You’ll see this in a lot of YA fiction, TV series, etc – it’s easy and effective.
It’s the “hunt for the missing family member.”
One of the main characters has missing parents, or a mother or father, or a big brother or sister, or younger sibling that has gone missing. Maybe even an uncle (although uncles generally turn out to be the bad guy).
It’s easy to introduce and explain, and justifies having good, smart characters make stupid decisions. You need conflict, and the plot should be character driven, which means your characters sometimes need to do stupid, desperate things that aren’t very safe.
Why would they risk it?
Why would they press on when their friends tell them to stop?
Why would they throw their life and current relationships away?
To find the truth.
This is Mulder chasing his abducted sister.
It not only helps us understand the character’s devotion to the cause, it also helps give the character a motivation to take deliberate, if reckless, action, without losing the sympathy of the reader, which makes it very effective.
Why a missing person works better than a dead one
A dead parent gives a character grief. A missing one gives them a job. Grief is something your hero carries; a search is something your hero does, and doing is what moves a plot. That is the whole trick in one line: the missing relative turns an emotion into a task with a direction.
It also buys you sympathy for free. Readers forgive a lot of bad decisions when the character is looking for a brother. They forgive almost nothing when the character is just curious.
A YA book that runs on this trick
You can see the device working in a book your readers already know:
- The Mortal Instruments: Clary’s mother disappears in the first act and the search for her is the engine that drags Clary into a world she did not know existed. Note how the search gives her permission to do reckless things in a city she does not understand.
How to plant it and pay it off
The trick only works if the reader believes the search matters before the character does something stupid. Plant it early, then pay it off. Five questions to check your draft against:
- Who is missing, and does the reader meet them (or the hole they left) before the search starts?
- What does the character lose by searching, and does the reader see that cost?
- Does the search push the character into a choice they would never make at home?
- Is there a moment where the character could stop, and chooses not to?
- Does the payoff answer the question the search asked, even if the answer is bad?
If you can answer all five, the trick is doing its job. If you can only answer the first, you have a missing person and no plot.
If the first chapter still feels quiet, this guide to conflict in the first chapter shows where to put the pressure.
The limit: when it turns into an excuse
The device fails when the missing person is only there to justify bad decisions the writer wanted anyway. Readers notice. If every reckless choice in the book can be explained with “because my sister is missing,” the search stops feeling like a wound and starts feeling like a permission slip.
The fix is to make the search cost something the character cannot get back. Time, trust, a friendship, a place at home. A search with a price is a plot. A search with no price is a reason to keep turning pages, and not much more.
Using it on a side character
Strangely, so far in most of my fiction, I haven’t used this technique, which is a mistake. Most of my characters are only children. Nobody goes missing. They don’t have a burning quest to find them. My characters are usually motivated by external opposition and trying to protect loved ones.
But this doesn’t have to be used by a main character – maybe you need a marginal character or friend to do something to jumpstart the plot into action at the right time… the “missing relative” gives them a reason to do so which is honorable, without turning them into a bad guy.
For a bigger plot that needs a quest engine, the fantasy novel guide covers how to build one.
FAQ About the Missing Family Member Trick
Q: Does the missing person have to be a parent?
A: No. A sibling, a grandparent or an uncle all work.
Q: What if I do not want to write a search plot?
A: You do not have to. The missing person can be the reason your hero is already on the road when the book starts.
Q: Can it work in a standalone?
A: Yes, as long as the payoff lands inside the book. A search that never resolves reads as a loose thread, not a trick.
More craft posts like this one live in the writing and publishing advice hub.
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