In the household in which I was raised, the themes were pretty simple. ‘Work hard. Don’t quit. Be appreciative, be thankful, be grateful, be respectful. Also, never whine, never complain. And always, for crying out loud, keep a sense of humor.’
All stories interest me, and some haunt me until I end up writing them. Certain themes keep coming up: justice, loyalty, violence, death, political and social issues, freedom.
Films with fresh themes and able directors are a pleasure to associate yourself with.
It’s important for me to talk about my life as a gay man, not gay themes per se, in my work.
The SF genre, of course, is really an organically evolved, marketplace-determined, idiosyncratic grab bag of themes and signifiers and characters and icons and gadgets, some of which hew to the realistic parameters and paradigms embraced by science, others of which partake more of fantasy and magic.
‘I Am Number Four’ definitely borrows from a whole bunch of genres and has a whole bunch of different themes throughout. And I think if it was just one stale two-dimensional thing then it would be kind of boring. And I think they did a fantastic job.
I like the beauty of Faulkner’s poetry. But I don’t like his themes, not at all.
Themes rise and fall. Kingdoms rise and fall. Religions rise and fall.
Route 192 is its own thing, and you can’t find that anywhere else. The colors and shapes of the buildings, the way that all the small businesses in a way feed off of the parks and sort of rip off the themes of Disney – you’re not going to find that anywhere else.
In general, the main themes emerge early for each book, even before the storyline and characters, as I research the time and place I want to draw upon. Having said that, every single book so far has offered me surprises en route, and these include motifs that come forward as I am writing.
Yes, I’ve heard of the ‘Mad Men’ comparisons, but I like to think ‘The Hour’ has its own distinctive voice. Although it is set in 1956, I have tried to give it a contemporary edge, and its themes of love, passion, romance, fury, professional jealousy, and personal failure are universal, I think.
Lib Dems are really good at making very detailed policies but very bad are communicating the core values that drive those policies. I’d like us to say less but more often. We need to focus on a few themes and go hard on them.
Is it good, bad, or neutral to recognize thematic patterns in your own work? When it comes to recurring themes, I’m of the mind that knowledge is probably not power, at least in terms of the work.
A good headline is far more than a summary. It has to characterize, in a few brief words, the most important themes and news items of the article it accompanies.
Essentially, you know, one of the great advantages of working in science fiction is it does give you an opportunity to talk about interesting and somewhat controversial themes and social issues and in a way that doesn’t really threaten the audience, because I’m not challenging their particular points of view.
