Vimes question

[PeterT]

This question of parents is occuppying my mind. As someone who is writing a novel I have come to stage of revising the first draft, and how to deal with my characters' parents is a problem. I am inclined to ignore them, but then again surely they would wonder about their parents at some point...hmmm. The problem lingers

[Tonyblack]

Parents, spouses and family can often be a problem. I think it's one of the reasons that most detectives are either single, divorced or widowed. It complicates story lines when you have other people cropping up.

[Fortune Clutterbuck]

Kill 'em off

[Fortune Clutterbuck]

Or if you feel you can get away with it, deal with the problem by ignoring it - as long as you can suspend disbelief and there is enough going on to entertain them readers are often happy to gloss over plot holes - just look at Moffat's Sherlock

[raisindot]

As someone who is writing a novel I have come to stage of revising the first draft, and how to deal with my characters' parents is a problem. I am inclined to ignore them, but then again surely they would wonder about their parents at some point...hmmm. The problem lingers

Plenty of books never have familial backstories for characters or feature parents or siblings. Why make room for them if they're not essential for the story?

[PeterT]

All good advice...I think I shall ignore them. Cheers

[Fortune Clutterbuck]

The advice or the parents?

[Bouncy Castle]

[raisindot]

All good advice...I think I shall ignore them. Cheers

:lol:

The advice or the parents?

If you're my teenage kids, the answer is both.

[Fortune Clutterbuck]

'Twas ever thus

[PeterT]

:lol:

The advice or the parents?

Haha....well, the parents...the advice is never ignored...though it may not be acted upon!

[Andy M]

Thinking about backstories and parents after reading this and out of the 20 or people at work who I know well & socialise with outside etc I know nothing about the parents of almost all of them and have met the wives/husbands/partners of less than half.

So if that's real life why do we need to know all the details of every member of a charecters family?

[Cool Middle Name]

You never really find out how many siblings he has, but I think you can infer that he must have some based on some of the little bits of narration you get in the books from time to time, particularly on the subject of the frenzied nature of mealtimes, when everyone basically had to eat as fast as possible to make sure they got their fair of the food.

Just as it's interesting how many DW men are bachelors, it's also interesting how many of them don't seem to have siblings (or those we know about). Vetinari, Moist, Nobby, Brutha, Mort, Colon, Detritus, and Carrot have little tidbits of family background thrown out there, but there's no conclusive evidence that any of them have siblings. Whereas, most of the key female characters--Granny Weatherwax, Tiffany, Esk, Angua, Cheery--not only have siblings, but one or more of them plays an important role in defining who they are.

The thing about frenzied eating reminds me of my own life :/ That's what it's like with an older brother who can't stop eating, a sister who follows his footsteps and an even older brother who likes huge portions. I reckon it's normal with larger and poorer families, so Vimes must have a few siblings...
But your views on the DW bachelors male and female make a huge point. The female characters seem to be more family orientated.