Do you repeat certain aspects of a scene?

Every living room in my stories has a fireplace and logs burning in the hearth.

 

Only if it's relevant to the setting or I'm making some kind of point with it.

Can I ask why all your living rooms have lit fireplaces? Is it set in a place and time where it's cold but they don't have central heating, maybe? That's the case for my current project, without fires in the hearths all any of the characters would be thinking about is how cold they are!

 

Or, you know, dead.

 

Usually they're cottages. I also seem to have this thing about cottages in a forest or wood or countryside.

 

Lol. Yes. Absolutely. Sometimes consistent motifs and repeated themes can play a big part in the story. Sometimes not.

 

Nice. Do your characters spend time tending those fires?

 

Not much time. They keep it low.