Strengthening Story with Symbolism, Motifs, and Image Systems

When writing a story, selecting strong symbolism, motifs, and image systems can empower any narrative and bring themes home to the audience in a more tangible, even archetypal way. Yet for many authors, symbolism can be an afterthought (if it’s even a thought at all). And some instructors in the writing community actually caution against putting it in a story intentionally. But like with most writing elements, that’s usually only dangerous if you don’t know what you are doing.

As a "young" writer, I admit I was easily impressed when authors used symbols and motifs--that they put in that degree of thought into the concrete world of their stories. But a few years into my own journey, I realized as a writer, I had to pick content for the concrete world regardless, so rather than pick something random, why not take a second and pick something meaningful? Something symbolic? Next time you go to grab something random, consider if choosing something symbolic would be more impactful instead. (But always use good judgment—anything taken too far can become annoying.)

Read More

Mastering Motifs for Thematic Power

Today I want to talk about a topic that for much of my life I could care less about--no really, I could care less about motifs. From me, they always got the metaphorical shoulder shrug. Like, who cares when there are so many other more important things to focus on in writing?

Turns out (as what often happens) I didn't care about them because I didn't fully understand them.

I also feel that part of this stems from the fact that I don't think we do a very good job teaching theme in our society.

It was only when I started really understanding theme, that I started caring about motifs.

Because no one told me growing up (unless I was asleep during that class somehow) that motifs are used in conjunction with theme.

I was only ever told that a motif was a recurring . . . thing in a story. The "thing" can be an object, an action, a word or phrase, a concept, a sound, a color, a--I think you get why I use the word "thing." But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Instead, let's first start with a topic we are all familiar with: symbolism.

What Symbolism Actually is

I sometimes dislike the word "symbolism" because I feel like it implies the need to "decode" something, as if it's a secret message that you can only get if you are smart or "in the know."

I won't say it's never such a thing, but I will say that often that is not the actual point of symbolism.

Mostly, at its heart, I feel that symbolism is a means to communicate something abstract in a more concrete way (which as writers, is something many of us will be all too familiar with). . . .

(Register for The Triarchy Method for full information)

Read More