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Real family is a bondage that cannot be broken by any means.

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Hello and welcome to the Finding Elara Podcast building worlds with words and sharing those words with the world. A podcast for writers, worldbuilders and Artists that would like to take a mindful look inside their creations. Join me as I dive into the depths of mindfulness and explore worldbuilding in all its diversity ever searching for Elara.

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Hi Guys welcome back to the show. This is episode 14 airing on Boxing day and I hope that you have a very MERRY Christmas wherever you were. I am your host Dianna. Today we are talking about family integration into stories the different relationships people have within different types of fiction. It's only a quick episode so I don't go too deep into the subject but but I may investigate into it further because I found it really interesting.

Before I get started I know that you are all excited to hear about the results from my raffle copter competition that I drew this morning. The winner was Stephanie. I had three times the amount of entries as last time which is good, every time I get a little bit more. She won a copy of Derek’s book, break through your BS and unleash your inner greatness by simply checking out the finding elara facebook group and tweeting about episode 13. I hope that she enjoys the tips and tricks hidden between the pages and lets me know what she thought. I also downloaded a copy of the book to add to my TBR list but if you've listened to the show for a while then you know that my TBR list is pretty massive so we will see how I go and how long it takes me to get to it. I have actually been doing a bit of reading myself over the Christmas period listening to audio books and reading. A good friend of mine Garry recommended that I read this book Nice girls don't have fangs I'm only halfway through reading that. It's been really good. It's quite funny it's been out for a while but I hadn't actually heard about it until he pointed it out to me so I'be really been enjoying that. I've also been listening to Kel Kades first book in the Kings Dark Tidings series that I am going to review in the Buffy night segment. So you will hear more about that later. 

On Friday night my daughter had a cinema night so i stayed in the kitchen to make sure that everything ran smoothly. On Saturday we went to perth to get some shopping done and drop off the kids. On Sunday if picked up my husband and brought him to the city for a wedding. Then we stayed the night and came back on Christmas eve. Then of course my hubby had to go back to work as he only got the one day off for the wedding. Then of course it was Christmas. I am podcasting to you today with my new laptop with a, boom arm and pop filter for my mike. Joel is pretty happy to get his microphone cover back that I had borrowed for the show 14 episodes ago. We were very fortunate this Christmas and I am just really glad that we we had a chance to be together. The last 4 Christmas's Joel has had to work so it's really good when we have a  chance to be together. Being a FIFO Family means that we miss many events together having to juggle dates around the roster. When the kids were little it was much easier to shift things around but now that they're old they seem to obviously understand a lot more and you can't change some ones birthday. But fortunately Joel was home this year and it was awesome.

My youngest daughter is still a believer of the jolly red man at the age of 10 and wrote him a letter this year. She put a whole list of questions which he answered and it really lightens my heart to see the joy in the kids faces when they get what they want. Even when it is something small like having home. It just makes all the difference in the world. I would love to say that it has filled my creative well, but I am still really tired and I feel that all the creative juices will start flowing after a few good nights sleep and not leaving the house except for the pool for a few days.

My day today was filled with setting up my new rig that I have affectionately decided to call Hallie. There is a reason behind the name, my last laptop was named Florence so I wanted to keep it a girl name. I am telling all my secrets to my laptop all the time and I didn’t feel comfortable with it being masculine. So it's Hallie because it a predator Hellios 500 and the actor who played that acclaimed character was Kevin Peter Hall so that is how I got the name Hallie. I am sure that Hallie and I will have many great adventures in the years to come and i hope that she's just a reliable as Florence was.

To be honest I was going to do a special reading for you my Christmas tale, gum Valley, but I ran out of time as you can tell I've been really busy. I am finally happy with the cover of the book and I am not going to rush myself in perfecting the prose now that I have unashamedly watched the big red button literally fly by. I am just going to have to try again for a lead magnet story. And now that I have such a rich backstory in Gum Valley I may have to set the tale there we will have to see.

I would love to hear about how everyone else chose to spend their festive break, feel free to tweet me @finding elara as DL Nix on facebook or in the facbook community.

