Writingwickedwitch - I Like Witches And Writing

Saw a post like this with negative outlook so I asked for it to be fixed

Aye this go hard af

Writing a Believable Family: Information You Need

So today I thought I’d help out myself and anyone else who’s writing something where family plays a central role, seeing as a lot of people write about families but I barely see any posts about it!

Families are really fun to read about (imo), but often hard to write, as each family has a different dynamic that you really need to get a hold of. It’s easy to get discouraged because sometimes your fictional family might feel like strangers when they interact with each other. So without further ado, here are some questions and prompts to help you get to know your characters’ families.

Questions

Who is in this family? Are they all important characters?

How big of a role does this family play in the story? The theme of family in general?

Who looks the most like who? What general physical features do they all share?

Who is closest with each other? Who feels more distant?

What is a tradition this family has?

What holidays does this family celebrate? What religion do they practice?

What does this family always fight about?

Are all the relationships in this family healthy? If not, what makes them toxic?

Who is in charge or seems to have the most authority?

Is there a social hierarchy within the family? Who generally seems the coolest to the others?

Does this family travel a lot together? Where do they go?

What was/were the older generation(s) like before the younger generation(s) were born?

Has anyone in this family died? How did this impact the others?

Do members of the family have different politics? How does this affect the family’s relationship?

How much do your characters value their family?

What movies does this family watch on movie nights? What movies do they refuse to watch together?

What role does extended family play in this family’s life? (Ignore if the family you’re writing about is an extended family.)

Who argues the most?

What personality traits does the family share?

What makes this family unique?

What did/does the younger generation do for fun as little kids?

If this family had a vacation home, where would it be?

Who looks up to who?

Prompts

Write a conversation at the family’s dinner table.

What was the most disastrous family reunion/outing? Write it.

Try making a character web (shown in this post) for the family.

How does the rest of the family behave when one member graduates?

Write the script for everyone’s favorite old home video.

Draw a family tree. See how many generations you can go back.

Write each family member’s favorite family memory.

Describe how a family road would trip play out.

This family becomes the family fighting in Walmart. Describe how this happened.

The family is known for their top-notch annual ________ party. Write one such party.

Have a character from the family give your reader a “tour” of the family home.

Who got drunk at the last reunion? What ensued?

A character from the family is going through their favorite family photos. What are they? Why do they like them? What is the story behind them?

Imagine that this family has one huge family scandal in its history. What was it? How did people react when they found out?

A character has been hiding a secret for years, and their family finds out.

By the way, you can improve your executive function. You can literally build it like a muscle.

Yes, even if you're neurodivergent. I don't have ADHD, but it is allegedly a thing with ADHD as well. And I am autistic, and after a bunch of nerve damage (severe enough that I was basically housebound for 6 months), I had to completely rebuild my ability to get my brain to Do Things from what felt like nearly scratch.

This is specifically from ADDitude magazine, so written specifically for ADHD (and while focused in large part on kids, also definitely includes adults and adult activities):

ADDitude

How to Sharpen Executive Functions: Activities to Hone Brain Skills

Executive functioning skills range from working memory to cognitive flexibility to inhibitory control, and beyond. They power our daily func

Here's a link on this for autism (though as an editor wow did that title need an editor lol):

Kenneth Roberson, Ph.D.

Enhancing Executive Functioning Difficulties in Adults with Autism

Practical Strategies for Enhancing Executive Functioning Difficulties in Adults With Autism - Living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) as

Resources on this aren't great because they're mainly aimed at neurotypical therapists or parents of neurdivergent children. There's worksheets you can do that help a lot too or thought work you can do to sort of build the neuro-infrastructure for tasks.

But a lot of the stuff is just like. fun. Pulling from both the first article and my own experience:

Play games or video games where you have to make a lot of decisions. Literally go make a ton of picrews or do online dress-up dolls if you like. It helped me.

Art, especially forms of art that require patience, planning ahead, or in contrast improvisation

Listening to longform storytelling without visuals, e.g. just listening regularly to audiobooks or narrative podcasts, etc.

Meditation

Martial arts

Sports in general

Board games like chess or Catan (I actually found a big list of what board games are good for building what executive functioning skills here)

Woodworking

Cooking

If you're bad at time management play games or video games with a bunch of timers

Things can be easier. You might always have a disability around this (I certainly always will), but it can be easier. You do not have to be this stuck forever.

“Romantic Gothic deals with the tormented condition of a creature suspended between the extremes of faith and skepticism, beatitude and horror, being and nothingness, love and hate - and anguished by an indefinable guilt for some crime it cannot remember having committed.”

— – G. R. Thompson: from “Romanticism and the Gothic Tradition”

There is a specific and terrifying difference between “never were” monsters and “are not anymore” monsters

“The thing that was not a deer” implies a creature which mimics a deer but imperfectly and the details which are wrong are what makes it terrifying

“The thing that was not a deer anymore” on the other hand implies a thing that USED to be a deer before it was somehow mutated, possessed, parasitically controlled or reanimated improperly and what makes THAT terrifying is the details that are still right and recognizable poking out of all the wrong and horrible malformations.

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Does anyone want to talk about Heavanfall is for lovers with me? Especially Antonio's route. I have so many opinions and theories.