Every writer has them–those little quirks, the themes that sneak into their work almost despite themselves. It’s impossible to get away from it.

This was recently brought home to me by revising a few of my earlier books–like, very first books. They’re not very good, but I can see the themes I worked with in the Valentine series, albeit less fully-formed.

Trust. Betrayal. Bad childhoods. Redemption. Sacrifice. Loyalty. I won’t quite say I’m obsessed with these ideas, but they show up in pretty much every story I work on. Somehow it’s just not interesting to me unless someone suffers, unless redemption is attempted or in doubt, unless someone sacrifices something. Other themes come and go, but those are the core–the repeat offenders, if you will.

Stephen King works with the flexibility of childhood, the power of rock and roll, and the durability of ordinary people confronted with the fantastic. Robin McKinley deals with the inner truth of fairy tales, the heroine’s journey, and the power of love to both save and consume. Jacqueline Carey writes about politics, the human cost of intrigue, and the pain of being an outsider, paying for parental sins. Janet Fitch writes about Los Angeles, discarded children, the cost of love, and how growing up entails making choices.

I could go on and on. The treatment of the themes will change and evolve over time, but each writer has a packet of themes s/he carries with them. Or as I call them, the Little Big Things that crop up in everyone’s stories.

It’s instructive to figure out what your themes are. For one thing, once you know what “sticks” in your mental filter (to borrow a metaphor from Stephen King again) you can figure out new ways to approach it, to work through that theme. Sometimes they change over time; but most often you’re stuck with your themes.

The good news is, it’s not like being stuck in a rut. You will come back to the same place again and again as a writer, but in a spiral rather than a puddle. You will circle around, deeper each time, and find something new in the themes that have chosen you.

Any artist will recognize this, of course. We all have those little quirks in our programming that come out in what we create. It’s a far, far better thing to think about those quirks and recognize them, than to be unconsciously at their mercy.

Plus, it’s a better pickup line than “What’s your sign?” I’m all for better pickup lines.

So, fellow writers and other crazy types, what’s your theme?