Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A Referring to characters that are too familiar for a name

Having your character calling the man raising her father isn't a problem. She knows he's not her biological dad but as far as she is concerned, he is her father and will call him as such. Where y...

posted 9y ago by Stephen‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T04:04:00Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/17319
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Stephen‭ · 2019-12-08T04:04:00Z (over 4 years ago)
Having your character calling the man raising her father isn't a problem. She knows he's not her biological dad but as far as she is concerned, he is her father and will call him as such.

Where you seem to be having trouble is the reveal that he is in fact not who you have said he is.

There are various ways this can be done depending on the type of story you're trying to tell.

There's the obvious flashpoint. "You're not my dad!"

There's the more subtle method (using someone elses example of meeting the boyfriend) of "You don't look like your dad." "He's not my real dad. My parents died when I was young."

Obviously, the different methods will have different outcomes and speaking from what I've observed hearing "you're not my dad" is one of the worst thing any man can hear from a child he has done his best to raise.

Whichever method you choose, you can have hints to lead up to it if you don't want it to be a complete surprise. The girl could have a picture of her birth mum and dad on their wedding day but her dad's description is totally different to that of her father. If the parents died together she could have newspaper clippings of that day.

A lot can be done but most of it will depend on what the plot of your story is and where you want to take it.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2015-05-18T08:48:42Z (almost 9 years ago)
Original score: 0