On Writing for Themes May 3, 2008 – Posted in: Aberrant Normalcy

Cat Rambo blogged recently about writing for themed anthologies or themed issues, and it got me thinking about my own writing.  Specifically, I’ve been working on stories recently for various anthologies.  One in particular for a themed fantasy market.  I’ve found it difficult to steer myself in themed directions.  Some part of me feels that I should be creative enough to fabricate any story given a specific impetus or spark.  But in reality I’ve discovered that my writing works best when it’s free and unbounded.

In college, I always found writing assignments tedious and boring when we were told, “Write A, B, and C about situation X.”  But when the instructions were purposefully vague or allowed for student creativity, I found I was much more adept at crafting the essay.  This was before I decided to write fiction, so I suppose there was some foreshadowing going on there.

When I’m working outside of all boundaries, my creative mind feels free to take the story anywhere.  And I think that’s what attracts me to genre fiction, that idea of potentiality, how the story could leap into another dimension at any time, and that this would be ok.  Themes can sometimes make me feel as if I’m writing with reins on, or that the end is visible before I begin to write.  And that’s no fun.  The goal for me is, when writing for a theme, is to find a gateway to the infinite.  To reframe the supposed “limits” of a theme into a potential for anything to happen, to find a place in the story where I can create freely and spawn my own sense of wonder.  I mean, if we’re not feeling wonder from our own stories then who are we writing for?