Writing Tips

Character Development: Parents

**This chapter is intended as help for writing parents of your main character, not for main characters who are parents. Although something I may say could help in writing a parent mc**

Okay, I believe I've spoken on parents before in my writing tip book, but if not, I'm going to say this right now:

Parents should not be written out of a story. Try to include them, even if they're only a minor character.

Since most books here on Wattpad are set in modern-day settings and have slice-of-life themes when it comes to the MC, you want to think about how the parents of your MC have a role in the story.

Some fun tropes (in my opinion):

1. The serious scary dad who's actually a sweetheart and loves pulling dad jokes on his kid(s).

2. The mom who's caring and supportive of her child 100%

3. Same-sex parents who want to raise a wholesome family

4. Parents who are open and loving no matter their child's choice in religion, their sexual orientation, etc.

Those are the more kind and wholesome roles and I love seeing parents who love their kids in books, so think on what positive things the parents can do in your story if your MC has a parent.

One way you can develop this is by doing a short personality quiz. Then you can figure out what the parent is like. This way, you will know if they may make your mc's meal every morning for school, prefer to pick them up via car instead of having them walk/take the bus/train, maybe even having fun family nights.

Again, it varies. Think of your own parents, if they're positive in your life or other people's parents who are positive. There are ideas out there to bring in that love and positivity if you need that in a parent for your story.

But not every book on here has positive parents.

I know some stories are darker, about MCs who struggle to get into a better lifestyle, mainly because of the neighborhood they're in, their own family, or other situations like being in a deal/contract with someone.

Say you do have a story where there are bad parents. Maybe they are pretty absent like many books on here seem to do with parents, but they may still pop up.

Say your MC has a one-parent household. Is the second parent a deadbeat who only comes by to find chump change for their addiction and doesn't pay child support?

Maybe it's a household where the parents fight. The MC could hear the argument through walls and floors. Maybe your MC needs to call a domestic hotline because of it.

Or say a parent dies and it causes a major effect on your MC.

There is a lot of different possibilities and you never know what negatives there could be if your story calls for a negative parent figure.

This area is very much up to your thought and interpretation on what to do, but I do recommend you try to bring the parents into it if your MC is a high school character or in a setting where they need a guardian still. Leaving out parental figures when your character is a minor in the setting can make for confusion and some holes in plot development and character building.

This is applied to other genres as well, not just modern-day settings. The victorian era, the medieval period, even super-advanced space life 300 years from now can use these ideas. You just have to adjust it to that time period for what you need!