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Do you think about symbolism and theme in your story?

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Anyways, yes, I write certain kinds of symbolism into my own work, but I try not to hammer it home and punish the reader for the sake of my own cleverness. I think it can quickly turn into writerly self-pleasure (or FASTER SKATING, if you've been here long enough to remember our MS rhyming substitutions), and readers respond negatively when they see it.
This is where I feel conflicted. I like to write things that are cryptic, basically writing riddles within my stories. I do that because that's what I enjoy reading. But I understand that most people find it pretentious, overtly complicated, pointless, and as you say 'punishing'. A lot of people don't want to read a riddle, they want to be entertained. But then there are people like me and others who enjoy stories with deeper meanings and cryptic messages. To me that's entertaining. I can't possibly write a story I wouldn't want to read, but I'm aware that it's not what everyone wants.
 
C

Chessie

Guest
Do you think about symbolism and theme when you were writing your story? Did you consciously implement these into your story or did they just develop without you even realizing it?

And when does symbolism get to be "too much"?
Yes. It's one of the first things I settle on when plotting a story. Having a theme allows me to create the plot, characters with flaws that relate to the theme, and scenes. When does it become too much? When it overwhelms you to the point you can no longer tell the story or focus on it. Theme is like the prevailing component of a story that everything else ties into. Without it, stories feel empty to me.

A theme can be any idea you'd like to focus on in that story. For example, the novelette I'm working on at the moment is a reincarnation one "love prevails through time" so the characters, scenes, setting, etc is all related to that one idea.
 
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Caged Maiden

Staff
Article Team
Rex, you and me both. I write stories with symbolism and deeper meaning because as I said in my post, I NEED it. I'll look for it even if it isn't there, and I think the historical romance novels I tend to buy at Goodwill leave me desperately wanting in this regard, because though some of them attempt to be mysterious in ways, or deep, I find them less thought-provoking than I personally want, and when there are mysterious elements, it feels less like I'm stalking an elusive beast for the thrill of the hunt, and more like someone attached sirens and lights to my prey and I can't help but be offended they didn't have faith in me as a reader.

I wrote a novel that's full to bringing with symbolism and mystery, and while I'm not saying it's executed perfectly, it's the sort of slow build I like to read, with plenty of little mysteries planted along the way for readers who like to figure things out on their own. However, I haven't found a lot of readers who are very satisfied. In fact, most of them have gotten bored before I blow the mysteries wide open, and that means it's still a failure on my part, even if it's what I like to read.

Unfortunately, there's very little middle ground on some of these things. I can either give away the secrets up front, or I can build it slowly and let the reader figure it out. It is a touch disappointing to me, because I like it how it is, but I have to listen to the thirty-odd voices that have told me they want the information quicker because that's how they feel motivated to keep reading. It's sort of a delicate balance, and i'm sure I can figure it out, but I have learned a valuable lesson as I've slaved away over the manuscript--that I cannot please everyone, and that I need to keep a reader's feelings in mind when I make choices regarding disclosing secrets, wording certain clues, and doling out the plot.

I love symbolism and mystery, and I live subtlety, but I've found that it's really hard to predict what's "too obvious" and what's "perfectly subtle", because I felt like I was giving the clues that a reader would need to put two and two together, but I was way off, turns out. When I mention the deeper meanings of certain things to readers after they read the book and didn't "get it" some folks sort of agreed that the clues were all there, but the vast majority told me to make certain things more obvious, because they were really far from guessing what I wanted them to guess. Ah well...can't win them all, right?

I stil want it to be an atypical story, with many subtle clues given, but I need to find ways to make it clearer what I want them to take away from a given scene. To me, some of the power of Wit, was in the subtle undertones of the whole play. It wouldn't have had the same meaning if the message had been thrown in my face--that words were the woman's comfort in a lonely life, and it was that comfort that saw her through her disease and decline, and eventual death.

