In my book, the first part introduces Ren (a pretty significant character) and his older brother Adrian. When Adrian is 16, his parents throw him out of the house for being gay. Ren (who's 14) won't stand for this, packs his own bags, and follows Adrian. Although Adrian tells him to just go back so he can live a normal life, Ren refuses and just keeps following him and they eventually make their way to the train station. And so, more stuff happens, but you'll have to read my book, won't you? But I'm wondering, is it realistic for a 14 year old to give up his home, his stable life, his friends, his crush, his hobbies, etc, for his brother? Yes, Ren is very altruistic and quite innocent, but would a real person do that?
Can it happen? Could it happen? Would the parents let a 14 year old just walk out of the house? That's going to be up to you as the author to convince the reader that what happens has a good enough reason for it to.
It could I guess. They're a little scared of Ren, being as he had just told them off and is a pretty strong guy. And it's not like they care.
That means you'll probably have to give some kind of back story in order to show how neglectful their parents are.
As always, it depends. If you can show me that they are very close as brothers, then that would help make it believeable. Another thing you could do is bring Ren's age down a year, at 14 he might not look up to his brother as much as when he was 13, though he still could be. Coming to speak of it, I think that would be the most realistic approach. To have the younger brother look up to the older one and follow him around almost everywhere. He doesn't even need to get much love back from Adrian. . . So yea, that's the two solutions I can come up with. Either they're close (you could even come up with an inciting incident. Perhaps Ren or Adrian had a twin but he or she died early, causing them to be closer? Situations like that can either bring people close or tear them apart. But yea, I don't know what fits your story.) Anyway, either they're close or it's just Ren looking up to Adrian and following him around to be "cool". Being the youngest myself and having an older brother, I can testify that I did look up to him until I was about 13/14-ish. I am not sure if I would've boarded a train with him if he'd tried to run away, but I would have followed him to the train station at least, to try and tell him to go back. Once again, I don't know what fits your bill....
That's what Ren does! Adrian is a good big brother, but there is still a lot of adoration on Ren's part.
Those two years are vital though. Parents can get sent to jail for kicking a 14 year old out of the house.
Ok, I'm not going to make anymore comments. You asked if the idea was believable. I guess this is a life lesson that we all go through, don't ask questions if you don't really want to hear the answers to them.
If it's not believable, I'll make it work! *strikes Sailor Venus pose* *strikes Tohru Honda pose* *falls over*
I believe that kids leaving in early ages because of bad parents actually happens, so it's believable. I think the fact of the younger one leaving too because of his brother, in your story, is believable as long as you manage to do those two things: 1. Making a strong emotional attachment between the brothers, and putting special effort on the idealization of the great role model the older one is to the younger one, to the point that the younger one would leave everything behind to be with him. Maybe, as Macaberz said, you should play with their ages a little bit. I also believe that 13 years, even 12, would fit better for the younger one. 2. Making their parents bad, really bad, maybe even exaggerating their "evilness", so the older one had really no option other than leaving. This is just my point of view, of course.
My problem with this: The parents must be so abusive that Adrian feels like he is saving Ren. Otherwise, I don't see a big brother letting their little brother leave home for/with them
Maybe not neglectful, just not enough resources to make staying home not enticing enough to keep him there. Perhaps it was a case of they only bought the older brother fresh shirts from the thrift store, and the younger never had his own. (And it never occurred to him that with his brother gone, he'd be wearing clothing that only had one previous owner.) ((Even as an only child, I learned to appreciate the feel of a brand-new t-shirt.)) I'm seeing this story as Frozen through the gay agenda lens, but the details are different enough to build off of. There was also a book set in the Great Depression that was required reading when I was in Seventh Grade, basically a pair of brothers going tramp. Maybe a dash of FullMetal Alchemist as long as I'm referencing other stories. The half-remembered book is the only one that has living parents.
I think it's realistic if the brothers have a very close relationship, if Ren's relationship with his parents isn't good anyway, if he's really stubborn, if the society they live in is intensely focused on freedom and equality, if Ren is adventurous and wants to see the world, if he belives he can protect his brother etc. Essentially Ren will have to decide to stay or not and, even though he may not have made the right choice because he doesn't know what either future brings or because he might be too young to judge correctly, his motives must be understandable and reasonable for the story to work. With that said I like your story/plot idea. In the novel I'm currently writing the two main characters are a pair of brothers who are very close as well, though they live in a loving household and the entire family is friendly and accepting, but when the oldert brother dies the younger is heartbroken, and this influences much of the rest of the book. I myself am a man and the youngest of three children, my sister being the oldest and my brother the middle child, and he is, at least for my part, the "closest relative" to me and I love him more than anyone or anything else in this world (even more than myself, and that's saying something as I love myself a great deal) and I'd do anything for him and I have taken more after him than anyone else, but that doesn't mean we don't disagree a lot or anything, because we absolutely do. This is the basis for the fictional brotherhood I described earlier. Sibling relationships can be very intense in love, hate or both and are very complex, complicated, important and intriguing because they share a lot of genes, usually live in close proximity to eachother (and usually can't help that until they're adults), tend to display various similarites and can drive eachother up the wall when they are annoying etc. This fortunately also means you can go almost anywhere with a sibling relationship and noone can say your approach is wrong. I suggest going off of own experiences and what you've seen in friends, media and entertainment for ideas of what these relationships can be like. One could hate the other but be loved their sibling regardless, the siblings could ignore eachother, one's stupidity or arragogance or whatever could irritate the other, they could have in-jokes from when they grew up, they could have a relationship that's on the surface emotionless and more like colleagues or whatever but hide their feelings from their childhood within them, they could constantly argue and be very different people with different opinions and may or may not still love eachother despite this, one could have been unlucky or made bad decisions in their life and the nother attempts to help but the other won't listen etc.: endless possibilities.
@Smoke Z, this is actually just a very small part of the plot! It's not all about the two of them, but that's very influential.
Did your older sibling take you? I ran away multiple times, although never far and never for long. But, as you can see, I was not questioning the younger sibling, but the olderolder
Yes, some persons fairly, have the intense love to their family members . They attempt to help their family when they are in a difficulty or danger. I don't wonder of Ren's reaction, but I wonder the start of the story, how parent of Adrian compel him to leave the house or they throw him out to become a gay!! It sounds an odd thing.
I think that there would likely be legal consequences for parents who let a child as young as fourteen leave the home. So while they may not care about their children, I'd think that they'd care about the consequences. I would find it more realistic if the younger child snuck out rather than stormed out right in front of his parents.
Yes, I could see one brother standing up for another that way, but, their school would probably notice their absence and report them as missing. They'd be tracked down somehow. If the brothers text their friends a lot it would be hard for the parents to hide what happened...the parents would get flammed. Yeah, it's possible that the 16 year old would not allow the 14 year old to come but I'd still follow my sibling. Or, I could stay home and make my parent's life a living hell. I'm not exactly sure what happens in my city...I think Children's Aid would assign them a case worker and then they would be placed in a group home or foster care.
