As a writer, your job is not to resolve the family’s problems. It is to expose the machinery of love and power that operates just below the surface of every conversation. Whether you are writing a quiet indie film about a Thanksgiving disaster or a high-octane fantasy about warring royal houses, remember:

Now, pass the potatoes. And please, don’t mention Uncle Frank.

Why? Because families are the original institutions. They are the first governments we live under, the first economies we trade in (love for approval, silence for safety), and often the first battlefields we learn to fight on.

Write the argument you’ve never had. Write the secret you’ve never told. Write the family reunion you dread attending. Do that, and your readers will see their own scattered, loving, infuriating families staring back from the page.