Repeating Themes and Archetypes in Your Work?

[WildBoots]

Idk about y’all but sometimes I can’t see the shape of my own thoughts until I’ve written. I like “catching myself in the act,” learning about my own hangups by seeing how many times they come up in my stories. And I like getting insight into writers from noticing their patterns too. (Like Maggie Stiefvater’s abundant love of cars or Jeff Vandermeer’s relationship to Florida.)

What tropes, archetypes, themes, and images come up for you over and over?

I write trainer-centric stories, and right now every —single — one — of my major characters is heavily motivated by their daddy issues. I’m not sure how it snuck up on me so many times or managed to manifest in so very many ways. CLEARLY I feel some type of way about being abandoned by men in my life, and I didn’t realize it was in my head so much.

Like, the character whose dad died and is trying to prove himself worthy of his father’s memory ... that’s pretty straightforward. Fine. It me. He even brushes it off in the same ways I do sometimes. Then there’s the girl who’s motivated by the mysterious disappearance of her brother — a dad adjacent-figure, for sure, and also one that warps her relationship with her actual dad. And then the guy whose parents’ divorce gave him this complex where a) he acts like he’s the dad b) he doesn’t trust others to be there for him, thinks he has to do everything himself and c) seeks out a proxy dad-figure who coerces him into organized crime. And THEN there’s the spoiled jerk who wants to distinguish himself from his rich powerful dad and become rich and powerful by himself. AND THEN there’s the guy rebelling against his dad’s politics...

Some of it might be the Pokémon setting — often a notable absence of or weirdness with dads — but still. Wowee.

It bothers me a little how male-centric my current WIPs are. (One of the hazards of rewriting old work.) I want my next new project to be aggressively female-centered and queer. 😤 But oh man I cannot take on anymore projects right now.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Oh, this is fun! I've talked at length about my favorite themes to inject into my work, but never about the ones that keep sneaking in when I'm not looking.

I noticed while doing my latest round of edits that my stories have a recurring theme of characters feeling guilty for things that they didn’t cause, but should have prevented. Whether it was through inaction or just plain not seeing the signs until it's too late, this theme is literally everywhere in my work, to the point that you could almost use it as a method of identifying my writing. xD; Heck, it even plays a big role in the ending!

I also definitely have a thing for characters discovering their hero is flawed. Whether it's just learning that the person you looked up to--who does everything so easily--has to struggle with hardships as well, or even learning that the person you looked up to is not a very good person at all. This has been a recurring theme in my work for quite some time, and it was definitely unintentional. It just sort of happened.

(For the curious, I can definitely point to my childhood for causing number 1 up there, but number 2 has me a bit stumped. I just think it's neat.)

 

[WildBoots]

I mean, sometimes just plain interest is reason enough!

I love flawed hero tropes! Heck yeah.

 

[Dragonfree]

I noticed while doing my latest round of edits that my stories have a recurring theme of characters feeling guilty for things that they didn’t cause, but should have prevented.

..............that's me too, isn't it. That's my work. Maybe expand it to guilt over things they did do, too. Practically entire body of work is people feeling bad and guilty about things they are variously guilty of. Oh god. Not just TQftL and Morphic and the Scyther spin-offs but also Curse, and Butterfree is literally just Guilt: The One-Shot. Heck, half of my old one-shots fit the bill too. God. I don't think that's based in any personal hangups of mine so much as just being a thing I really enjoy reading about and thus just ends up in everything I do apparently.

There's also "characters with massive issues about showing weakness or vulnerability", which is probably a bit more of a personal thing, mostly from when I was a kid, but didn't properly become a recurring thing in my writing until later on.

 

[canisaries]

Oh, I've certainly noticed some themes in my works, with two being specifically strong:

1. An oddball protagonist. Almost every work I've written has had this: a lead character who doesn't fit in and is poorly socially adjusted due to something being strange or otherwise different about them. Pletora's Story has Pletora, a Scolipede living in the wilds, who is shunned and considered a monster by the people of the nearest village. Dragony has Keith, an Eevee who loves all things dragon despite dragons being loathed and feared by his community. Barricade is about an Aggron who isolates himself from everyone because he doesn't trust them (though this is implied to be largely due to his Shadow status), and then there's my crown jewel, Red Akai, who is just a straight up bastard who Lives in A Society. Honestly, the most well-adjusted protagonist I have is probably Aki from Mail For Welltown, but everyone can agree that he's quite eccentric. I think he's also the only one with a proper job.

