage and from there he follows a path of vengeance.  When Sky drunkenly mistakes the wrong woman for the stranger who’s responsible for his wife’s death, his eyes are finally made clear and he sees just how far he has fallen from the man he used to be.

The rest of the novel is the journey he takes to save his victim, to protect her and keep her out of the hands of those he’s negotiated a vindictive deal with.  In order to save his own soul, he must save the woman whose life he has derailed, as well as his brother, who’s used as leverage to force Skylar’s hand into completing their deal.  But he can’t save them all.  So how does he choose between the life of his brother, the woman he has condemned, and his own salvation?   That’s the crux of the story.  How does this man, who has always believed himself to be inherently good, make this decision?

Early on in my writing and later in my revisions, I inadvertently used two symbols or motifs: The San Francisco fog and a mirror.  Both represent Sky’s inability to see the man he was and the one he has become.  When he’s in jail near the end and looks into a mirror, he says he can no longer recognize the man he has become and that he can’t afford to lose one more part of who he used to be.  I also used the mirror in a very brief prologue, kind of bookending the story.  I had no idea I was playing with symbolism.  It just sort of happened.  And I think that’s how it should be.  Accidental.  Unintentional.

Don’t get me wrong.  Every writer writes a story to show how the main character has learned and evolved, but it shouldn’t be overt in its machinations.  One of my earliest critique partners was a college student, an English and creative writing major.  I remember her telling me how she tried to use flowers and the color yellow as symbols throughout her story.  I didn’t even remember either one so it didn’t make an impression on me at all.  Perhaps that’s because she was trying instead of just letting it happen of its own volition.  I think themes and symbols should attach themselves to a character in a tangible way, not to the story in a vague manner.  If you fully flesh out your characters and how their individual stories thread together into the plot, themes and symbols will organically appear, almost like magic. 

So have you ever written something and had a theme reveal itself instead of writing around one?  Or have motifs suddenly appeared where you never intended?                           

Finding My Book's Theme: Forgiveness

When I was reading Stephen King’s “On Writing” last month, I came across a passage on “thematic thinking” and it prompted me to contemplate my own work, to discover what exactly the theme of “The Mistaken” really is.  When I started writing it, I asked myself one fundamental question, “Could a genuinely good man be driven to do something truly evil and somehow find his way back to the man he once was?”  I certainly hope my story is believable.  I charted the man’s path and man him struggle with some pretty significant problems, but in the end, it all came down to one thing:  forgiveness.

Since I was first thrown on my journey, and by that I mean since I started this whole “I think I’ll write a book” thing, I’ve wondered why I ever thought to do it in the first place.  I’ve stated in earlier blog posts that this whole experience was extraordinarily surreal, that I’ve felt possessed by some force outside myself to write this story.  It was as if someone stood over my shoulder and whispered in my ear everyday exactly what I should be writing.  Because I certainly could never have come up with this stuff on my own, right?  Where did it come from?  I simply woke up one morning and the story was just there.  But why?  Why all of the sudden was it “just there”?

I’ve thought about that nearly every day since I first started writing because it feels like this is something I am supposed to do.  Am I supposed to do it to share a message?  Was I sent on this path to accomplish something personal?  Or perhaps I was meant to meet someone in particular?  Because I have met a few remarkable folks along the way, most notably my friend, Lisa.  She is what has stuck with me most on my journey.

I met Lisa Regan while searching for critique partners in Nathan Bransford’s blog forum.  Along with a few others, she responded to my post and a relationship was born.  She took me down paths I never would have otherwise even seen, prompting me to truly express myself, to become a better writer.  But more than anything else, she became my greatest confidant.  I consider her a great blessing, a truly wonderful friend.  Was I supposed to meet her?  Is that why I was hurled on this journey?  That would be fine with me, even if nothing else ever came of my writing this book, but I still can’t help but think there is something more to it.  I’d like to think that I was simply meant to write this novel.  Period.  But I wonder.  Is it the message itself that was supposed to reveal itself to me?

Twenty-six plus years ago, I had a child, a beautiful baby girl.  I wanted nothing more than to keep her, but circumstances, such as they were, worked against me and my parents, my father mostly, pushed me into adoption.  Because I was the ever-obedient daughter—or trying to be anyway—I went along with the idea, though it had to be on my own terms.  After an exhaustive search, I chose who her parents would be.  And after all these years, she seems to have blossomed into a wonderful young woman, currently serving in the Peace Corps in Thailand.  I try to believe I made the right choice, at least for her.  But down deep inside—subconsciously, at least—I hold a tremendous amount of anger and resentment toward my father.  I know this because in twenty-six years, I have never had one nice dream about him.  Every one is filled with anger and resentment even though I love my father dearly.  It’s never affected my relationship with him, but it’s there nonetheless. 

So, after reading Stephen King’s book, I began to ponder on the theme on my own book.  Forgiveness.  My whole story hinges on that element.  Skylar Karras, the protagonist, simply cannot move forward and get on with his life unless he learns to forgive, both others who have affected his life, and more importantly, himself.  I never meant to write a novel with a theme and I never even saw the theme revealing itself to me, even as I was actually writing it.  Lisa Regan somehow pulled that out of me by asking me to explain a few points that bothered her.  And viola!   There it was, the whole message of my book. 

Now I am wondering if that is the message on my journey, as well.  Is this what I am supposed to take away from this extraordinary experience?  Am I supposed to forgive my father so I can move on with my own life as far as my own daughter is concerned, so that I can truly love my dad like a daughter is supposed to?  I am crying here as I write this because I just don’t know.  I don’t know if that is what I am supposed to take away from this.  And I don’t know if I can actually do that, forgive on a subconscious level.  I want to, desperately so.  Because like my dear Skylar, I need to move on. 

I still want to believe that I was meant to write this story so that it may be published.  It is the greatest dream I hold for myself.  I want to do this in the traditional way, even though the publishing industry is in such a tremednous transition that it seems downright impossible.  Even finding an agent sometimes seems futile, especially after reading all the horror stories out there of un-agented writers still querying after many, many years. 

I am trying to follow the path I believe God has sent me down.  I swear I can feel His hand at my back sometimes.  I am trying to keep the faith, to believe in myself.  And I am trying to find my way and forgive the one thing that still burns in my heart after twenty-six years, three months and twelve days.