Sisters and Strangers- Imprinted's World pt3
Writing sibling bonds and building trust in fiction
Thanks for stopping in to part 3/3 (for now) of me exploring the background and themes for my newly published novel, Imprinted. Feel free to read part 1 and part 2, but you don’t need to have read them to carry on here! More ponderings, I hope, than “how/why I write” but it all kind of goes together I think.
From mythical creatures to veils and light and darkness, we land somewhere more relational than fantastical today. Sibling bonds and building trust and relationships with people we meet. Both are things I’ve tried to explore in other stories, novels and short fiction, and there always seem to be a few commonalities between them (like stars are always showing up, whether or not they’re the main point or theme).
I’ve always found it interesting that sisters seem to appear in my writing, since I didn’t grow up with a sister. I was friends with other little girls, but I was always very shy. Shy, creative, and a problem-solver (recovering people pleaser) from an early age. I’ve also never really been one to write “real people” into my work. So if those sisters in my fiction aren’t real, as a sibling or a friend, I’ve always wondered why.
My favorite short story I’ve ever written (which I may begin posting here, though I don’t write nearly as much short fiction as I used to) centers on two sisters - the older one has disappeared and presumed lost on her “adventure” into the wild and to appease the desert beasts, and the younger one lost in grief, anger, and an unwavering belief her sister is still alive. They’re reunited in the end, but it’s with the revealing of the world the younger knew she was being lied about, but never realized. And yet their bond prevails despite that world they find themselves in.
Which, in a way, isn’t so different from the sisters I write about in Imprinted. Only the roles and arcs are slightly reversed. The younger is the one who is lost, thrown into an impossible world she could never have predicted and without anyone to guide her, the older searching desperately for her with everything she has, and the desire to protect them both when they find each other.
I’m still not sure quite what to make of that. Roughly 4+ years passed between when I wrote that short story and when I began Imprinted. It’s more of a pondering rather than a question I try to answer, why sisters seem to appear in my writing and why those types of arcs tend to haunt them. But it’s always fascinating to me to look at what kinds of stories someone tells, and how those elements change (and stay the same) over time.
It’s almost a similar thing for writing stories where characters are building trust, building relationships with others within their fictional worlds. I can still remember, when I was in middle school, trying to write realistic fiction stories like the ones I was reading. But I always got stuck. The new girl moved to the new school, and then I didn’t know where to go next. Because I didn’t know what my story was. I didn’t know how to make new friends, or what sorts of “adventures” we would go on. What we’d talk about. Writing was something I needed, but those weren’t the type of stories I could tell yet.
Building relationships is also something intriguing to me. Maybe it’s because I can still be a rather quiet, reserved person. Maybe it’s a bit of my reader/writer and studying fiction practices. Conflict avoidance in real life vs conflict in a fictional world drives a plot? Whatever it comes out to be, in my stories testing those bounds of how we develop trust, what proves and what breaks it, as well as how relationships grow tend to be central themes. I think it’s a part of exploring what makes us human. If we’re relational beings, which I believe we are, then the relationships we have with others, and with ourselves, is a perspective into how we see and engage with the world around us. And when there’s conflict added into the mix, that can validate or challenge those perspectives we’ve developed. It tests us and what we believe to be true.
I think it’s always really interesting to see what inspires peoples’ writings. What kinds of stories they’re trying to tell, what they believe the central theme/points are vs what I picked up on when reading, and even just a writer’s voice vs how they tell stories. Writing as a craft means continuing to grow, hopefully, with each piece you write. Published, shown selectively, reread only by the author, or hidden away for an undetermined amount of time. This is a little piece of what inspires mine.
My newest book, Imprinted, is available now. It’s a gritty, urban fantasy adventure and book 1 in the Imprinted series. You can also check out my YA novella, Stars Above, or visit my website to learn more about me and my work.