Just a quickie. I am fortunate (unfortunate) enough to have a psychologist type friend. Upon reading my novel, she asked several questions, including:-

“Why of five protagonists, do none of them have two good parents.”

“Why are all the major characters of different cultural backgrounds.”

“Of the twelve deaths, why do those murders committed by the family, glossed over as justifiable executions.”
In writing, I was unaware of these facts (and I wrote the damn thing.) So on editing, I raised the issues in dialogue (without resolution). Personally, I feel it increases the depth of the work and improves the character's dialogue.

I suggest you look into it, every character you create, every line of dialogue comes from somewhere.

You know, I think it is common for writer to look back over their work and see themes and patterns emerging. I know it happens to me. I think the advice to look for those themes and consciously manipulate or emphasise them for the good of the piece is a good one, but sometimes it's nice to leave them half buried and trust that your reader will do the work to find them.

Someone once gave me the advise that it is good to assume that the reader is at least as clever as you are - and wants to work a bit at getting meaning out of a novel. Your friend managed to find your patterns and themes without you having to point them out to her, didn't she?

I'm also skeptical of the value of using a work as a tool for analyis of the author's personality - I'm not sure if you were talking about your themes being autobiographical in tone or not, but I tend to shy away from reading like that - a psychologist who knows the author might be less able to resist and may have been reading with a different 'hat' on to most readers.

Don't forget that psychology as a discipline is also a form of storytelling. Only they like their stories tidy, because they want them to explain things. There's a lot in it, but real life isn't so simple.

Looking back's illuminating - for yourself, and for the novel, and it's very true that we all have themes and tendencies that recur - how many novelists are incapable of writing a nice and good mother, for instance? Or characters with any parents at all? But lots of things in a novel stay half-buried, as in real life. It's a really good idea to interrogate everything a character says and does in terms of 'What do they want, how do they try to get it, what gets in the way?' (which may be internal or external to them) but don't be tempted to turn your novel into a piece of pop-psychology.

Emma