In my book, I have a self-serving MC who learns late in the book that her best friend had sacrificed for her benefit his entire life. She realizes it too late, and there's a point in the end of the book where he's dying and a stranger is trying to help him breathe, and he says he can't do any more to help the friend. The MC demands he do something, and the guy looks at her and flat out refuses. He says something like, "You want me to cut a hole in your friend's chest so you can say goodbye?" bringing yet another layer of her selfishness into question. She finally sees how she's always gotten what she wanted from her friend, despite the cost to him, and she answers that she doesn't want him to do anything. She lets her friend pass silently, and it's a turning point for the character, an end to her selfishness, because she finally sees what she's been doing throughout the novel. Readers responded really positively to that scene, so now my goal is to just make all the symbolism have the right impact, like that scene did. Unfortunately, that one was easy. Some of the others aren't so simple to bring to a reader's attention. In fact, many of the subtle things I love about the story aren't ever discussed in the dialogues. They're at most touched upon in internal thoughts in a place or two, but their roots go much deeper. The woman who's feeling old and useless and suicidal at one point, who acts rashly and recklessly because she wants to see her goal done, though it'll defeat all her careful planning. The husband of the MC I mentioned before, who's slowly declining as his fears begin to overwhelm him and they lead him to make a critical error he can't fix. I love how all the little parts fit together, but like I said, for most people who've read it, they missed some really important things because I guess I wasn't clear enough. I really wish people got as much out of the story as I did, but then again, going back to the play I mentioned earlier, people have different views of things, and it's really hard to send the accurate message if you're relying on deeper symbolism to do the work, because some folks miss clues, or don't know they're meant to be reading between the lines so deeply. I honestly don't know what to do with my story. Do I keep it how it is and demand readers do the work on their own, or do I find ways to compromise more?
 

Velka

Sage
Theme is very important in my work. I've now switched over to using thematic outlining for my stories, and feel like I've finally found an outlining method (with some personal tweaking), that makes sense for me.

I start with a main theme, then brainstorm sub-themes that relate to the theme. These then become the basis for my main plot and subplots. It really does create a lovely feeling of cohesiveness to the entire piece, having them all work with, and against, each other in unison.

Symbolism, ugh, not so much. I find that if I explicitly plan to use it, it comes across heavy handed and obvious, or so subtle, that I ask myself what's the point?

Sometimes it subconsciously manifests in my work, and it's delightfully surprising. One of my character wears gloves as part of his station - once I finished the first draft of the first book I realized I had him take off his gloves nearly every time he put his needs/wants, or those of his partner's, above the duties of his station. I then took that idea and wove it in more coherently.

So, theme, yes, super important. Symbolism tends to be more of a happy accident.
 

arboriad

Scribe
When it can be consciously done with being overdone, I think it adds some fascinating depth and also opens up further inspiration for themes and character development.

Two things come to mind that convince me, one is the Star Wars Ring Theory, star wars ring theory | Mike Klimo

And also 'Planet Narnia' that blows open the underlying imagery connecting the entire Narniad.[emoji1]
 

Helen

Inkling
About a year ago I read the beginning of a story by someone in which the symbolism was really obvious and kind of beat you over the head. It got old really fast. Everything from the chapter titles to descriptions was about birds to the point where I was like "I get it. Enough already."

This got me thinking about my own story and I realized there was a lot of symbolism in it that I hadn't even noticed. I didn't think about it when I was writing those parts.

This got me thinking about symbolism and theme and all those things English teachers make you analyze and I realized that I had never thought about the deeper theme of my book anymore than I had thought about symbolism. There definitely is one. It's actually really obvious when I think about it, but I never consciously thought about it.

Do you think about symbolism and theme when you were writing your story? Did you consciously implement these into your story or did they just develop without you even realizing it?

And when does symbolism get to be "too much"?

I consciously do it.

In my WIP though, I've inserted them after a few drafts, as a bunch of cool scenes led the writing.
 

Ireth

Myth Weaver
Depends on the story. Sometimes I do it deliberately, and sometimes it springs up when I'm not expecting it. In LOW ROAD, a vampire story, I use light and dark symbolism and bestial imagery to highlight the differences between vampires who haven't corrupted themselves versus those who have. The MC, an uncorrupted vampire, is described as a sheep among wolves when he travels to a city full of corrupt vampires. The light/dark interplay is also highly deliberate, as sunlight makes the corruption of a vampire's soul manifest by transforming them into monstrous winged creatures; they transform back when they're out of the sun.

In WINTER'S QUEEN, a story about the Fair Folk, the number three popped up everywhere without me consciously putting it in (three is a very important number in Celtic myths). At the start of the novel, the MC and her best friends make up a trio, as do the MC and her immediate family (widowed father and bachelor uncle); the villain's family as shown in the novel are also a trio (himself, his sister and his father). The MC's father and uncle, when striving to rescue the MC, have better success when the villain's sister comes along to help them, turning their duo into yet another trio. Of all the Fae the MC meets in Faerie, only three are willing to go out of their way to help her.

Also, interestingly, the MC wakes up in Faerie in chapter 3, and the total number of chapters is 18, another multiple of three.
 
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