Characterizing Parents in Children's & YA Lit

There's been enough talk about the over-used dead-or-missing parents trope in children's and YA lit, but something that needs to be considered if you're breaking the mold and KEEPING THAT FAMILY TOGETHER: appropriate characterization!

If your manuscript is set in "present day," more than the landscape, technology, culture and slang around your character should shift and change. Your characters' parents' generational traits should also shift!

Here's a breakdown of the most common parental-types I see (though of course, there are plenty of others, particularly with parents who weren't born and/or raised in the Western world):

Baby boomers
Born roughly: early-to-mid 1940s through 1964
As of 2018, this means your MC's parents would be 54-78
General characteristics: early boomers are experimental, into individualism, free spirited, and social cause oriented and tend to be Democrats; later boomers are less optimistic, have a distrust of government, and general cynicism and tend to be Republicans. Tend to have a belief that it is important for each generation to earn their own money.

Generation X
Born roughly: mid 1960's through early 1980's
As of 2018, this means your MC's parents would be 38-53
General characteristics: entrepreneurial spirit, balanced, active, and happy in mid-life, unfocused as twentysomethings, bleak, cynical, and disaffected as young adults,

Millennials (Gen Y)
Born roughly: early 1980's through mid 1990's
As of 2018, this means your MC's parents would be 23-37
General characteristics: special, sheltered, confident, team-oriented, conventional, pressured, achieving, a sense of entitlement and narcissism


I in no way want to imply by sharing these GENERAL characteristics above that you MUST write your characters to fit within the traits typical of their generation. However, it can be a useful starting point to think through how your MC's parents or grandparents act, what they're passionate about, how they raised their children AND, most importantly, that you aren't unintentionally assigning traits more common to another generation to your MC's parents/grandparents because that is what YOU know, even if that doesn't make sense for your book.

If your manuscript is set TODAY, think about how old your main character's parents are - what generation does that correlate to? The music they love, the way they act, the jobs they have, and experiences growing up that will have shaped how they raised your MC will vary depending on that. That, in turn, will have shaped your MC, too!

Other important things to consider (that is not an exhaustive list by any means):

• The age your MC's parents started having children. This will ALSO determine how they are as parents. Did they start having children in their teens, early 20's, or later in life? This will also impact how the parents act, and interact, with your MC.
• What immigrant generation (first, second?) your MC's parents are? If your MC's parents (or grandparents!) are instead emigrants?
• The family dynamics of THEIR families - meaning, were they only children? One of six? Raised in foster care? Raised by a single mother?

I know guys. Characterization is complicated. And no, this doesn't mean that I comb through manuscripts looking to see if you've answered or addressed these questions through your MC's parents. (Or DO I?! ....no. No, I do not).

But I firmly believe that understanding the full dynamics of your characters, and writing them as real people, is worth it. Because at the end of the day, real characters are what agents, editors and readers are looking for!

Creating Dynamic Peripheral Characters

This is a blog post I never thought I would write. Why? Because I had no idea, until I went head-first into revision with one of my authors, what to say about it.

But when an editor comes back to you saying she loves the book, but she’d like to see some revision on peripheral characters, well, gosh darn it, you figure out what to say pretty fast!

So here are some tips that I came up with for my author:

Ask yourself: What is their motivation?

One of the most important elements of your novel is understanding motivation. And not just your hero and/or heroine’s. A great exercise for this is to write a piece of the book in each of your character’s perspectives. You don’t have to include this; but see what they have to say. After you give them a voice, go back to your novel, and make sure their motive and perspectives come through without needing to be in their heads.

Avoid black/white characters

No, not physically; your peripheral characters can be purple for all I care. What I mean here is: avoid blanket good/bad stereotypes. Yes, sometimes these blanket characters pop up; epic stories usually have them. But the gray area is always so much more interesting and heartbreaking.

A great example of this came to me last night, when I (re) watched (for the millionth time) Pirates of the Carribean. Captain Barbosa is clearly a bad guy…right? But that last scene, when he dies, and the bright green apple falls from his fingers…you definitely feel heartbroken for the guy, don’t you? That little detail, those darned apples, were a beautiful plot device for making him more dynamic. They were a physical representation of his motive. He wasn’t bad for the sake of being bad; he was in pain. Yes, he also gets a chance to explain his motive to us, but it’s the apples that really drive it home.

Ask yourself: Are these characters just tools to an end?

Part of what may make a character seem less dynamic is if they only exist to drive forward the plot. Yes, yes; back to the epic fantasy example, sometimes it’s unavoidable to encounter these “extras.” Not every character in a movie needs to run up to the heroine and explain their motivation. I think, perhaps, creating a little map of where each character in your book falls in relation to the hero/heroine should demonstrate the appropriate level of development in your novel:





As the circle widens, the development lessens.

Great; I’ve done the circle and the exercise. Now what?

Good question. Everyone’s approach to revision is different. But to start, think back to the Barbosa example: allow your peripheral characters a chance to explain themselves. Their motivations are going to have to come through via interaction with the hero and/or heroine, if you don’t have multiple POVs (which I never recommend). So go back to pivotal scenes, and give them a voice!