Sooner or later, every author hears the question: “What is your book about?” Usually, this is the point where we launch into our elevator pitch. (For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, an elevator pitch is a very short sales pitch for your book, so named because you should be able to rattle it off in the time it takes the elevator to get to the other person’s floor.)

But when you’re working on the book, this question isn’t about sales. Rather, it’s closer to, “What is the theme of your book?” Or not even the theme, but just the general topic. For example, before I’d honed my elevator pitch for State v. Claus, I used to tell people the book was about belief. Needless to say, this vague answer didn’t sell a lot of books, but for me, it was the light shining from the lighthouse as I struggled to craft the story. What do people believe? Why do they believe? Is belief a choice, or is it just what happens? What would you believe if it might cost you everything?

For Becoming Mrs. Claus, the theme was choices. Good choices, bad choices, downright stupid choices. Making choices, or trying not to. Dealing with the fallout from poor choices. Again, a general recognition of this helped me to navigate as I plotted the story. I’m not saying it governed every decision, but the idea hung out in the background as the characters went about their days.

With my as-yet-unnamed novel (working title: Claus 3), I wrote for a long time without knowing the theme. I knew what was happening, and I had the foggiest idea how the bits hung together, but I didn’t know why I was writing about these things. To be fair, certain questions had come up while I was writing Becoming Mrs. Claus, but I ended up deleting that material because it didn’t tie well into the central theme. Plus, it would have made the book at least 30,000 words longer, and that’s a really big detour to toss in. So when I was casting about for an idea for my next book after Becoming Mrs. Claus, it occurred to me to revisit some of the material I’d excised from that book. After all, it would be so much easier to write the next book if I already had lots of material, right? All I’d have to do was to fill in a few gaps, and voilà! Instant novel! Sort of like adding water to a cup of ramen noodles and having lunch.

It sounded good, anyway.

Instead, I wrote without knowing how the various pieces hung together. I did my 100K-word challenge last year, convinced that the story would fall into place and all my questions would answer themselves. It’s amazing how naïve a person can still be about process when she’s working on her third novel. But even with more than 100K words in the bank, I still didn’t know exactly what the story was about, not really. When you think about it, that’s sort of remarkable.

So I did the reasonable thing, which was to let the manuscript sit. Not a day went by that I wasn’t kicking ideas around in my head, but I seldom opened my computer. I made notes in my purple notebook, but few of them moved into the document. Then, fall came, and with it the Season of Selling. My focus shifted from creating to marketing, including hauling bins and tables to holiday markets every week. It didn’t help that Thanksgiving was late and the holiday season was short: starting with the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I had four events in eight days. The next weekend, I was supposed to have two more, but I succumbed to a nasty bronchial virus that laid me out flat and required me to cancel the remainder of the season.

As I coughed my brains out, it occurred to me that I’d been telling people for weeks that Claus 3 would be out for the holidays in 2025, and yet I still didn’t have a full first draft. This was troublesome, to say the least. On the upside, I had identified one massive problem with second part of the manuscript. So I began to rewrite that second part. I changed the setting, eliminated unnecessary characters, and tightened the plot. While it still needs editing, remedying that problem went a long way toward a completed draft for two reasons. The first, of course, was that I fixed a huge plot problem. But the second was even better: I figured out what the book is about.

Turns out, Claus 3 is about family.

And that’s where you, as my blog readers, come in.

Family is an enormously complicated topic. We think we know what a family looks like, but it turns out that “family” is a slippery little sucker that defies definition. For example, this evening when I had dinner with my mother, who is ninety and conservative, I asked her what a family looks like to her. She thought for a second before saying, “A man and a woman and two children.”

Thing is, she and Dad had three children, my two sisters and me. Plus, she was the youngest of four children born to my grandparents, in whose house also lived Aunt Florence, who never married, and her brother, George, whom she cared for because he was developmentally disabled. By Mom’s definition, neither our immediate family nor her family of origin were families.