It's easy to see why this is a recurring theme for me. Barely ever have I felt like I truly fit in in some real life community - I always feel like I'm fundamentally different from everyone else, like I've missed some great unspoken rule, that I'm out of the loop. Thankfully I have multiple online communities where I really feel like I belong, though. (Including this!)

In terms of this trope's future, though, I think I'll learn to branch out. I do currently have a WIP where the protagonist is quite social and amiable and fits within her own group... though the story does have her meet and take care of an outcast. :V Old habits die hard.

2. A sympathetic villain. I've always loved works with well-motivated villains and even as a kid I would be the one with sympathy for the bad guy. Maybe it was because they were cooler, maybe it was because the protagonist was so happy and cheesy that I couldn't see myself in them. Maybe I was just a rebel, who knows. But villains always tend to be interesting to me since I wonder what makes them do what they do and if they could actually have potential for good. I love Heel-Face turns, but typically haven't had stories that structurally support that (read: I'm terrible at endings). I think my only one so far is Mawile Emily from Welltown. The other ones end up worse off, or they are the protagonist.

What's also interesting about villains is the exploration of mental illness or other events that make culpability less clear cut. Well, everyone can agree that my Red is an asshole, but Timburr Mill from Pletora's Story genuinely thought he had to do his awful deeds to save the world, and was disgusted by them himself. Red does also feel like he has no other path to follow than the one he is on, and HIM/Whelp show that he's been manipulated by his god quite a lot. Then there's Emily from Welltown whose depression and bitterness from loneliness twisted into malevolent rage upon her death and rebirth as a ghost.

There are other recurring elements in my works beside these, no doubt (well, I compiled a few into my bingo when we were doing those on the 'cord that one time, catch it at the end of the post) but they seem more minor or like details compared to these. Maybe some new major thing will start popping up in later works, who knows. Anyway, fun thread, thanks for this.

Spoiler: Bingo

 

[StellarWind]

Hmm. Things that tend to show up across my works?

Aside from frequently-snarky narrative voices (and occasional snarkbanter on behalf of assorted characters re: their present situation) and cinematic-ish descriptions of environments and battles, I deeply enjoy synchronization and synchronization-powered plot devices (be it increased combat efficacy due to drift-compatibility, feats that can only be achieved when a human and something not human join forces... and what happens when synchronization exceeds safe parameters, too, at times!). Another thing you'll usually find around me is leaning deeper into world-building, especially on the biology front, but not exclusively. I will absolutely science up the place.

Also, you're very likely to find some kind of plant, arthropod or biomechanically-inclined creatures or beings taking centre stage in my works. Sometimes all of the above.

 

[SparklingEspeon]

I've been told my writing style is very snarky for some reason, but I don't know if that's a product of my current characters or just the way I write in general yet.

My favorite themes to inject into my stories (for some reason) are the loss of innocence and the complexities of feelings. Pretty much all my serious stories have at least one of those running in the background; if not both. Anything I write as satire/comedy (but pretty much all my comedy tends to be satire anyways) might end up as a critique of modern life/the current social system, but apart from that I like to portray characters on level ground instead of having Goody-Two-Shoes and Mustache-Twirling Villains. All the good drama comes from there anyway :)

Writing for PMD means either getting with the 'a wizard did it' theme that the world has going (E.G.: nothing about how anything works is explained in any great detail), or just going the other way and trying to explain everything. I read Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and now I can never go the former route again. Sometimes it even gets to the point where I have to balance out worldbuilding with character-building, lol.

 

[windskull]

In just about everything I write, my lead characters are either human, humans turned into something else (pokemon, primarily, since that's the majority of what I write), or superhuman (superheroes or magical humans, both apply).

For the superhumans or humanlike characters (spirits or transformed characters and the like), a lot of times their struggles center around their humanity. Are they still human, despite their inhuman qualities? Or do these changes make them inhuman? For my non-human characters, questions of morality often come up. The power of friendship also ends up coming up pretty often.