 Drama: May 04, 2016 Issue [#7605] |
  Drama
This week: Kinsmen of the Primary Characters Edited by: Joy  
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“The capacity for friendship is God's way of apologizing for our families.”
Jay McInerney, The Last of the Savages
“After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one's own relations.”
Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance
“Hermes gazed up at the stars. 'My dear young cousin, if there's one thing I've learned over the eons, it's that you can't give up on your family, no matter how tempting they make it. It doesn't matter if they hate you, or embarrass you, or simply don't appreciate your genius for inventing the Internet--”
Rick Riordan, The Sea of Monsters
“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.”
George Bernard Shaw, Immaturity
Hello, I am Joy , this week's drama editor. This issue is about the role of the family members of our main characters.
Thank you for reading our newsletters and for supplying the editors with feedback and encouragement.
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Welcome to the Drama newsletter
We all have families, be it natural, adopted, or reconstituted from different people. We all know how strongly we are bound to them and how difficult it is to stay away from this type of relationships. Sometimes, we are sucked into family conflicts and, at other times, consoled and supported by the family harmony.
The same is true of fictional characters, regardless of the genre of their stories. Kinsmen may play an important role in helping the primary characters to reach their goals or in causing failures. Joseph Campbell, in The Hero’s Journey talks of such a primary character, the archetype hero, who achieves great deeds on behalf of his tribe. On this journey, the archetype may have an ally or a mentor who may very well be of his family. Most epic tales with multiple storylines star similar protagonists such as in Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Mahabharata and Ramayana because these stories require related, serial characters moving in different character arcs, however still remaining true to the essence of the epic.
No matter what any genre suggests, all plots revolve around characters who face some form of conflict. The conflict can come from an external conflict or an inner conflict like a personal moral crisis. If the plot revolves around betrayal, abandonment, and emotional scarring, it may just be that the writer is writing a classic family drama or a kinsmen story.
In this type of a master plot, the conflict rests upon the family, as siblings versus siblings, parents against children and vice versa, husband and wife against each other, or family members against other family members. Pride, money and other worldly goods, war, or social and racial issues may play a role, too. Even if the main characters will try to stay neutral or act as peacemakers, they usually can’t help becoming involved in some way. In addition, if a story is about a prodigal son or daughter or a black sheep relative, it also qualifies to be called a family drama. At the heart of all these may be the honorable or twisted ideas of commitment, honor, love, and loyalty; a good example is The Godfather series.
Sometimes, a character has to learn to be a part of the family; at other times, leaving the family or at least the family-held values teaches the character to become free and autonomous. In a few spiritual and self-actualizing stories, however, the family may be shown as being detrimental to the character.
The most important thing to remember when we are using family members as allies or rivals of the protagonists and antagonists is to find the motivating force behind their thinking. Their backstory, how they became to be who they are, is also significant to their characterization.
People are products of everything that happened to them. Family members are also part of this equation, no matter in what way they are used in the story. A character who doesn’t belong to any group, tribe, or family may not be as convincing to the readers. It is, therefore, essential that, no matter what the genre, we include family members of the main characters in our stories even if it means mentioning them in a sentence or two.
Until next time! 
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 This Issue's Tip: To make a character, a setting, or any other thing come alive is to make it matter to one or more senses.
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Mia - craving colour 
Hi Joy. Thank you for an informative newsletter. In reading about a character as catalyst, my thoughts slip to a couple of my novels in progress. Realized I do have catalyst characters in some of them. This information will help me further define them.
I am glad, and thank you for the feedback.
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Quick-Quill 
In the Writer's Journey book, this could be the Mentor. He could impart knowledge or direct the MC toward the goal should they want to turn back. What made Bilbo suddenly abandon his comfortable surroundings for an ADVENTURE?
Yes, he or she could be a mentor or someone else totally different. In Bilbo's case, it was Gandalf the wizard's saying that he was looking for someone (meaning Bilbo) to share the adventure with him. Gandalf was the mentor here, but in a different story, it could be someone else, too, such as the antagonist with his initial action antagonizing the protagonist.
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