Hello everyone and welcome back to Life of Heritage Corner! Today, I have another post on writing themes! (You can read my first one here!) Let’s hop right in!

So I’m a little late jumping on the theme band wagon. A Song of Home was only the second book I’ve written where I had it decided before I started writing it. And that theme was duty.

When we think of duty, or at least when I think of it, the first thing that comes to mind is a soldier, serving his country, risking his life, because it is his duty to keep the fighting from harming us. He is the sheepdog, fighting off the wolves that would love nothing more than to ravage the herd. Another image that come to mind is that of a policeman. It is his duty to protect us from harm. Even when the sheep fool themselves into thinking he is the wolf and the wolf is the sheepdog, he risks his life to keep us safe.

But soldiers and policemen aren’t the only ones with Duties. Here’s a list of ideas for incorporating Duty into your story!

• A soldier dedicated to serving his country and why it matters to him personally.
• A preacher, proclaiming the Gospel even when faced with opposition from local businessmen.
• A younger family member taking on the duty of caring for an elderly family member. Is it only duty though or love that motivates them…or both? Or does one morph into the other?
• A policeman, protecting a citizen who moments before was insulting him.
• A dog, crossing a war zone to deliver a message to save his handler.
• A father, protecting his family from a home invasion.
• A mother, taking up her God given calling to raise her family rather than pursue her dream career.

These are just a few ideas. How can you depict Duty in your work in progress?

Have a Blessed Day!
Ryana Lynn
Jude 22

Themes…ugh! I don’t know about you, but this is one of the hardest parts of developing a story for me. I can come up with (what I think) is a fantastic plot line with all the fun/frightening details (I write about historical events and First responders, so yeah, some things get a little scary), but what are people supposed to learn from my stories?

Well, today, I’m going to take a theme and break down a few ways you can use it in your Work in Progress (WIP; I use this abbreviation for the sake of space and time 😉). So, if you’re ready, let’s begin!

This post is a little different from what I usually do. I got the idea from this post on different ways to write about Love, so be sure and check that one out too. I’m not talking about romance here. There are more love stories out there than romantic ones, y’all!

I was brainstorming a requested story, trying to plot out some ideas when I determined that this book should have a stated theme before I even began to plot it. I asked my family for ideas, giving them the setting for the story, etc. My mom suggested Forgiveness.

Forgiveness. Such a simple concept and an overt command of God, and yet so many struggle with it. It’s not an easy thing to do. I mean, sometimes it is, but not when it’s those things that really, really hurt you in life…those things that go deeper than the surface. The heartaches, the betrayals…those kinds of things are harder to let go of. That’s why it’s so important to write about it, to share what we have learned from the Bible and from personal experience about forgiving others.

But how can we show forgiveness in our writing? Here are some ideas.

• The struggle of a family forgiving the person who killed a family member in a head-on collision.
• A sweet story of children having a dispute and mom coming in to teach about the silliness of holding a grudge.
• A short story of an animal “forgiving” their human for stepping on their tail.
• A policeman getting beyond their past and trying to help an ex-criminal straighten out their life
• A couple working out an argument.
• An elderly lady with memory problems struggling to understand what’s happening to her and trying to forgive her family for seemingly abandoning her
• A child learning to forgive someone for saying mean things.
• Use the parable in the Bible about the servant who was forgiven much, but wouldn’t forgive his fellow servant. Tell a similar story in modern-day to teach about receiving and giving forgiveness to others.

These are just a few ideas to get you started. How can you teach forgiveness through your WIP?

Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
Colossians 3:13
King James Bible

Have a Blessed Day!
Ryana Lynn
Jude 22