Every writer has certain things they can't help but circle around. Whether they're topics, character types, themes, or visual motifs (to name a few), there's usually something that haunts the writer's mind. Something they keep returning to.
Is this because they want to understand what it is that calls to them? To exorcise it from their imaginations? Simply because they like these recurring elements?
Perhaps it's a combination of those things.
I'm certainly not immune to this myself. There are things that pop up repeatedly in my stories and most of the time, I understand why I keep writing them in. Sometimes I don't, but that never makes me shy away from them. It also makes sense, considering my imagination has a bit of a loop mentality. Just as I tend to loop a singular song over and over when I write, my imagination will loop a certain idea or theme around and around until it finally finds a story to live in. And even then, it'll still persist in some form, wanting to be recreated in a whole other story.
I bring all this up, because I'd like to share some of these with you. Sure, you'll uncover some, if not most, of these in the upcoming publications on this blog. But as a writer who has kept so much to herself for so long, I'd like to pull back the curtain on my creativity - even if only for a glimpse or two. And if any of you are aspiring writers, I'd like to offer this as a prompt to consider what you gravitate towards in your own stories!
Without further ado, these are just a few of my fascinations.
Loner Protagonists This one is pretty easy to understand. Characters, in general, are the among my most important inspirations for stories. But having most of my protagonists start as people who stand alone is very reflective of my experiences. Some of these protagonists are lost in life. Others are lonely or feel like there's no place for them. Still others fear that something about them makes it impossible to find any sense of community. All of them start out alone, and while this might not happen in every story featuring a loner protagonist, helping them find a sense of belonging is something I write about a lot.
Mysteryious Men in Suits I'm not entirely sure on this one. Perhaps the time when I read tons of Franz Kafka as a teenager had something to do with it (lots of suit-wearing bureaucratic types in those stories). Maybe, as I got older, I started associating suits with anonymity. And I'm not sure why, but I often write these kinds of characters as harboring secrets and/or working for secret organizations. They tend to show up in a lot of my weirder stories (surprise, surprise) - stories that I've struggled to either turn into something serious/literary for contests or write into a sensible existence for myself.
Dreams I'm an unapologetic lover of dreams in stories. I know there are plenty of lists of "writing rules" stating that dreams shouldn't be used in storytelling or are detrimental to it. I can understand the frustrations of poorly timed and poorly written dream sequences that add nothing to the story. But goodness, there are plenty of stories out there whose existence is all thanks to dreams that inspired their writers! And if dreams were so detrimental to storytelling, what would a story like Inception be without its dream sequences? Dreams are important in revealing what characters either want to hide or what they don't suspect exists within them. Sometimes they're used for more prophetic reasons, but I always enjoy dream sequences that push a character's development. That and the surreal nature of dreams can add interesting dynamics that would otherwise be missing from a story or a scene. (I do have a concept that centers all around dreams and the dangers of dream technology in relation to advertising. I don't know when or how I'm going to get around to working on it - it's a massive idea! But I might share excerpts here of what I've written for it sometime)
Reality Interrupted by the Strange It's no secret that I love when something crashes in on reality and throws everything off kilter. Whether it's a mysterious stranger who may or may not be human, a surprise phone call from your future self, or just something that feels "off", I love finding ways to rock reality in stories. Some of it may be because of the stories I've gravitated to all my life - stories like Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. But a lot of it comes down to the fact that I feel more at home with these kinds of scenarios in fiction. It's the reason why I can struggle reading and writing more realistic, contemporary fiction. I live plenty of the day-to-day reality I've always known. Why wouldn't I want to see if there's a door leads somewhere else or see if a certain stranger will reveal a secret that changes everything?
Mundanity in Unusual Places At the same time, I also love when very "real world" elements are incorporated into worlds/places you wouldn't expect. Especially if they're things like paperwork, hotlines, regulations, needless bureaucratic processes - anything that by all rights should have no business in a story about wizards or time travelers. When you can recognize familiar (and often frustrating) parts of reality used to comedic or satirical effect in more fantastical/surreal stories, it adds a certain relatability to whatever world you're losing yourself in. Obviously, this doesn't work all the time and some stories are best left being as different from the real world as possible. But when I think of some of my favorite stories that utilize this - especially stories like those from the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett - I remember the difference it can make.
Magicians While this feels like more of a recent fascination for me, it isn't hard to find the roots of it. (While I'm also all about fantastical magic, I do mean sleight of hand, illusions, and stage magic with the magicians I'm talking about here) Living for four and a half years near Las Vegas as a kid, I was aware that there were magicians there. And over time, I slowly but surely developed a love for watching and trying to understand how this kind of magic worked. In my imagination, I also began to see the potential for featuring magicians in stories - their understanding of illusions and human perception make for interesting characters. You've been introduced to this fascination of mine with "Nocturne in Magic" (published here March 5, 2025) and I still have stories featuring magicians that I either haven't written yet or want to share at some point. There's one magician character in particular that has haunted my mind ever since I dreamed about him. But no matter which story I put him in, he never fits. It's as if he resists any and all attempts at being brought to life through words. The closest I've come to this is briefly mentioning him in my flash fiction story "Swallow", featured in the Dually Noted series for F(r)iction (not fully described and not present long enough to leave an impression). One of these days, I'll find a story he wouldn't mind sticking around in.
Strangers Many of my flash fiction stories I wrote last spring feature encounters between strangers that lead either to friendships or new perspectives on life in general. In the world as it is today, isolation and loneliness make it difficult for a lot of people to look at those around them and imagine connecting with them. They'll imagine a dozen reasons why not to approach them and move on, not knowing what kinds of interactions they might have had. I'm definitely guilty in this respect, too. In real life, it can be scary to think of looking to a stranger and potentially reaching out. But in fiction, so much is possible. In fiction, whenever I bring two or more strangers together, it's always because I want to see what is possible when those real-world fears are overcome for the sake of connecting. Whether it's for a common goal or because someone sees another person in need. Every friend you've ever had - even your best friend - was a stranger to you at one point. Yet your paths crossed and you have stayed by each other's side ever since. When you think about it, that's pretty miraculous. Obviously, this doesn't happen with every stranger we meet and not every stranger has the best of intentions. There's not even any guarantee that a nice interaction with a stranger will create a long-lasting bond between the two of you. But when I write about strangers, my focus is almost always on the potential that can be found in all of us when we look at one another and remember that we are all each other's got.
I've been writing all this down for about a couple hours now and it's about time I headed off to other things. This was a completely unplanned & spontaneous post (in case that wasn't obvious), so if you made it this far, thanks for reading all the way through! I'm excited to share more insights into my creative process in the future. And, if you haven't been looking at my Instagram updates, there's a new story that'll be published this upcoming Sunday! It's a fairytale "remix", for lack of a better word, inspired by Snow White and it's a story I've held onto for a while now. So stay tuned!
~ Madeleine
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