1 / 13
Jul 2024

Trope has so many negative connotations, so how about writing trends?

Found Family

Instances of found family in your story?

Essence Walker of "A Dozen Morning Glories" becomes the primary caregiver of a little girl named Ayla, and it changes her life drastically. Not because she has never cared for anyone before, (Essence is also her mother's caregiver) but because Ayla doesn't see her the same way most people do.


“Who’s that on your backpack?”

She smiles slightly shyly and hugs the bag tighter still.

“Prince Julian and Emily.”

She clearly loves this show.

I think these are the same characters from the show she was watching the other day. I watch the way her eyes brighten as I pick up her car seat from the corner behind the door, and she walks beside me down to the car.

“Prince Julian is a prince who came from another realm. But now in a strange world, he can’t get on by himself,” she says theatrically, and I get the feeling she’s quoting the theme song.

I just realized I have no idea whether the car seat is supposed to be fastened in some way, and if so, how?

“He fell through a portal in his mirror and appeared in a little fish pond on Emily’s family farm. And it was so funny because he was all shivery and wet, and when she saw him for the first time, she thought he was a water monster.”

I think it’s fine. There’d be a harness on it of some kind if I was supposed to secure it, right?

I’ll just drive slowly.

“But when the prince got cleaned up, and put on a pair of Emily’s dad’s clothes, he was so handsome. And he got a job working on their family’s farm, and he goes to Emily’s school. But he doesn’t know anything about animals, so he has trouble working on the farm. But she teaches him and learns how to take care of all of the animals. And he’s so handsome and nice.”

She’s lighter than I expected, and I have no trouble picking her up and putting her in her car seat. She keeps talking the whole time, smoothing her frilly tutu the instant I set her down like a little lady.

“It has sparkles on it,” she tells me, as if I couldn’t see that. “See?”

She points out one of a thousand little pieces of glitter for me to look at, and I resist a sigh but lean forward to admire her tutu.

“It’s pretty.”

“My daddy bought it for me as part of a costume for Emily’s dress. Mom says it’s not supposed to be worn unless I’m playing dress up but Daddy says it’s okay. Do you like playing dress up?”

I almost laugh at that, but just shake my head as I buckle her in, “Not really. Grown-ups don’t usually play dress up.”

Not for fun anyway.

“When you were little like me did you play dress up?”

I didn’t really do that either, but I avert the question, smiling in a way I hope is sweet, “How little are you?”

“Five years little,” she laughs, holding up one of her chubby hands, “Everybody says ‘years old,’ but I’m not old, I’m just a little kid. I’m younger than everybody in my grade, but my mom said I’m smart enough to go to first grade and argued with the teachers until they let me in.”

  • created

    Jul '24
  • last reply

    Sep '24
  • 12

    replies

  • 677

    views

  • 1

    user

  • 3

    likes

  • 21

    links

Okay look.
I know me saying that my guys in my story Worst Case Scenario are found family is a spoiler because they all hate each other right now, but come on, we all saw this coming, it’s a matter of HOW they become family.
My entire series is centered around 6 chosen one’s becoming a found family because despite their differences, they are the only ones who truly understand one another.
They don’t figure that out for a while though…
Be patient with the idiots.

Psychoborg has a lot of found family themes due to escaping toxic situations and many of the characters being orphans.

The Creature of my Frankenstein adaptation is all about a found family.

Jekyll and Hyde are like two brothers who argue a lot, but also have each other's backs.

Warrick was literally adopted by a new family.

I suppose you can consider pets as adoptive children.

Here are the Webtoon mirrors:




Friends to Lovers

This one is pretty obvious to everyone who has read "Damsel in the Red Dress" but Alicia and Kattar have been besties for 15 years. It's their friendship that keeps their relationship together when trying to form a romance feels a little too chaotic and crazy because of both of their childhood (and pretty recent) traumas. At the end of the day, they still love each other, whether that means forming a romantic relationship or not, and that means a lot when you've been through as much as they have.

Pretty Mean Girls?

