1. Oldmanofthemountain

    Oldmanofthemountain Active Member

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    How do you include complex family dynamics in your works?

    Discussion in 'Character Development' started by Oldmanofthemountain, Sep 22, 2022.

    The reason for this overly specific question is that I posted about a work that included a character's maternal and paternal half siblings in the main cast in a creative writing sub yesterday. More specifically, it was about a young married couple, the husband's siblings, and the wife's siblings (which included her maternal half brother, her paternal half sisters, and her full brother) going on a road trip together, and end getting stalked by a malicious "phantom hitchhiker" type entity. A commenter took issue with that, and advised me to simplify the family dynamics. In their words, "it would take more explanation for that, then a time travel movie."

    Something that I should note however, I'm quite interested in writing about such complex family dynamics. As my own family, especially my mom's side, is similarly complicated and messy.

    When my mom was just a little girl in the late 70s or early 80s, her mom died of a brain aneurysm. She was in her early to mid thirties when that happened and left around 6 children behind. My late grandpa got remarried in less than 4 months after she died, and had 2 more children with his second wife.

    Fast forward a few decades later in the early 2010s, his second wife passed away from what I think was a heart attack (my mom's first stepmom was in ill health for years at that point, but I can't recall the specifics). He started flirting with other women the week of her funeral, and found a girlfriend shortly afterwards. They got married in the second half of that year. My mom ended up getting something like 6 to 8 new step siblings from her second stepmom, but only met around half of them in person. Though I think she's facebook friends with most of her step-siblings, despite her little affinity for them.

    If I where to write a similarly complicated and convoluted family based on my mom's in my work, what would be the best way to approach it? How would you make such family dynamics approachable and trackable for your audiences?
     
  2. Louanne Learning

    Louanne Learning Happy Wonderer Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    A little bit of googling got me the following suggestions:

    - narrow your point of view - use third-person close - you can change the POV from chapter to chapter, just make sure the reader knows whose POV it is from the beginning
    - zoom in on different characters during the story
    - reveal your cast gradually - begin with a small cast and introduce more characters as the story progresses

    Read more at Big Cast: How to Write Stories With Many Characters
     
  3. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    The one aspect of all this to keep in mind is clarity in your writing. I had no problem following what you wrote here. I think you could insert a similarly worded explanation and then add a line like that "all the to all the offspring they just referred to each other as brothers and sister because it was easier that way." Then the reader knows the history and can keep it in mind as they go on to absorb the story. You could even revisit it when appropriate to sprinkle in the occasional
    "But Jeff was from his second marriage and Marry could never forget that, especially when he said such stupid things. His IQ must have been inherited from his mother. Her mother had been smarter. The smartest of all her fathers wives." You get the idea, I hope. This is just a suggestion of one way you could handle this. Good luck!
     
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  4. N.Scott

    N.Scott Active Member

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    A family gathering would be a good idea to introduce everyone. (wedding, will reading, birthday party, etc.) Ideally, you'd focus on some of the more important/distinctive members to the over all story. And you could draw a family tree for readers' reference.
     
    Oldmanofthemountain likes this.
  5. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    I think I would make sure toward the beginning to strongly characterize the mother and father before getting to all their various offspring. Make sure the readers feel they know them to a large extent, and I mean both of them as individuals. Not completely of course, but in certain important ways that differentiate their personalities as almost iconic, so later when you refer to each of them they'll remember clearly. That way, when you later refer to the mother or the father they have a strong point of reference.
     
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  6. Rake

    Rake Member

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    The truth is not many writers handle large complex family structures well. They regularly get lost and messy. You cannot bung a structure into a paragraph and expect people to appreciate the intricacies for the duration of a novel. Relationships like that need to be reference and reinforced regularly. Calling someone 'Aunt Mable' instead of Mable may help there but it might not always fit.
    I also think there is a generational attachment to family structure in story telling that is somewhat out of vogue. Charles Dickens revolved plots around family and handled it well but it was often the focus of his storytelling. If memory serves RL Stevenson did a whole John begets Paul preference/prelude in Kidnapped that would put you to sleep. In a current approach George R Martin handled it well by using symbolism; Stark is the wolf, Lanister the Lion.
    However you chose to handle it you will need to be creative and amazingly sensitive to the reader.
     
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