Now it is time for the main part of the show.

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Today we are going to talk about Family!

The definition of family has evolved and changed as they years have progressed. It is not simply the bloodline that makes the family, the roles required within a family are filled by friends, coworkers and neighbours in some occasions but they are as close as family. When you look for the definition of family online there are multiple interpretations of this integral part of everyone's life.

There are different roles that effect the development of people throughout their lives, initially it is the people closest which may be the mother, father and siblings. Then the family grows to include grandparents, cousins uncles aunties, in multiple combinations from one of both sides of the original parties. Then as you get older still you meet people that you choose to be a part of you family. Ones that you hold such a high value connection with that they are like family. Then you make your own family and the cycle continues.

Generally, when you look at fantasy which of course is my favourite, the main character looses one or both of their parents in a mysterious or horrific tragedy instigating the plot to propel forward and provide the much desired low point for the character to learn and grow from.

The urban dictionary have a great definitions for family that I agreed with.

A group of people, usually of the same blood (but do not have to be), who genuinely love, trust, care about, and look out for each other. Not to be mistaken with relatives sharing the same household who hate each other. REAL family is a bondage that cannot be broken by any means.

That’s from urbandictionary.com and that last little bit I really like. Real family is a bondage that cannot be broken by any means.

Now there are endless combinations of what makes a family and how people interpret families but it all starts from the same place, which is the perspective of each individual character.

Every character has their own backstory even if it the grocer in scene 2 that you only see for one sentence. Why is he a grocer and how did he get there. Their backstory provides the motivations that the characters needs motivations to make the simple decisions. You don’t need to do a full back ground check on everyone but you do need to know their motivations.

Now I am going to really generalise here but some people find this a lot easier than others to understand the whole concept. But as i said it's really quire interesting concept to look into and I might look into it in the future. So going back to the roles of family in fiction you need to look in the real world, let’s look into the nuclear family.

Mum Dad Sibling or siblings. The lines are blurred as to what is actually expected of a Mother and Father because you need to step up to the plate and get the job done most of the time. You can’t say that in the real world that it's always the Mother that cooks and cleans and gets the kids to school or something like that. Most people live with both parents working to survive unless you are incredibly fortunate and one can stay home, you know the dream life.

So the Parent, are the person the provides the love, guidance and support for the little ones as they are in their developing stages. The siblings also provide guidance and encouragement in their own individual way. These responsibilities are shared around as the child grows and develops. This is something that they need as a character to move forward it's like their core drive.

In romance the parents are often represented as models for the main character to follow or not follow. So if the parents are divorced when it's a romance story sometimes the main character doesn't want to be married because if their parent tragic divorce. There it's always some motivation followed by the families core family beliefs.

In a fantasy like I said earlier the parents are often mysteriously or tragically torn away from the main character and the spot that the parents would normally fill needs to be provided for in some way. So there is normally some form of mentor, they do find that love and guidance or in the adventure they are going to look for these things. That they need to develop their core abilities and rituals or whatever.

In a contemporary or drama there could be any combinations of parent or lack of in addition to the normal nuclear family. It is an integral part of humanity, having this connection with others. and family builds the core beliefs that we all live by. 

Siblings provide the first friendships, even if it isn’t the best of friends straight away they might hate each other. It's the first friend that they actually have. You can be picked on or bullied by siblings at home but if you go out and about  know if you are out then they would stick up for you. They'll have your back.  They would be there and support the decisions that you make or completely discourage you with brutal honesty about your worthlessness. Depending on the sort of relationship that they have. The way that you react to the praise or taunts Depends on the primary relationships that you had to start with. So the love and support or lack there of.

Parents, Are you courageous because you have to be to get by or because you have so much support and encouragement behind you pushing you along and making you reach higher heights. Are you shy and subservient because you were always beat down and lost the will to get back up again or is it because you always had everything done for you and you honestly don’t know how to do it for yourself so that makes you shy and a bit introverted.

 The motivations also come from within you but these relationships that you have with family do effect the decisions that you make even if it is on a subconscious level and your character have their drives and motivations from their subconcious level as well as the conscious decisions that you are making for them.

