Character family trees?

Question

I'm curious if anyone else out there puts together some kind of family tree for the characters in their stories. If so, do you make the basic one that just says who your characters are related to or do you include detailed info for the characters? And if you do make one, does it help you when you're writing?

Answer 1

I'm only a mental worker when it comes to details like that, but for one project I had to map it out.

The one project being for a book where two people who are very distant relatives, but know the family history are the main characters. Heh, believe me, without it's reference, they will be changing from third cousins to eleventh cousins. For the most part though, the complete family of the character doesn't come into play.

It's a good thing to have it documented in any case, and good for you to have done so. Family is a good way to get to know your character through personality traits, quirks, and even their looks. If you want to have a character that is a great baseball player, then note it is not going to work if their parents were both born athletically impaired.

Thanks for bringing that up. I've been looking for ways to get over writer's block, and now I'll add "Family Reunion" to my list of sparkers.

Answer 2

I do create family trees while writing stories. It is part of my character notes. It is more or less useful depending on the story. I'm working on a mulit-generational epic, of course it is invaluable for this and will probably be published with the book. Other stories it is simply an aid to help me define my character.

Answer 3

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Answer 4

no, not unless it's important to the story. for instance with Anne Rice's witch books, it was almost imperative.