So I pressed on, and she broadened her definition to include someone who always stands up for you, whom you can count on, who will be there for you, who will go to the hospital with you. (Two weeks ago, I took her to the emergency room after a fall, so this was apparently on her mind.) I asked if she thought my nephew and his significant other were a family; they’ve been together for eight years and are, by their own description, “as committed as you can be without involving God or the state.” She considered this, deciding that “I guess they think they are,” which presented another wrinkle: who decides whether a particular group is a family? Is it up to the individuals involved, or can someone outside that group proclaim that they are or are not a family?

Some families are created by legally recognized actions, such as marriage or adoption, while others must continually fight to be recognized as families. Ten years ago, the city of Hartford found itself faced with this question in the case involving the group known as the “Scarborough 11.” This group, consisting eight adults and three children, sought to buy a large home together on Scarborough Street, a prestigious neighborhood of single-family homes in Hartford’s West End. Some of the neighbors objected on the grounds that this group was not, could not be, a family, and the city brought suit to require them to vacate the property, while the group insisted that they were an “intentional family” and entitled to remain. Ultimately, the city abandoned its lawsuit; however, the question of whether the Scarborough 11 were a family (there are now only ten of them, one adult having departed the group) has not, to my knowledge, been resolved. (Whether a new attack is brought in reliance on the current political climate remains to be seen.)

In the introduction to her book of essays, More Home Cooking, the late great Laurie Colwin talked about blood relatives and “family by choice” as she discussed the idea of a family meal. Elsewhere, I’ve heard the term “family by chance” to describe those to whom we are linked by genetics rather than by an affirmative decision on someone’s part. Interestingly, marriages are, by definition, the creation of a family by choice. Two people who have no legal relationship choose to create a legal bond. Of course, there are those who argue that the couple alone cannot be a family; to them, there is no “family” until at least one child joins the mix. But is this a valid proposition? Are two married people a family? Are people still family after a divorce, or does that sever the family bond? What if they have a child together, but they go on to marry or commit to other people—is the entire group a family?

In Grey’s Anatomy, two of the characters, Meredith and Cristina, become very close friends. In the first season, Cristina is pregnant and plans to terminate the pregnancy. She tells Meredith that she put her down as her emergency contact person. In a line which has become resonant, she says, “I put you down. . . . You’re my person.” Neither woman is sentimental, but “you’re my person” becomes another way of saying, “You’re my family.” One article described it this way: “It’s someone who understands what you’re thinking or feeling, no explanation required.”

And then we have the blended families, which many of us recall from the days of The Brady Bunch, when Mike Brady, who had three sons, married Carol, who had three daughters. In an early episode, the youngest son struggled with the notion of Carol as a stepmother. Toward the end, I recall Carol pointing to the staircase and saying, “The only steps in this house are those,” meaning that they were all family. At the time, it seemed quite tidy; now, I wonder what those kids were supposed to think about their late parents, as well as any relatives they might have had through that parent. Were the parents of the girls’ late father no longer their grandparents? Was the brother of the boys’ late mother no longer their uncle?

All of this is designed to give you some food for thought on the issue, because I’m asking for a favor: if you’re willing, I’d like for you to tell me in the comments what you think the attributes of a family are. What are the essentials? Must there be a legal connection, such as a marriage or an adoption? Must the connection be intended to be permanent, or would a foster relationship qualify? Must there be a sexual component as between (at least) two of the adult members, or can people form a family who do not have a sexual relationship?

To be clear: I’m not interested in a political discussion. I simply want input from people about how they, as individuals, view the concept of family.

You don’t have to write a treatise; one or two lines are fine. Since this is a public forum, it’s probably still best if you use pseudonyms or initials if you want to refer to real people who aren’t public figures. (Changing identifying details would also be an excellent idea.) Also, please indicate whether it’s okay with you if I thank you by name in the acknowledgement section of this book.

Thank you!