Family
As I struggle with the “why” of writing, the theme I come back to consistently is family. It is not often that you find a functional fiction family. Usually, the parents are either dead (which, yes, provides some great motivation for the character), or much more harmfully, bumbling idiots. “Parents just don’t understand.”
I have a passion for finding a way to write a story that features a protagonist who has parents he can rely on. I know it means finding other motivation (the bad guy hasn’t killed or kidnapped the parents… what ever shall I do?). Outside of maybe the Swiss Family Robinson, I can’t really remember a book where the child could count on his parents, where the family was functional.
Here’s why I think this is so important: there come times in every person’s life when they start to face problems they don’t know how to handle. These often start in middle school or high school. They seem to start even earlier these days. And as we take cues from our friends and the media we consume, its just unfortunate that when a 15 year old hears from his friends, “my parents don’t understand,” it’s simply reinforced by every book he’s read since he was 10.
I’d love to turn that on its head.
My problem as a teenager was that my mother did understand. Seems she could read my mind. I thought she was magic. Then I grew up and discovered that parents as a rule completly understand their children, maybe because we were once children ourselves. Old bromide: “Young men think old men are fools. Old men know young men are fools.”
“I’d love to turn that on its head.” This is a worthy goal!