I’m taking a couple of days off from blogging to celebrate the Easter weekend with my family. I hope you’ll enjoy this older post, which originally ran last June.
Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, Snow White, Harry Potter…and it’s not just in children’s literature that there are absent mothers/fathers/wives/husbands.
If you think about it, many novels (except, maybe, ones that are specifically focusing on family life) have protagonists with no significant other.
Why is that? I think it’s because husbands or wives or–in the case of children’s lit, parents–can be domineering, interfering, or overly influential. Worst case scenario, they can weaken the protagonist as a dominant force in the story.
I was editing my current WIP yesterday and noticed that my protagonist is a widow. Not only that, but four supporting characters are spouse-free.
I’m fine with my sleuth being single (her husband might try to curtail her crime-fighting activities: particularly after they put her in danger), but I’m going to take another look at the bevy of single characters in the supporting cast.
I always thought it was funny in Cheers that Norm’s wife became a character, even though we never meet her. Just his remarks about her were enough to bring her to life.
If our supportive characters are married to characters with no role in the plot, their spouses could just have a passing mention. The problem is when we have too many characters in our book for our readers to keep up with. Keeping the head count down is another reason why I have so many single characters or divorced characters.
How do you handle the families of your supporting characters? Do you briefly mention them? Don’t mention them except to describe the character as a parent or married? Or leave any mention of them out all together?
Elizabeth – You bring up an interesting question! My protag’s married, and what I like about it is that his wife is a really strong support for him. I did wonder whether she’d become an impediment, but it turns out that she’s pretty terrific. Not all of my characters have spouses, though. I like to focus on the muystery at the core of the story. When there are too many family and spouse issues, that can take away from the story, so I’m cautious about including too many characters.
In my current WiP, the MC’s parents are pretty critical to a subplot dealing with some of his internal conflict so they’re more present than with other characters’ families. The rest are just passing players who enter and exit as needed to sort of flesh out the world and such.
In my last WiP, I think I only had three characters who had any family that came up at all. And most of those characters got cut before I ultimately shelved the project for good.
In one ms, the family drives my MC batty. In the other, the MCs are alone. I guess I’m kind of all over the place :)
Isn’t that a great idea to have your main character with little or no family. It also makes you want to be that person’s friend and hang in there with them until the book ends. :)
Happy Easter, Elizabeth.
I realized that by giving secondary characters in romance “married with family” status, it kind of dead-ended the ability to feature them as hero/heroine in their own books due to genre constraints.
In When Danger Calls, I do show family of my h/h, but I haven’t tackled a large, extended family yet. However, early in my writing, when I was setting up my first book, I had my poor heroine going through several life crises. “Where’s her mother?” people asked. So I created one for Sarah, but kept her distant, with only weekly phone calls as communication.
In my WIP (or WCBRAATTS – Work Currently Being Ripped Apart and Torn To Shreds), the protag is not married, nor are the other characters, although a peripheral one is engaged, and parents are out of the picture – and that is one of the main questions of the plot.
Helen
Straight From Hel
I have two timelines in my current WIP. In the modern one, the woman is divorced, her husband is a threat to her, and her mother is in prison. Her father hasn’t been on the scene since before she was born.
In the historical timeline I have a family with parents, 3 children, and household servants. Later on, the brother and parents die, the older sister gets married and the younger one continues to live in the family home.
Each character has an important part to play in the plot. The brother and the modern day husband are villains. The maid is an alley, and the younger sister is the narrator of the historical portion.
I didn’t realize that this was complicated or unusual. Most people have *someone* in their lives, and I personally enjoy books with intricate interpersonal relationships.
Stephanie–Sounds like the family provides key conflict to the story…they’re definitely more important than other secondary characters.
Oh, I’ve got a manuscript graveyard full of projects that didn’t work for me. :)
Margot–The mystery is the whole point, isn’t it? And too many characters does get confusing.
Helen –That’s a GREAT acronym! Ha! Sounds like you’ve made the story work out well.
Jemi–Sounds like the best of both worlds to me. :)
Journaling Woman–True! Because they need all the friends they can get! Happy Easter to you, too!
Red Headed Quilter–I should have made a proviso on this post! You’re absolutely right–some of us have genre restrictions with word count. I have 75,000 words (and fewer with my Myrtle series.) in that space, I don’t have much room to focus on secondary characters. They’re there, but it’s a challenge to present them as well-rounded *enough.* :)
Terry–I hadn’t thought about that, but you’re absolutely right–that’s a genre where you can spin off characters into their own books.
And readers WILL wonder about these people’s families!~
Since my characters are all young adults (17-25 years old) their parents and families play a big role in their lives!
First of all, I hope you had a wonderful holiday with your FAMILY!
Secondly, this is an important issue. I’m writing YA now, so the big question is parents/siblings – in or out? For my current story, I have the mc’s parents & sister in, but not a lot. I’ve also got some other parents in, but mostly in mention only.
I’ve discussed this with my agent, and backed off on a lot of the parental intervention. “Gets in the way of the story,” she says. At first, I tried to fight it, but of course, she’s right. (She’s ALWAYS right!!! That’s part of why I love her so much.)
Oh, and I love Helen’s abbeviation for WIP. Totally classic!
I always introduce the family of my characters either in word or in person. I think it shows another side to your protagonist.
ann
Diane–Yeah, hard to avoid it at that age!
Ann–Because they’re NOT just facing the book’s conflict–they play other roles. Very true.
Debra–Thanks! :) Hope you had a great Easter.
I think that’s a good way to play it…just a mention. It depends on the length of the book maybe? With a long book, I guess you could get away with a deeper look at side characters…I know I don’t have that luxury with my books. Your agent sounds like she’s got a good handle on it!
One main character refuses to talk about them.
Another has an emotionally abusive father, with a mother who “died in child birth”.
And the other lost his parents as a child.
As a kid I always assumed I could never be a princess because I had both of my parents, plus step parents. …. I STILL believe that’s why I’m not a princess! Logic aside!
Actually in the series I am writing families are important, if you broaden your definition of family.
I have a brother and sister that will not speak to their mother, a small detail in the story, but explains a lot about thier relationship.
I have a couple that has lived together for so long, they are mistaken for a married couple.
Two of my characters keep track of their families, although do not interact with them a lot.
And one that is a single dad, raising five kids. The hurt that he feels about the death of his wife comes out ever so often. And helps shape how he raises his kids.
For these stories the family help shape the characters. But I have written others with no plan on family, and all of a sudden through writing an uncle will show up.
In the background it some times help to write out what type of family the character has, but sometimes it doesn’t fit the story (or maybe you have to fit thestory around them.)