Leitmotifs

What It Does

Extracts recurring 2–4 word phrases (n-grams) that appear across multiple scenes. These may function as leitmotifs — repeated imagery, phrases, or symbols that create thematic resonance. Also detects "silent gaps" where an established motif hasn't appeared for several scenes.

Why It Matters

In music, a leitmotif is a recurring melodic phrase associated with a character or idea. In fiction, recurring imagery works the same way — "the red door" appearing at key moments creates an unconscious thread for the reader. If a motif appears in Chapters 1, 3, and 5 but then vanishes until Chapter 20, the thread may have dropped. Conversely, discovering your unintentional motifs can reveal your subconscious themes.

What Gets Flagged

Identified Motifs

Severity: Information

Example (flagged):

Leitmotif: "the glass tower" appears in 4 scenes — recurring motif detected

Why: A 2–4 word phrase appears across multiple scenes, suggesting it may function as a deliberate or unconscious motif.

Silent Gaps

Severity: Hint

Example (flagged):

Leitmotif: "the glass tower" hasn't appeared in 8 scenes — has the motif been dropped?

Why: An established motif (appeared in 3+ scenes) goes silent for an extended stretch, potentially losing its thematic thread.

Filtering

The analyzer filters out:

• Stop phrases (common function-word combinations like "in the," "of the")
• Phrases composed entirely of function words
• Phrases appearing in fewer than the minimum number of scenes (default: 3)

Configuration

No configuration options.

Technical Details

• Source: prose-craft
• Scope: Document-level (cross-scene n-gram analysis)
• Method: N-gram extraction (2–4 words); frequency analysis per scene; gap detection across scene sequence