We Write What We Know: Random Thoughts On My Writing Style For Familial Relationships · 4:46pm May 11th, 2022
So... while reading some other works of fanfiction (not MLP, as I'm presently on a historical fiction kick), I've remembered something that I keep burying/ignoring.
WARNING: the rest of this is my ramblings about my personal family.
I have two ways of writing the fathers of my characters. Either they are absent/negligent (only occasionally are they outright abusive in any way)... or they are amazing paragons of paternal virtue.
This is likely because, growing up, my father worked overnight shifts. Often he would heading out the door when I returned from school (if he hadn't already left), and he would be asleep or still at work when I left in the morning. Around the time I was 14, I think my dad came to the realization that he barely knew his children (my brother, Jinxy, was 12 at this time). It was then that he started taking us on Friday nights to a local Games Store for an open D&D game.
D&D had been something I enjoyed hearing my mom talk about growing up because she'd played with my dad briefly before child-care got in the way. (Mom wasn't as invested in it, and it was my dad's group, so she ceded it to him.) Joining Dad for D&D was being allowed into his world. Sure I had some issues with the mechanics, but the people at the table were amazingly friendly and helpful. It was around then that I truly began to create stories. I'd written some before then, but it was all too stilted and rough... to say nothing of involving truly terrible Mary Sue characters. (I'm rather insanely grateful that none of that writing survives today... Bless the days before the Internet!)
And yes, I also realized that this was a last-ditch effort to have some form of connection with Jinxy and me. What angsty teenage social misfit wouldn't come to that conclusion? Especially since, for years, he'd mostly just let my brother and I go our own way whenever he took us out anywhere fun. He'd give us a time to meet and where to meet, and he'd wander away. By contrast, Mom would ask us what we wanted to do, where we wanted to go... if it was somewhere she had no interest in, she waited outside the store, but more often, she'd still wind up walking the aisles with us, giving us ideas of how to mix-and-match clothes, what books we might prefer... You get the idea...
My dad and I have a decent enough relationship now, but I do still feel like I put on a mask for him. Any topic I know or suspect we might disagree on, I don't bring up, and he does the same.
And yes, Every over-protective mother I write is my own writ large into my story. Sure their professions and avocations may be different, but they're all devoted mothers who inspire their daughters (often represented by my own personal OCs), give them ideas on different ways to do things, and encourage them to follow their own path, not just the one they followed.
It's my mother who actually inspired me to look into the programs in college relating to cars (Auto Body and Automotive). She told me how she took classes in high school on how to do oil changes and tune-ups, replace spark-plugs, etc., and my little science-greedy brain soaked that up. I was at loose-ends on campus one day and meandered past the shops for those programs, and thought "Y'know... I'm struggling with pursuing academics... Maybe I should try a vocational program." That random thought, brought on by looking into a shop filled with half-painted cars, lead me to my true vocation. I cannot remember having more passion for anything.
Likewise, if you sense a sort of melancholy about the presentation of brothers who are something akin to partners in crime, who inspire some truly epic hijinks that (most of the time) turns out to the good? I won't say that my relationship with Jinxy was always great. There was a time when I was flustered that he only ever seemed to be friends with my friends... That if I went anywhere with them, I was invariably importuned into taking Jinxy with as well.
The vast improvement came after I'd moved out for two years to go to university. For me, he brought the larger picture. For him, I brought that picture into sharp focus with minute detailing. I remember many nights spent developing worlds and filling in the large spaces of his ideas with my own in such a way that it blended seamlessly... or him pulling me away from my minutiae to see a vast plot that had gone unnoticed in my nit-picking...
I realized some time ago that this left it's mark on my writing. I either write what I know, or write what I wish had been true. Part of me wishes I could've had the Hero!Dad... or at least the dad that was sternly encouraging, even if distant... The only time my dad seemed to care was when I wasn't doing well in school.
Alright. Enough melancholy. I'm off to see if I can't write more for MoaMC... Or help Hazel with her story...
Or maybe I'll just turn on my Engineering Disasters shows and vegetate. 
Love and Light, my friends, and as always, stay safe out there!
~Witchy
