Today in the United States, it is National Family Day. Families are definitely a theme in my works, everything from found and chosen families to blood relatives and all the pros and cons that come with each type of relationship.

Because of my background as a teacher (and teaching a wide variety of families) as well as my childhood experiences, family is a complicated word. It carries a lot of weight and as such, I find myself constantly pushing the boundaries of what it means to be a family. Various religions and governments have tried to define the word family and sometimes even legally express who can form one, which are all elements I have to consider when world building in a fictional world.

It’s easy to remember that new worlds and/or species will have different government systems, different ways of controlling finance and commerce, and different beliefs in terms of deities and customs, but family is a huge part of what makes a people (and I use the term people to mean a group of beings, not necessarily a group of humans). Familial relationships and whether they exist at all can affect everything about a culture. This is often overlooked in world building, but it’s a critical part that affects everything else.

Think about two men in a relationship.

Whether or not they marry, think on their ability to form a family. Now think about whether these two men can legally do so in the country they live in. The legality of a relationship controls more than just whether two people can get married. It influences whether they can legally adopt or have children together, whether they can make medical decisions for the other., how they may file or pay taxes, retirement benefits, health insurance contracts, and on and on. If the legality of these two men to be defined as a family influences every aspect of life in the United States, imagine how that impacts two individuals in a fantasy world or on another planet? How would something as complex as a family be defined between alien species? Are families even recognized or important? Perhaps to your alien race, they aren’t important at all. If families matter…

• Who is part of the family?
• Who decides who gets to be a part of the family? The government? Other members of the family?
• Are their any legal definitions of what a family is and if so, why?
• What laws could be impacted by your definition of family?
• Does this definition change at all in different areas of your world and how so?
• How else would this definition affect your world’s government? Policy making? Finances and commerce? Trade? Religion? Customs? Other relationships like friendships?

These are topics I have to think about when I sit down to write in a new world, especially if I’m diving into unconventional relationships. The meaning of “unconventional” may change based on the alien species or new world and their cultural structures. This is why it’s easy for some authors to get lost in world building. It’s a rabbit hole that leads to questions compounding questions for sure.

So what is family?

Merriam-Webster defines family as:

a) the basic unit in society traditionally consisting of two parents rearing their children;

b) a group of individuals living under one roof and usually under one head;

c) a group of persons of common ancestry;

d) a group of people united by certain convictions or a common affiliation;

e) a group of things related by common characteristics;

f) a group of related plans or animals forming a category ranking above a genus and below an order and usually comprising several to many genera;

g) a set of curves or surfaces whose equations differ only in parameters;

h) a unit of a crime syndicate operating within a geographical area.

Oooooo. That opens even more doors then!

When writing fictional species and worlds, the decisions I make about what is a family can stretch beyond the species themselves, which don’t have to be humanoid in nature. (In fact, it’s more interesting if they aren’t!) Mob families are a thing on Earth so what would a crime syndicate look like in an intelligent reptilian species on another planet?

As a nonbinary queer, I strongly believe that chosen family is more important than blood family. Sharing a family name or genetics doesn’t make one family, not when the word family means so many different things to everyone. Ask 10 people what is family and you will get 10 different answers. I share genetics with a large number of folks who don’t know who I am or care what is going on in my world, so should I consider them family? For me, family is made up of the people who know you best and genuinely care about you–all of you–without judgement or caveats. They accept you, they support you, and they respect your boundaries.

When I began writing Amaskan’s Blood back in 2014, I was exploring a newfound family myself in my personal life–one I hadn’t asked for and wasn’t sure I wanted. It came with strings attached, and I later learned that these strings were meant to tie me into knots. The relationships were full of gaslighting and abuse. I was threatened with bodily harm by someone I should have been able to trust–my mother. Many of my emotions through that experience found their way into both Adelei and Margaret. Their experiences with blood family vs. chosen family vs. adopted family became a way for me to work through my own thoughts and come up with a conclusion about what family meant to me.

Not every writer is working through their own personal trauma when writing, but every writer does have a family and every writer does have an imagination. Whether it is made up of actual relatives, friends, or animals, we each have our own understanding of what it means to be family, and that’s something each of us can use when thinking about character relationships, no matter where they take place.