Sasha Summers

The fourth Saturday of the month means it’s time for the Dallas Area Romance Authors meeting!

And what a meeting it was. Between our speaker, Miss Lori Wilde, and the changing of the guard – good-bye old Board, hello new Board – it was a pretty intense morning.

Miss Wilde was all about Theme. And I admit, it’s not a topic I’m well versed in. As a self-proclaimed ‘pantser’ (pantser aka someone who writes by the seat of their pants versus a plotter – which you can safely infer is an author that plots heavily through the writing process), I’m still sponging up the industry part of writing. I write, but I’m not an author. By that I mean that I don’t have a firm grasp on the way things work within the publishing industry, the terms, publishing houses (in depth) or anything at all about contracts. It’s something I will learn over time.

Starting with Theme. It was an interesting class because this is a concept I didn’t think about too much – before the meeting. On the hour ride home, I was thinking about it a lot. One thing that stood out, to me, was Miss Wilde’s observation that your stories theme should not be too broad (i.e. True Love conquers All) nor so narrow that it can’t sustain an entire story.

While you’d think your Theme was obvious – I know what I’ll be doing the rest of today… Making sure my Theme is clear and respresented well throughout my story (using symbols, motifs and props).

So much for a quiet Saturday evening!