Tabula Rasa – from the Latin meaning ‘scraped tablet’ or clean slate.
I’ve been seeing this phrase a lot lately. It’s one of those things that pops up, like a message here and there. I did a little digging and discovered it’s a favorite title for science fiction and paranormal TV shows.
For instance:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Season 6 – Tabula Rasa, the Scooby Gang loses their memories thanks to Willow’s amnesia spell
LOST – Season 1 – Tabula Rasa, flashbacks of Kate’s pre-crash Bonnie sans Clyde existence
Stargate Atlantis – Season 4 – Tabula Rasa, staff members lose their memories courtesy of an alien virus [damn those alien viruses!]
There was even a Season 2 episode of the animated Justice League called Tabula Rasa.
It’s an interesting concept, the idea of a clean slate. Have you ever wished you could start over? Would you do if you had the chance to begin anew – maybe not as a baby, but as a young adult, or even a new writer. What would you do differently?
I don’t know if I would, but it’s certainly an interesting concept for a story.
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Speaking of stories btw - I hit my goal of 200 pages on my ST paranormal WIP. Hopefully this one will tie into the world I created in Uncross my Heart. Two hundred or so pages to go, but hey, halfway done ain't bad.
Showing posts with label theme. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theme. Show all posts
Monday, November 05, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Sin and Redemption
One of the things we writers talk about and worry about and maybe even obsess about is the idea of having a theme in our work. It’s a little different from branding and perhaps even more important.
When I first learned about theme, I sat down and thought about the bulk of my work and realized that I do have an underlying theme to my work. It’s Redemption – or maybe more accurately, Sin and Redemption.
I like characters who have something to atone for, real or imagined, big or small, they have some mistake to fix, some hurt they need to make up for before they can truly be happy. It isn’t always my main character either – in Conjured in Flames, my first novel, there was Graciela, the “alien” sorceress. She was bad to the bone, but she did have a moment of clarity where readers learn a little bit about why she was bad and hopefully feel a little bit sorry for her.
In Bonfire of the Vampires my heroine, Abby, is a vampire killer [note I don’t use the word slayer]. She’s forced into it as a means of survival. In the sequel, Fresh Blood, it’s my heroine’s sister, the misguided Elena Talbot who needs redemption. Her sins against the heroine, her twin sister Erica, are too numerous to count.
In Wolfsbane: Aspect of the Wolf, hero Daniel must atone for his attempt to run Emilie’s business out of town. In The Soul Jar, Chance struggles to get Bree to forgive him for leaving her and in The Rebound Guy, Lauren deals with her tremendous guilt over using her best friend Eric as an emotional balm when her boyfriend cheats on her.
This theme occurs in most, though not all of my stories and hopefully it’s a salable point. I’m the writer who writes about forgiveness, earning it from others and from ourselves, and about overcoming the bad you’ve done to make good and move on.
If you’re a writer, what is your theme? If you’re a reader, do you find you look for books with particular themes or can you identify the theme of your favorite author?
When I first learned about theme, I sat down and thought about the bulk of my work and realized that I do have an underlying theme to my work. It’s Redemption – or maybe more accurately, Sin and Redemption.
I like characters who have something to atone for, real or imagined, big or small, they have some mistake to fix, some hurt they need to make up for before they can truly be happy. It isn’t always my main character either – in Conjured in Flames, my first novel, there was Graciela, the “alien” sorceress. She was bad to the bone, but she did have a moment of clarity where readers learn a little bit about why she was bad and hopefully feel a little bit sorry for her.
In Bonfire of the Vampires my heroine, Abby, is a vampire killer [note I don’t use the word slayer]. She’s forced into it as a means of survival. In the sequel, Fresh Blood, it’s my heroine’s sister, the misguided Elena Talbot who needs redemption. Her sins against the heroine, her twin sister Erica, are too numerous to count.
In Wolfsbane: Aspect of the Wolf, hero Daniel must atone for his attempt to run Emilie’s business out of town. In The Soul Jar, Chance struggles to get Bree to forgive him for leaving her and in The Rebound Guy, Lauren deals with her tremendous guilt over using her best friend Eric as an emotional balm when her boyfriend cheats on her.
This theme occurs in most, though not all of my stories and hopefully it’s a salable point. I’m the writer who writes about forgiveness, earning it from others and from ourselves, and about overcoming the bad you’ve done to make good and move on.
If you’re a writer, what is your theme? If you’re a reader, do you find you look for books with particular themes or can you identify the theme of your favorite author?
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