It is my assumption that many posters here also write, some perhaps have been writing significantly longer than others. What I'm wondering is if anyone has noticed certain themes, tropes, or motifs that recur in your writing...the story just doesn't feel quite right without them there in some form or another.
For example, with me, my longer stories are full of significant trees: They are routes of escape, landmarks, wish givers, roads (both on and to get off world), sky hooks, portals to other worlds/places, where babies come from, etc. Most of my stories have trees doing/being something important somewhere whether up front or in the background. Also, I almost always have a mentor figure (of varying personalities), and I almost always have a naif whose basic need within the context of the story is to "learn better" real fast or discover how quickly truncated life and liberty can be. Sometimes the naifs get dangerous, even turn evil when frustrated...but they are naifs just the same. Sometimes they are the "charmed" oblivious "idiot", a holy fool sort...good, but weird. Finally, there are few urban passages in my writing. Most scenes have a rural or small town setting. Cities of any size tend to be located in the far distant background or else they are presented as the "spiritual" equivalent of colonial outposts from Mordor. Big Urban=Evil.
Sometimes I feel like I've a cast of character actors in my head and they just change names with the story....like Bogart is always Bogart no matter what character he plays, same with John Wayne, W. C. Fields, or May West.
So, anyone else notice constantly recurring elements in their own writing?