Well, yes, because most of the characters in my story or mean. My FL, Alicia's, agent Emelia Howard is like the bride of Lucifer. She's the biggest jerk I've written so far, but she's so pretty. Alicia thinks Emelia looks like a black Barbie doll, but that makes Alicia feel kind of insignifcant whenever she's around Emelia.

Essence's little sister Elizabeth is not as overtly mean as Emelia, but she is very selfish. She constantly leaves Essence to do all the work of caring for their mother after the stroke that left their mother unable to care for herself, but while she apologizes, she does nothing to change it. And has the audacity to post beach selfies on the same day she bailed out on helping their mother wash and braid her hair. I mean talk about brazen.

Unsympathetic Villains?

Has anybody here written unsympathetic villains? Villains that are just so selfish and evil that you don't want people to feel sorry for them or relate to them.

The closest i have to this I think are Kevin and Eunice in my novel "Rigamarole."

Kevin is a playboy, and while we know that he's staying with friends of the family because his mother is undergoing chemo, he himself doesn't seem to care enough or be affected by it enough to make him sympathetic. Meanwhile Eunice wears a good mask of a sympathetic and worried mother, but since the story is being narrated through her daughter's eyes, we mostly just get to feel Leia's fear and dislike for her, because Leia is aware her mother's 'concern' is just a front.

15 days later

I've gotta give another nod to found family, in my new novel debuting this month. Though I won't spoil whether Mora will get to stay with the George's, they are the first really ideal and 'home-like' harbor family she's gotten to stay with. Their living conditions aren't perfect, but they are the most involved and caring family she's stayed with so far.

13 days later

jock/popular kid x nerd

Weirdly enough, despite the fact that I've never thought of this consciously, several of my couples, if not all of them fall into this trend, even though only one of my characters is really defined by their jock identity.

Damsel in the Red Dress: Alicia was a straight-a student, but she never particularly cared to be good at school, she just was. Meanwhile Kattar was a lot more interested in learning bike tricks and the likes with his friends, though he did get good grades.

A Dozen Morning Glories: Dominic loves working out, and even participated in body-building competitions, but he's also a book worm, while Essence is the ultimate book-analyst, detail oriented editor (aka a nerd)

Rigamarole: Leia loves comic books while one of the boys she has a crush on is definite gym bro.

Crystal Blue: Mora is on the track team, meanwhile Christopher George loves anime and video games.

I wonder why my romances all ended up like that lol.

one of my favorites, I like the idea of characters having a strong supportive friend group, in ToV the main group has a family dynamic going on, giving advance when they need it and saying the hard things when is also needed, Higen would be the one that has this trend the most, been alone and having not many friends for years until he met Ozwald, Niko, Donna, and Carter I would say more but in the next volume early on this topic is brought up.

For The Journey is basically the main dynamic, having this cast of characters with very different personalities and how they learn from each other is an interesting thing, I always think of their dynamic as Yun would be the father, Karolin the young daughter, Parker that uncle that just wants to read a book and Anre is the wine aunt that would take his niece for shenanigans


Hi, yes, that's Tales of Valor the way Ozwald and Higen went from acquaintances to friends to best friends to "oh no I think I actually want to death him" I think for this trend I like when me, as a reader, get to see the friendship evolving into love/relationship rather than "they are both in the cover and will date" but that's just my preference, and maybe something in this trend will come for The Journey in the future.

I definitely have some plans for later in The Journey this trend is one I don't usually do I rather the opposite of mean but I do have some plans, A pretty mean girl is coming into play next volume in ToV I had fun writing her as she is going to be an important part of someone's arc

yeah, some of my villains sometimes I just want them to be evil or bad just because they can, in ToV Otis the nobody by the end when everything is out I would want readers to think "I understand but I don't like you" the other one falls more into the category I mention first, they don't have a "formal" name they are just "The Allure of the Dark" or just Allure for short, Alluere is always there listening in on Ozwald, waiting for the right moments to taunt Ozie into doing evil and letting them take over Ozie.

19 days later

Teen finds out they have super powers because they're secretly not human?

Okay okay, Mora has known her whole life that she has super powers, and she is technically human, just a different breed of human called a Homo Phantasma. But most of her friends and loved ones don't know she has powers because she's living in a harbor home away from her actual relatives.

21 days later