Motifs?

[sr71plt]

Do others use a motif (or motifs) of some form recurringly and purposely in your stories?

In my GM ones, going through a doorway covered with a beaded curtain symbolizes (and is employed literally) moving into a sex act with another man--often for the first time--or at least at a significant decision point in that circumstance. This came up because a reader just asked me about it in an e-mail about the story "Across the Threshold," which was spun into a GM first-time anthology I titled that initially and later Beyond the Beaded Curtain in a longer version.

I also use paintings and music a lot symbolically.

 

[3113]

Do others use a motif (or motifs) of some form recurringly and purposely in your stories?

All the time. Usually, however, I don't use them consciously until I start re-reading the story and get an idea of it's overall theme. My GM story "Designated Driver" had the most obvious ones, like the bottle of mescal that leads to the sex these two men have been wanting to have all along...but which requires one of them be a designated "driver," etc. I could have just had the guy get drunk on tequila, but it was more fun to highlight that special bottle, that transformative item that symbolized a release from inhibitions as well as loss of control, misperceptions, etc.

 

[sr71plt]

All the time. Usually, however, I don't use them consciously until I start re-reading the story and get an idea of it's overall theme. My GM story "Designated Driver" had the most obvious ones; motifs relating driving to sex, who was in the drivers seat and sex/driving under the influence, etc. It was fun.

Ah, yes, I use the saddled/riding/mounted references frequently, and happily. I have some Western stories that they seem to fall easily into place in.

 

[oggbashan]

I sometimes include sheep.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I think of motif as one-way boundaries that cant be uncrossed, like, say, birthdays. I prefer rigid boundaries.

That said, something like water doesn't fit my purposes tho I know water is a good motif.

 

[jomar]

Speaking of water... In a few of my Marion series I used a wide, deep, slow moving river upon which a variety of boats trafficked. Not really sure why I did it or what it means, but if I want to get all grad student about it I suppose it could be an unchanging constant juxtaposing (paralleling even, now that I think about it) and magnifying the characters vast change.

Or not.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Wagner did.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Do others use a motif (or motifs) of some form recurringly and purposely in your stories?

Occasionally. In "Stringed Instrument" I played with that motif of a string under tension early in the story, as a metaphor for the connection with two people - both in a cello and with a safety rope. Then I left it alone for quite a while, and late in the story I came back to it and snuck in a mention of a broken cello string, just to suggest a certain train of thought. But I try not to be heavy-handed about it; if people are reading it and thinking "hey, that's a motif!" then I probably need to wind it back.

 

[3113]

if people are reading it and thinking "hey, that's a motif!" then I probably need to wind it back.

Heh. The problem is knowing if it's heavy-handed or not. We writers, knowing such literary tricks, can often see them when others can't. So we may read each others stories—or our own--and think, "Hmmm, a bit heavy handed there with the cello string...." but we're not the average reader. I've found that readers, by and large, tend to miss such things. Just as they miss all the little flaws and issues that we writers might see and nit-pick about.

So I, the author, may think some motif of mine is a big anvil that I'm dropping on the reader's head, but the reader might actually have to re-read the story several times before they ever get it.

Interesting question/issue. How do we know if we're laying it on too thick or not thick enough for most readers? Readers who are not, like us writers, going to easily catch such things?

 

[sr71plt]

To be an author's motif, I'd expect to see it over their collection of works. I don't think I spend much time focusing on the "beaded curtain" motif in individual stories--I just have a couple going through a doorway covered by a beaded curtain. It's more like a reader who follows my stories will have it pop out at them when they see it in a story.

 

[TamLin01]

All the time. Usually, however, I don't use them consciously until I start re-reading the story and get an idea of it's overall theme.

I notice this a lot too, and I think it's pretty common. Often your subconscious is up to something when you write and after a few drafts you can pick out what it's up to and then you get to play around with it some more.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

LOL Mostly your subconscious is up to awful writing, with a dollop of creativity.

 

[MrFoxwood]

In a series I wrote a couple of years ago I got the idea of using honeysuckle as a motif for lesbianism, I'm not sure it went anywhere further than a couple of vague references, but it certainly stuck in my mind.

 

[3113]

In a series I wrote a couple of years ago I got the idea of using honeysuckle as a motif for lesbianism, I'm not sure it went anywhere further than a couple of vague references, but it certainly stuck in my mind.

That's a nice one!

 

[JKendallDane]

My muse has a thing for the stereo playing when I write, so quite often music; whether it be mentioning an artist and song title, or specific lyrics; usually finds its way into most of my stories.

Food tends to wedge itself into plot lines on a regular basis also...sometimes erotically and sometimes just as symbolism such as: "Sure, scrambled eggs sounds good. Just like my brain is right now."

And if a stuffed animal or two shows up in the storyline, you can be assured that this is a turning point of some type in a romance. A three foot tall Tigger and 18" Winnie the Pooh plushies are recurring characters all their own in my current series 'Pizza Boy at the Door.'

Good old Sigmund Freud would probably have a ball analyzing some of the things I regularly insert in my works.

 

[sr71plt]

A posting by Throbbs on another thread reminded me of another motif I pursue occasionally in my stories (and one poem here). "La Petite Morte," which is French for "a little death," and has been used by mainstream authors and philosophers as a symbol for orgasm.