So I wanted to keep it short as I said. Five tips for writing families and fiction

1. When writing the roles of the parents make sure that you don’t stick to the stereotypes. Is is not a big deal this day in age for a man to clean the house, it is almost expected that the man pull half as much weight as the female. And don’t expect the woman to clean when she has a full time job of her own. 

2. Siblings have power over the young character and your role within in the hierachy of siblings will effect the decisions and how you act around other siblings. If you are an only child then the role would be different to someone that is the youngest of five kids. The role that the siblings would usually play as first friend would be with the parents.

3. Family doesn’t have to be blood. The roles that you need can be filled with other people.  But who ever you get to fill these roles need to build the development of a character. There can be external parties involved that you hold just as dear as blood relatives.

4. The grandparents don’t have to be wise and all knowing. That is such an overused trope. Some grandparents don’t have the best memory so you don’t need them to be a wise old owls. they can be cheeky or tricky or you might not even be able to understand them because they don't speak the same language as you.

5. Uncles and aunties and cousins can be as close as siblings depending on the circumstances within the family. Or they can be as bad as enemies.

So that's my 5 tips. I hope you liked them today. I wanted to keep it short as I said and I may explore it more in the future.

Buffy night

The night where I get full use if the tele in the lounge and find inspiration with friends. This week I have the book free the darkness by Kel Kade just under 17 hours of entertainment! I attended a wedding in the city this past weekend and with my husbands roster I have to pick him up separately to 18 hours of driving which provided a fantastic opportunity to devour an entire audio book.

The kings dark tidings book one – free the darkness. by Kel Kade.

I have this book on audible for a few years now and my husband and I have been eagerly anticipating each release in the series since the end of book 2 which is I think when we found out about the series. It had been a while since I had started listening to this series and sinse there was a nre novel released recently I thought that I would listen to the first couple of books again. I have a love hate relationship with this series and I know that might sound a little strange because I wanted to review it but it's one of those book that well me, I couldn't stop listening to until the end. I'm so deeply immersed into this world that I have to physically wrench myself out of it if I want to get anything else productive done. It is brilliant for when I am driving, cleaning, walking of have any amount of time to myself where I can have my headphones on. I have subscribed to Kel Kades email list for a long time and he only sends something out when there is something to say, for example the new book coming out! So we have the new book but I thought that it would be good to listen to the rest of the series again.

The first story allows the reader to witness how our dear main character was raised in an extremely unconventional way that provided everything that he will need to get by in the big wide world. The way the story unfolds before your eyes is vivid and succinct no pulling back any of the punches and it is epic. Because of the main characters up bringing you sort of know as the reader why he makes the choices that he does throughout the story and Kel Kade gets in to the head of a few companions who have led a relatively normal life and really highlights the contrasting perspectives. The confusion between the two can lead to feelings from humerous to humbling and everything in between. This is the perfect book for when you want an escape.

I listened to it on this occasion with my son listening aswell. That's the 14 year old and he was also pulled in encouraging us to listen to a little bit more here and there when we were stuck at parking and things like that, which is good to see how excited they are about the story. He said that if he was to give it a star rating it would be 4.5 and I heartily agree. So, the only reason that it loses the half a star is because I had trouble putting it down. So if you have some time over the holidays, and you are interested in a good fantasy, then check this one out. I will make sure that the cover is one the show notes so you know what to look for. 

And as always at the end of every buffy night … grr argh.

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That’s all I have for you today, the music is by bensound.com

If you have any question about the show then you can contact me via email dianna@dlnix.com that is Dianna with 2 n’s. Or look for me on facebook as DL Nix and twitter @ finding elara. The show notes  are at dlnix.com/014. If you would like to support the show then check out my Ko-fi page. That is K O – F I / finding elara. You can buy me a cuppa for 3 dollars any time you like and I will thank  you on the episode.

Next week I have an interview with Carole Lane who is the perth ring leader of the Australian Fairytale society. We talked about the fairytales that have inspired her as she's grown up in Australia and continue to inspire her stories now.

I hope that you have a wonderful week and keep up the search.