Literary Alchemy: Ingredients of the Story – Motifs
A series designed to elevate your skills and empower you to write like a pro.
By Chrissy Hicks
Motifs use repeated imagery, such as objects, places, or actions, to represent larger ideas and themes. What’s the difference between motif and symbolism? Simply this: symbolism refers to the use of something concrete to represent something abstract, whereas motifs are repetitive, symbolic images. This device allows writers to compress meaning into a single image reinforced throughout the narrative, which enriches subtext and gives readers something to unravel and interpret.
Why use motifs?
A powerful motif can capture a story’s main point, making a standalone image have a connection that strengthens the message. For example, one of the consistent patterns in The Devil All the Time (by Donald Pollock) is the highway. This connects the various character’s journeys, symbolizing escape, fate, desperation, and tragedy.
Through motifs, you can reveal character arcs. What a character treasures, discards, repairs, or destroys reveals inner transformation (or lack thereof). In The Photo Thief (by JL Delozier), the stolen photos symbolize a legacy founded on theft and silence. These become evidence of corruption, paralleling Dan’s journey from preserving the status quo (protecting career, avoiding scandal) to risking everything to set wrongs right. Another motif that drives this home is a small pin that he and his wife created to bring awareness to his daughter’s cancer. As he gets closer to the truth, he encounters these pins at random, which can be seen as symbolizing his daughter’s approval of his moving forward and doing what’s right.
Motifs build texture and can support multiple symbols or signal shifts in meaning. By linking scenes and motifs, you can make plot developments feel earned and resonant. An example of this is in The Devil All the Time. At the start, Willard and his son, Arvin, pray fervently at a crudely constructed altar in the woods, they call a “prayer log.” They pray daily for Arvin’s mother to be healed of her cancer, but sadly, she dies. In the end of the book, the prayer log reappears in a final showdown between Arvin and a major antagonist (who himself symbolizes corruption). Thus, the prayer log becomes a powerful motif that symbolizes sin and consequence.
Additionally, symbolism invites interpretation, encouraging readers to look for patterns and invest emotionally. What’s more fun than discussing the meaning of motifs during a book club meeting or with our reader friends?
How and When to Use Motifs:
Choose an anchor: pick one recurring, concrete symbol tied to your central theme or a character’s need. Show the symbol in description, dialogue, and action, but vary the method to avoid repeating the same beat too often so it doesn’t feel gimmicky. Pollock uses a pocket watch as a motif to symbolize time, fate, and a sense of doom: “He kept the watch in the palm of his hand as if he could hold what passed.” Then, he conveys this through sensory detail: “the tiny, relentless tick” (sound); “hands frozen at five past two” (sight); “the ridged weight of the watch in his palm” (touch). Tighten the sensory details (such as sight, sound, smell, or texture) so it feels lived-in and emotionally charged.
Let the motif’s significance shift as the character changes. Consider setting: though it may be cliché, there’s a reason it often rains during tragic scenes, and the sun breaks through the clouds when things turn positive. In Tana French’s The Secret Place, a private school’s noticeboard acts as a motif which starts as a dark metaphor when a photo of a murder victim appears with the message: “I know who killed him.” Then, it’s shown as a place for shared, private language among the adolescent girls who attend the school. Finally, it evolves into something like a scrapbook, preserving memory and youthful identity, rather than a function for nefarious purposes.
Be subtle! Don’t over-explain. Trust your readers to connect the dots. Heavy-handed interpretation can flatten nuance.
Test for redundancy. If you find that one motif is doing all the work, layer in other symbols (weather, significant objects, scenery).
Helpful hint: writers often plant motifs unintentionally through repeated phrases, objects, sensory details, or actions. After you finish your first draft, look for these repeats; they’re useful raw material. Ask whether each recurring detail echoes your theme or a character arc. If yes, amplify it through leaner language, contrasting contexts, or a late payoff. If it conflicts with your intention, remove it or repurpose it as tension or irony.
Revision checklist for discovered symbolism:
Find recurring objects, images, details, and phrases
Log where each appears and the emotion or situation tied to it
Choose whether the symbol will reinforce the theme, signify change, or create a contrast
Strengthen your arcs by placing a vivid, emotionally charged instance of the symbol at the story’s turning point
Prune or repurpose redundant occurrences or use them to complicate meaning
Strengthen the story with a final payoff by ensuring a late-stage scene rewards attentive readers and reveals the symbol’s accumulated meaning (or use it to trigger transformation)
Lookout!
Pay attention to motifs that appear in your current reading and the shows you’re watching. Did you notice a symbol repeated throughout a story or movie? That’s a motif! Consider how the author (or director) slipped these in. Was it subtle, overt? Was there a payoff? How does understanding their approach empower you to achieve similar results?
Prompt
Create a motif that represents a character’s progress: pick a small, tactile object (e.g., a chipped teacup, or a spilled Lego set), decide its origin (who gave it to them and when/why), and plot three moments where the object appears: beginning (comfort/identity), middle (strain/compromise), and end (resolution/transformation). Use sensory details and let the object’s meaning evolve.
Further Reading:
Chrissy’s debut novel, Inheritance of Lies (Marble Press Books 2027), was a 2022 Claymore Suspense Award finalist. Her writing is featured in anthologies and magazines, including Story Sanctum, Killer Nashville Magazine, Black Works, and The Broadkill Review, among others. Her unpublished manuscripts secured First Place in the 2024/2025 Thomas Mabry Creative Writing Award, 2024 Seven Hills Literary Contest, and “Top Pick” in the Suspense category for the 2024 Claymore Award. A Northern transplant who traded snow for Tennessee heat, Chrissy actively volunteers for Killer Nashville Magazine and is a proud member of Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. Aside from thinking up ways for characters to die, she hikes, runs, reads, and drinks dark wine. Visit her online at chrissyhicks.com or hire her for your next editing project at emberskyeeditorial.com. Join her free newsletter for author updates, a glimpse into a busy writer’s life, and book recommendations.
