What's It All About?

 I've been thinking about what individual stories are about.  I don't mean plot.  Do I mean theme? Maybe so. What brought this to mind was an interview with  Tim Minchin, Australian comedian. singer, and composer of the bestselling musical Matilda.  He said that all of his work is about the same thing: How do you lead an ethical life? As you see, that's a deeper "about" than just plot.  So let's play around a bit... The very first mystery story, Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue" is about the triumph of rational thought. Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" is about evil lurking under the surface of the ordinary (definitely a recurring theme for her).  Or is it about atavistic hangovers in civilization? Certainly a tale can be about more than one thing. Susan Glaspell''s "A Jury of Her Peers" and Roald Dahl's "Lamb the the Slaughter" are both about men's inability to see things from women's point of view.   Donald E. Westlake said "I believe my subject is bewilderment.  But I could be wrong." My own first published story, which you can read here, is about the effects of  betrayal.  My story "Why" is, logically enough, about motive. I suppose my favorite "about," which comes up again and again in my writing and my favorite stories is the possibility of redemption: someone trying to fix a mistake. The reason I am pondering all this is that "When You Put It That Way" appears in the November-December issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.   It is my fortieth story there.   And it is about economics. What?  Capitalists versus socialists?  Evil corporate monopolies? Progressive versus regressive taxation? None of the above.  I have heard economics defined as "the study of the  allocation of scarce resources,"   In my story, that resource is personnel. My protagonist is a district attorney faced with an unsolvable dilemma.  1. A billionaire just killed two people.  2. The sheriff thinks she has evidence of a serial killer.   The dilemma: Both crime scenes need a lab technician immediately and he only has one to send.  I put plenty more obstacles in his path, but that's the essence of the problem. Scarce resources. As I was writing this blog I was reminded of something I was told by a friend who is in the biz: "An economist is someone who, after a battle, shoots the wounded." Come to think of it, "Shooting the Wounded" would have been a pretty good title for my story.  But I like "When You Put It That Way." I hope you do too.