Busting Writer Myths: Protagonists Can't Have Parents

"Main Characters can't have parents! They never do! Mine shouldn't, either!"

Don't make me laugh.

The life of an orphan shouldn't be the first thing we hand to our characters when we create them. I mean, come on!

Quick, think of a Disney character, any Disney character. Nine and a half out of ten of them won't have any parents... or they're missing a parent... or all they have left is an evil step parent... or, like the Fab Five, they seem to have appeared out of thin air and don't have any parents to speak of (the fab five are Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto, in case you didn't know). With almost any other character in fiction, it's exactly the same.

Now think of someone you know. Chances are, that person has two parents. So, if fictional characters are supposed to be realistic.... uh, why don't they have any parents?

I think the basic problem with parents is this: Unless the character is an adult, their parents are just going to be in the way.

Nonfictional parents, please don't take offense.

In all worlds, fictional and otherwise, a parent's job is to watch over their children and keep them safe. If the fictional parents are just doing their job of keeping their children out of harms' way, they're just keeping the child away the adventure, character development, and skill learning the danger would have given her.

The other reason a lot of characters have no parents is just to give the character a nice tragic backstory, because who doesn't love a tragic backstory?

Never fear, I am here. There are plenty of ways to give the protagonist character development and sympathy without knocking off the parents.

To create sympathy for your character, you could give her a bullying situation, or have her constantly trip and fall in front of her whole ballet class. You could even break a few of her bones to eke some sympathy out of the readers.

And as for the problem of the parents being in the way, they don't have to be. 

Your character could have more lenient parents, the kind that let her go wherever she wants so long as she calls first and gets home by eleven. The adventure could happen in short episodes, so that the parents don't notice the extra thirty minutes she's gone each day. Or they could be distracted parents, who never even notice she's gone. This might not work for everyone, but if it fits your story, use it, rather than shoving the parents off a cliff. Or better yet, just have your character be of the age where she can do whatever she wants anyway. Never resort to the cliche.

Well, that's all I have to say on this subject, but feel free to ask me more in the comments! I also have Twitter and Instagram, where I post funny writer stuff as often as I can. They're both linked in the last post. Feel free to check them out.

See you next week, and happy writing!

Cover Photo by Peter Lloyd on Unsplash