A Goodreads user asked Helen Simonson:

Where do you get the themes for your stories?

Helen Simonson Hi Jim. I never start with particular themes. I start with the tiniest of images - a woman looking out at the Sussex marshes from a hilltop; the town of Rye, glowing in the last fingers of a sunset - and then I wait for a person, a character to walk into my head and into the story. Sometimes themes are not apparent to me until after the book is printed and other people find them. A reader in an audience had to inform me that I wrote well about the theme of grief in Major Pettigrew (who knew?). I think a writer is interested in many themes and ideas, but must firmly push them to the back of the mind and write the concrete particulars of the lives of characters instead. Themes will emerge organically but if one tries to begin with a grand theme, one risks the book being heavy as lead. For my next book I'm laughing at the idea of ex-pats (British and American) trying to remake village life in their own image in the south of France. I'm busy trying to see who lives there and what they are up to today - and when themes emerge (such as remaking foreign locations into something familiar!) I give them a quick look and then set them aside. Hope this helps explain. Of course this got my younger son into trouble in high school English class when he boldly stated "My mom says writers never meant to put themes in their stories!" Oops...

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