How to Write: Healthy Sibling Relationships with Sarah Wallace

Sarah Wallace is a writer of historical fantasy and historical romantasy. Her Meddle & Mend series takes place in a Regency England-inspired queernormative world and centers queer characters, their relationships, emotional healing, and found family. As Sarah writes in her content warnings, her books “will always be about the power of kindness and hope and will always have a HEA,” aka. Happily Ever After.

The first book in the series, “Letters to Half Moon Street,” follows Gavin Hartford, a bookish introvert, and his unlikely romance with the flirtatious Charles Kentworthy. Throughout the novel, Gavin exchanges letters with his little sister and best friend, Geraldine, whom he calls Gerry.

Jackson: Sarah, thank you for agreeing to this interview! I love how your books are so emotionally tender and genuine. Your first book in the series, “Letters to Half Moon Street,” is an epistolary novel that features one of the loveliest sibling relationships I have ever read. How did you go about writing Gavin and Gerry’s relationship? What about their relationship was most important to you to capture for the reader?

Sarah:

Thank you so much! Going into it, I was trying to portray a relationship of two best friends. I wanted to give the idea that Gerry and Gavin have been each other's confidante since they were children. So I tried to have Gerry accurately predicting Gavin's attitude or reactions to things, or anticipating his questions. They bicker a lot but there's always love behind the bickering. Gerry teases Gavin for being grumpy and Gavin teases Gerry for bossing him around. I also worked to have them both give each other advice. I liked the idea of Gavin being much wiser than he recognized and while he always considers himself to lean on Gerry, he doesn't realize how much she depends on him in return. So there's this shared guidance that neither really acknowledges. And ultimately, they both look up to each other and they both look out for each other, even when they don't admit it.

Jackson: In the second book in the series, “One Good Turn,” there is a sibling-like relationship between main character Nell and her friend Pip. They grew up together and clearly love each other very much. But miscommunication and personal insecurities get in the way and distance them from each other, just when Pip needs Nell more than ever. How did you approach their strained relationship? And what do you think we can learn from them and apply to our real world relationships?

Sarah:

For "One Good Turn," I approached the situation from the perspective of Nell being an unreliable narrator. One of the things I learned when I was doing research on adult grooming victims was that it can be very hard to identify because groomers will often groom their victims' friends and families, too. So everyone thinks the abuser is kind and generous, and it's harder for the victim to speak out. So with that in mind, it was a tricky balance to make it very obvious to the reader - an outside observer - but it's harder for Nell to spot the red flags because she's so close to the situation and has technically been groomed herself, albeit in a different way. A lot of Nell's and Pip's conversations are kind of one-sided, where they're both trying to avoid different topics and they're both trying to reach different conclusions, so they wind up having two separate conversations without realizing it. With Pip being an abuse victim who has learned to compartmentalize in order to survive, there's a constant struggle of him trying to hide what's really going on. Meanwhile, Nell feels like she's drifting apart from her friends and that they don't need her anymore, so she's trying to convince herself to let go. In terms of what we can learn from them, it's hard to say because fiction often provides the reader with all the clues that we often miss in real life. But it's important to believe victims, honesty and trust are important factors in making someone feel safe, and that sometimes the unspoken sentiments are just as important as the spoken words.

Jackson: In “Letters to Half-Moon Street,” Gavin and his elder brother John do not have a healthy relationship. John claims to want what's best for Gavin, but often makes him miserable instead. How did you approach John and his overbearing relationship with Gavin? And how did you go about contrasting it so well with Gavin and Gerry’s relationship?

Sarah:

John's character and his relationship to Gavin changed a lot over the course of drafting that novel. In the end, I found the balance I was looking for by trying to see things from John's point of view. He's primarily motivated by fear. He's afraid that his parents are neglecting his siblings, he's anxious to prove he's responsible enough to take care of his family, and he was kind of neglected early on in childhood when Gerry and Gavin started to become close friends, so there's a bit of bitterness underneath it all, too. I wanted to show the subtle ways bullying can take form, even unintentionally. Gavin often echoes John's criticisms, albeit subconsciously. And I think that sort of negativity can get internalized very quickly and it's particularly difficult to identify and adjust. I also wanted to show that "tough love" is never helpful, so John is kind of my example of how tough love doesn't work, even if the person thinks they're doing the right thing. Contrasting John's relationship with Gavin to Gerry's relationship to him, I wanted to emphasize the underlying respect Gerry has for Gavin. Unlike John, Gerry reads between the lines in Gavin's letters and words. So she's actively listening to what he says he wants or needs. She also respects Gavin's boundaries a lot better than John does, which has a lot to do with it. Ultimately, John tells Gavin who he is and what he needs based on his own assumptions, and Gerry allows Gavin to say those things instead.

Jackson: What advice do you have for authors trying to write healthy sibling relationships? Especially authors who don’t have siblings or, if they do, don’t have healthy relationships with them?

Sarah:

I think sibling relationships are fascinatingly complex. There's a lifelong, or nearly lifelong history to take into account. It's also important to note that every person in the world has a different family. For example, in my stories, John has 3 younger siblings. Gavin has an older brother close in age, a younger sister, and a baby brother. Gerry has 3 brothers. Seb has 3 older siblings. But basically, even in one family, everyone experiences it slightly differently. Every child might have a different relationship to their parents. So I think that's important to keep in mind. If the siblings are close, it helps to show the shared language and shared history, inside jokes, or understanding of each other's preferences. Good banter as well as good bickering can improve the chemistry between siblings. If you don't have any siblings, try to write the relationship like two childhood best friends.

Jackson: I’m very close with my brother Morgan, who is a composer and singer-songwriter. And you have a close relationship with your sister Emma, who is also a singer-songwriter. How do you and your sister support each other’s creative endeavors in the real world?

Sarah:

Well, we both follow each other on social media and we are subscribed to each other's newsletters. She was the person I went to when I was making the decision to publish independently and she helped me weigh the options. And in the past, we've given each other advice when it comes to our respective careers.

Thank you so much, Sarah!

Learn more about Sarah Wallace and her books at https://sarahwallacewriter.com/ .

Pre-order Sarah’s latest book in the Meddle & Mend series, “Dear Bartleby,” at https://sarahwallacewriter.com/order/ .

Special shout out to Sarah’s and my singer-songwriter siblings: Emma Wallace and Morgan Hollingsworth!

Learn more about Emma: https://www.iamemma.com/

Learn more about Morgan: https://www.morganhollingsworth.com/