by Brenda J. Wood
The first thought that popped into my mind was crochet. A crocheting motif is a repeated shape or stitch pattern that’s joined together to make a larger item. Surely a writing motif can’t be much different. Right? Basically, a symbol represents your idea, but a motif is an idea used repeatedly.
Think of the Bible. Jesus is the theme but sixty-six books add motifs on a regular basis.
We see Jesus represented as the Son of God as he speaks, heals and so on.
In my book, The Pregnant Pause of Grief, you find grief as the theme, bolstered with the symbol of widowhood, and motifs of fears, anxiety, loss, loneliness, separation and anxiety,
The theme of To Kill a Mockingbird is prejudice while the symbol is that mockingbird and it also becomes the motif for all the terrible things happening in the story. After all, why would you want To Kill a Mockingbird when all it does is sing?
A motif occurs often. It might be some kind of sound that appears often, like the scary music motif in Jaws. The music happens and you just know someone will be eaten! (I will never watch that movie! The music is bad enough!)
See what symbols and motifs these colours bring to your mind.
Purple- royalty; White-purity. Black- dark, moody. Blue-Sad. Left-handed-sinister. Lion-strength. Red roses- Love.
These are easy enough, but what if I say yellow roses? They symbolize friendship.
Symbols can speak without adding details. In my poem, Tick-Tock, the Magic Clock, you know as soon as you hear the words tick-tock, that the poem is about a clock.
Wise use of symbols can speak for you like a musical cymbal; loud and banging into one’s conscious. That brass plate cymbal, struck with a drumstick is bonging clearly and so should our symbols be. Think Jaws!
The trouble is that cultures, situations, and upbringings differ. When my friend fled to a women’s shelter, a delivery of red roses with their heads chopped off did not speak of love.
Even in a civil conversation, our use of certain symbols might offend someone not familiar with our terminology. While I might view a person using swear words as someone without proper manners, another person might say “That’s my kind of guy!”
We must choose our symbols carefully. And use motifs to make that symbol clear. Do we know our audience? To a Christian, the cross stands for Jesus. To someone else, it is just a piece of jewelry.
In Romeo and Juliet, the theme is love but the symbol is lightand the love motifs range from budding flowers to dreams and other love expressions, countered by the hate in family members.
But what if we don’t use symbols or motifs? Let’s take a scene from Shakespeare’s well- known work Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2,:
What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
That I might touch that cheek!
I already suggested that the symbol is light, but see what happens when I switch out that symbol:
But, soft!
What shadow through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is blocking the view.
Arise, fair moon and scare away the shadows.
The maiden is not what I expected her to be.
Shakespeare stayed with the themes and motifs of love and light.This is something to watch in our own writing. Our words may journey off in a non-supportive direction.
No one actually sits down and prays “God, give me a motif”, do they? (Maybe in crochet.) We sit with a vague thought of filling pages, reaching word counts or chapters fulfilled. And yet throughout, theme and motif arrive because a good story must have them.
It might help to think of your words as a knitting pattern or one of Granny’s crocheted doilies. One stitch at a time, stitch by stitch creating first a colour theme, then the symbol and a repetitive motif, repeated until the finished piece displays the overall pattern.
by Brenda J. Wood
Brenda J Wood loves her life of writing, speaking, and grandchildren. Author of more than50 books, Brenda lives just north of Toronto, Canada, and loves walking paths cleared of snow and brimming with sunshine.