Discovering the theme.

I discovered the theme to Sometimes a Dragon last night.

May seem strange that I can be in the middle of a rewrite of a book before I realize what the theme is, but it happens.

For instance, I realized after I was done that Snowcastles and Icetowers were basically fantasy versions of "Moses leading his people to the Promised Land."  Very clear in hindsight.

However, I think it's really more useful if you are pursuing the theme consciously while writing the book.  For instance, I pretty much knew that Death of an Immortal was about redemption from the beginning.

Anyway, 30 years ago, Sometimes a Dragon was about magic as a metaphor for writing; and about my love for Linda.

Now, I realize that either the focused has changed, or I've just discovered it.  Or maybe it's just my age speaking.

Now it's all about memory.  Memory lost and memory regained.  It's all through the book, from the top character to the bottom character, and much of the plot hinges on it.  When I talked about having the main antagonist having flashbacks go from current to past, in a sense his memories are going backward in time, and they become more vivid.  Meanwhile the main protagonist gains a girl, loses a girl, and regains the girl -- by the technique of losing his memory of her.  The main narrator is a shapeshifter who knows he was a powerful character once, but can't remember what he was.  Another major character tries to steal the central talisman and is struck down, losing his memory.  And so on, it's all through the book.  The sense of loss and nostalgia, and that the 'new' world needs to replace the 'old' world.

The precipitating events themselves -- the fall of the Eclipse and the darkness-- are like drawing a veil over the old world, which must be remembered before the future can go on.  Meanwhile, the world is caught in Twilight, in stasis.

Now that I know that, I can make it all a little more symmetric; balanced and poetic.  Lend meaning to little phrases and events.  I think that's what gives a book depth.

It may be all in my head, but it's something to try.