Sibling Relationships (in My Books)

So...Siblings! In my house the siblings are beating each other with miniature Louisville Slugger baseball bats. My husband was right when he said those were a BAD idea.

It seems to me, as a person who grew up without brothers or sisters, that maybe siblings are something that shapes your whole outlook on the world. Your personality...or maybe not? Like everything, I believe you have a mix of nature and nurture, so how a person reacts to a sibling with ADHD will be a mix of their own genetic predisposition and how their family/environment is shaped by that sibling.

In Parker Prescott, I wanted a character who appeared to be snobby but was really very vulnerable. I also wanted a middle child, a kid who seemed the easy well adjusted one, but in the end, wasn't. Having a "perfect" older sister like Paige set up the dynamic of appearing snobby, without Paige peers might have thought Parker was just quiet or shy, but following her popular older sister gave people preconceptions about what she might be like. And having Preston, the younger brother with ADHD just meant that her parents would be that much more distracted, that she would feel that much less important, but because she really loves Preston, his presence makes her more likable, I guess. I like snarky characters so I had no problem loving Parker!

Greedy, my book that may never be published, I started out writing a story about a bisexual character, and ended up writing a book about sisters. The difference was that in some ways their roles were reversed from Handcuffs. Molly was the extrovert, and the one who had to realize that her behavior affects her sister... I think that the sibling relationships are the heart of the book, as well as the conflict.

Sibling relationships, albeit screwed up ones, are also at the heart of The Fall. In writing it I started with what Poe had given us, isolated twins suffering from a malady. Poe's narrator was a childhood friend who had never visited the House of Usher, so I assumed that Roderick Usher had been away at school. The twins, Madeline and Roderick, had a relationship based upon intense devotion, made all the more intense by long periods of abandonment. They are also the only people who have (even a small chance) of understanding one another. This is the first thing I've written with twins or a male/female sibling dynamic.

Obviously, sibling relationships have found their way into all of my stories, and in really important, not just peripheral ways. Maybe it's fascination on my part, maybe it's plot necessity, I don't know. I also haven't noticed that I find books featuring an MC with siblings particularly more compelling that books with an only child. I guess it's something I'll be paying attention to in the future, as both a reader and a writer.

Only Children

Confession 1- I have never written a character who is an only child

Confession 2 - I am an only child

What's up with that?

Time Magazine's cover story this week, discussing the myths around only children, made me think (and not for the first time) about my propensity for writing characters whose sibling relationships are extremely important in their lives. Since I have virtually no experience at being part of a sibling relationship.

Now a short explanation of my experience is that I do have a brother, he was born a month after I graduated from high school, when I was 18. So, my childhood/adolescence was free of siblings, without a hint that there would ever be a sibling. While, I'm pretty sure that my existence in no way defined my brother's life, he at least (while also raised as an only child because I was already out of the house) had the experience of always having a sister, albeit a much older one, so he is sort of a quasi-only child, and I couldn't say if he was any more spoiled selfish or solitary than he would've been without my part in his life.

Because those are the myths Time is debunking. From Time "The entrenched aversion to stopping at one mainly amounts to a century-old public-relations issue. Single children are perceived as spoiled, selfish, solitary misfits. No parents want that for their kid."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2002382,00.html#ixzz0tkOy55Hk

I'd hazard a guess that quasi-only children are becoming more prevalent with second families, fathers who have nearly adult children and start new families, or step families. And, the article says that families with one child and no plans for more are on the rise, as they rose during the Great Depression. Interesting.

When I thought about it, I realized that the main characters in the two biggest (YA) Literary phenomenon of the last zillion years have been only children. Yes, Harry Potter, and Bella Swan. I don't know that anyone could call either of them spoiled, selfish, solitary misfits. Or could they?

There have been times in my life when I was all of the above. But my own children, less than two years apart, have also been spoiled, selfish, and yes, I have one who could be called a solitary misfit. (I'm sure there's creative genius in there!)

So, what's the deal with only children in literature? Holden Caulfield was a spoiled, selfish, solitary misfit and he had siblings.

And, as fun as the alliteration is, (spoiled, selfish, solitary, spoiled, selfish, solitary) Time, and many sources in the past say that these are complete B.S.

There might be plot based reasons why a character is an only child, like Voldemort killing your parents, leaving you an orphan, and stopping your parents from producing any more children. Or divorce...I don't remember how long the Swan family had been divorced. As a plot device, having another sibling hanging around might have been inconvenient (or interesting).

I'm going to scour my bookshelves for YA only children (Pudge in Looking for Alaska, Melinda in Speak) and see how comprehensive a list I can come up with.

For tomorrow I'm preparing a post called The Sibling in YA literature. That sounds nice and official, doesn't it?