Margaret Gaffney's Blog: The Writing World of Margaret Gaffney - Posts Tagged "writing"
The Challenges of Writing Big Families
I like it when I can find similarities between my favorite book characters and plot with my actual life. It helps draw me into the story more completely. One of my favorites, and one of the rarest, is books about characters with enormous families.
I myself am the eighth of nine, and I can't help but be intrigued when authors show scope of character between several siblings. An excellent example would be the twelve princess of Heather Dixon Wallwork's Entwined, the siblings of Georgette Heyer's The Grand Sophy, or the girls, and Ben, of the beloved The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy books by Jeanne Birdsall.
Unsurprisingly to authors, and perhaps surprisingly to readers, a common reason for this lack in storytelling can be a lack of understanding or belief in inability to create enough characters with enough personality for the reader. This can be especially challenging when trying to create siblings, as they might seem flimsy compared to your established MC, but they also require a level of similarity to the MC if they grew up together. Flat characters are the worst, but a fear of them shouldn't keep you from giving your MC half a dozen siblings if you want!
Writers tend to write what they understand, so today, I'm going to try to provide a few tips based on my own life experience as a sibling in a close knit family to give you some ideas about creating that literary family of your own. For these purposes, I'm not going to go into basic requirements, like giving your sibling characters motivations, private goals, mannerisms etc., that should be applied to other characters. This will focus on their roles in the family.
One of the first things to consider is place in the order. Siblings in a line of many are especially impacted by their location along the family tree. It can impact some of the most essential elements of their character. Obviously there is a common belief that the oldest children are the most responsible, but this isn't always the case. The oldest ones tend to be "the great experiment", meaning that they might be allowed to get away with more bad decisions than the younger ones. This also means the younger siblings are usually smarter about some things, like what NOT to major in, and whether dating in high school is worth it. As one of the youngest, you get to see the older ones mess up, so it's basically experience without the pain!
However, place in the line isn't as simple as oldest, middle, youngest. There can be mini clusters within these. For instance, there are 9 in my family, meaning 3 thirds, and me being the 8th means I'm the middle of the last third. So, in some ways I tended to feel like a middle child, especially because my brother right above me and my sister right below me are very similar in personality, and also very different from me.
Considering these kinds of dynamics, not only where precisely your MC falls but where there siblings are in the order can help you add aspects to their characters. I'm not saying that there is one way older and younger children are within a family, but I urge you to use logic to consider how placement in a family can affect.
Another thing to consider is how the parents might change in a family, and how that makes the children change, thus causing your MC and their various siblings to grow up to become different people. For instance, it's often that parents are more settled financially when their youngest kids are getting older, so they might have more opportunities for vacations and college etc. Parents might also simply be better at parenting later, like I said the oldest can sometimes be experimented on, so the younger ones have an easier time. However, the younger ones also have to deal perhaps with older parents, who maybe don't want to do certain things as much, meaning the children have to be inventive or become more independent so they don't stay in the house all the time.
A final thing to consider, and this does have to do with wider characters as well, is whether or not siblings get along. Perhaps there is one that is always difficult. Perhaps there tend to be two factions that form whenever an argument breaks out. It can have to do with placement in the family line, personal experience, and experience outside the family.
The thing that makes writing big families especially challenging is that they carry all the difficulties of writing normal characters, except that they have to have perceptible things in common to truly seem like family. They have shared experiences and sometimes they perceive those differently, so they grow to be different people, but that shared time is still there.
Large families are incredibly fun in real life and fiction, and I hope some of my commentary will help get those creative juices flowing and encourage you to be brave and expand that supporting cast. Onward, my friends!
I myself am the eighth of nine, and I can't help but be intrigued when authors show scope of character between several siblings. An excellent example would be the twelve princess of Heather Dixon Wallwork's Entwined, the siblings of Georgette Heyer's The Grand Sophy, or the girls, and Ben, of the beloved The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy books by Jeanne Birdsall.
Unsurprisingly to authors, and perhaps surprisingly to readers, a common reason for this lack in storytelling can be a lack of understanding or belief in inability to create enough characters with enough personality for the reader. This can be especially challenging when trying to create siblings, as they might seem flimsy compared to your established MC, but they also require a level of similarity to the MC if they grew up together. Flat characters are the worst, but a fear of them shouldn't keep you from giving your MC half a dozen siblings if you want!
Writers tend to write what they understand, so today, I'm going to try to provide a few tips based on my own life experience as a sibling in a close knit family to give you some ideas about creating that literary family of your own. For these purposes, I'm not going to go into basic requirements, like giving your sibling characters motivations, private goals, mannerisms etc., that should be applied to other characters. This will focus on their roles in the family.
One of the first things to consider is place in the order. Siblings in a line of many are especially impacted by their location along the family tree. It can impact some of the most essential elements of their character. Obviously there is a common belief that the oldest children are the most responsible, but this isn't always the case. The oldest ones tend to be "the great experiment", meaning that they might be allowed to get away with more bad decisions than the younger ones. This also means the younger siblings are usually smarter about some things, like what NOT to major in, and whether dating in high school is worth it. As one of the youngest, you get to see the older ones mess up, so it's basically experience without the pain!
However, place in the line isn't as simple as oldest, middle, youngest. There can be mini clusters within these. For instance, there are 9 in my family, meaning 3 thirds, and me being the 8th means I'm the middle of the last third. So, in some ways I tended to feel like a middle child, especially because my brother right above me and my sister right below me are very similar in personality, and also very different from me.
Considering these kinds of dynamics, not only where precisely your MC falls but where there siblings are in the order can help you add aspects to their characters. I'm not saying that there is one way older and younger children are within a family, but I urge you to use logic to consider how placement in a family can affect.
Another thing to consider is how the parents might change in a family, and how that makes the children change, thus causing your MC and their various siblings to grow up to become different people. For instance, it's often that parents are more settled financially when their youngest kids are getting older, so they might have more opportunities for vacations and college etc. Parents might also simply be better at parenting later, like I said the oldest can sometimes be experimented on, so the younger ones have an easier time. However, the younger ones also have to deal perhaps with older parents, who maybe don't want to do certain things as much, meaning the children have to be inventive or become more independent so they don't stay in the house all the time.
A final thing to consider, and this does have to do with wider characters as well, is whether or not siblings get along. Perhaps there is one that is always difficult. Perhaps there tend to be two factions that form whenever an argument breaks out. It can have to do with placement in the family line, personal experience, and experience outside the family.
The thing that makes writing big families especially challenging is that they carry all the difficulties of writing normal characters, except that they have to have perceptible things in common to truly seem like family. They have shared experiences and sometimes they perceive those differently, so they grow to be different people, but that shared time is still there.
Large families are incredibly fun in real life and fiction, and I hope some of my commentary will help get those creative juices flowing and encourage you to be brave and expand that supporting cast. Onward, my friends!
The Writing World of Margaret Gaffney
A place to chat about books and inspiration, and of course, the world of Verdania!
- Margaret Gaffney's profile
- 44 followers
