Writer, Nature Enthusiast, Resident Lesbian

Tips for Writing Rich Kids / Nepo Babies!!

(Characters who say “we’re not that rich” while standing in a kitchen with two islands)

⊹ Rich characters are not all the same kind of rich. There’s old money, new money, fake-rich, influencer-rich, political-family rich, celebrity-child rich, “my dad owns half the town” rich, “my family has buildings named after them” rich, and “we are in debt but the house still has a gate” rich. The type matters. Old money is often quieter, colder, more coded. New money may be louder, shinier, more defensive. A trust fund kid and a child of a famous actor are both privileged, but the pressure around them is very different.

⊹ They don’t always know what things cost, and that can be funny or ugly. A rich character might casually suggest ordering food when everyone else is counting money. They might think a “cheap trip” means only one hotel room per person. They might say “just get a new one” about something another character saved months to buy. Don’t make them cartoon evil every time. Sometimes they’re not cruel, just completely untrained in normal consequences.

⊹ Privilege can look like confidence, but it can also look like cluelessness. Some rich kids walk into rooms like every door has already decided to open for them. They email professors casually. They talk to adults like equals. They negotiate without sweating. They assume problems can be solved because, historically, their problems have been solved. That doesn’t mean they’re brave. Sometimes it means they have never had to imagine the floor disappearing. NEVER!

⊹ A rich kid may have everything and still feel like their life was already assigned before they arrived. The right school, the right friends, the right internship, the right partner, the right public image. They may not be allowed to fail privately because every mistake becomes embarrassing for the family. Poor characters often fight for access. Rich characters often fight for selfhood. Different cage, but still a cage.

⋆˙⟡ Write the staff situation carefully. I mean IF there are housekeepers, drivers, nannies, assistants, guards, cooks, gardeners, tutors, PLEASE REMEMBER those people ARE NOT FURNITURE! They know everything. They see the family without performance. A rich child might be closer to the nanny than the parent. A driver might know every secret because rich people forget workers can hear. That dynamic can be warm, exploitative, complicated, loyal, resentful, or all of it at once.

⊹ A nepo baby may be talented and still protected. This is the annoying part, but it’s true. The character might actually be good at acting, music, business, politics, whatever. The point is not “they have no talent.” The point is they got more chances to prove it. More safety when they failed. Better teachers. Better rooms. Better introductions. A more interesting nepo baby knows they are good and still wonders how much of their success belongs to them.

⊹ They may be weirdly lonely. Money can buy privacy, but it can also create distance. People may want access, status, favors, invitations, jobs, proximity. A rich character might never know whether someone likes them or likes the life around them. Their birthday party is full, but somehow nobody knows they hate being alone after everyone leaves.

⊹ Their “normal” is not normal, and you can use that. Maybe they grew up with security cameras, charity galas, boarding school, ski trips, private doctors, family lawyers, summer houses, tutors, and adults who called them “sir” when they were twelve. They may be totally calm in luxury but panic in ordinary situations. They can handle a formal dinner with ambassadors but not a laundromat. That contrast is PURE GOLD!

⊹ Class guilt is not the same as class awareness!! A rich character can feel guilty and still benefit from everything. They can say “I hate rich people” while living off rich people money. They can donate, volunteer, dress down, date someone broke, reject the family business, and still not fully understand what it means to have no safety net. Mens: guilt can be sincere and useless at the same time.

⊹ Their friendships can be transactional without anyone saying it. Who gets invited to the lake house? Who gets introduced to the producer? Who gets their internship through whose father? Who disappears when the family loses money?

⊹ Give them specific habits, not just designer names. They know which fork to use. They pack like hotels will have everything. They don’t check prices on menus. They know how to speak to lawyers. They call adults by first names because they grew up around powerful people. They own luggage that looks more emotionally stable than most characters. Specific behavior sells the class background better than writing “Gucci” every five seconds.

⊹ Let them be funny without making them dumb (Please.) Rich characters can be unintentionally hilarious because their survival skills are so uneven. They might know five languages and not know how to unclog a sink. They might discuss inheritance law calmly but be defeated by public transport. They might say something insane like “we only had the small yacht that summer” and genuinely not hear it. Comedy works best when they are smart in one world and helpless in another.

⊹ Losing money should feel like identity collapse. If the family fortune disappears, it is not just “now they are poor.” It’s shame, secrecy, social exile, changed friendships, sold houses, unpaid staff, parents panicking, old friends pretending not to notice, and the character realizing how much of their personality was built on always having a backup plan.

⋆˙⟡ The economy of small towns is not quaint. It is precarious and everyone knows exactly how precarious. When the plant closed, or the mill shut down, or the highway got rerouted fifteen miles east, the whole town felt it in a specific and lasting way. There are towns that have been dying for forty years and the people in them know it and don't talk about it directly but it's in everything. The storefronts with plywood where glass used to be, the school that consolidated with the next town over, the young people who leave and the question of whether they're coming back that nobody asks out loud because everybody already knows the answer. Writing a small town without writing its economic reality is writing a set, not a place.

⋆˙⟡ There is a specific kind of person who runs everything and they are not elected. Every small town has someone. Sometimes a family, sometimes just an individual, who is not officially in charge of anything but whose opinion determines outcomes. The woman who's been on every committee for thirty years. The family that's owned the land since before living memory. They don't have to make demands. Everyone already knows where the edges are. A newcomer or outsider won't see this power structure at first because it isn't written down anywhere. It lives in who gets called first, who's consulted before decisions are made, whose silence means disapproval. Writing this type of character correctly means never letting them explain themselves. They don't need to.

⋆˙⟡ Leaving is a complicated moral act and coming back is even more complicated. The person who got out, who went to college, who moved to the city, who built a life somewhere else, occupies a strange position. There's pride in them, genuine pride, and also a kind of low resentment that nobody names. They think they're better than this. Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but the suspicion is there. And when they come back, for a funeral, because things fell apart, because they got sick, the town doesn't quite absorb them back in the way they expect. They're not who they were. But they're also not from away. They're in a third category that doesn't have a comfortable name and everyone, including them, is a little awkward about it.

⋆˙⟡ People maintain relationships for decades past the point where they would have ended anywhere else. Because the pool is small and leaving is a whole thing, people stay in friendships, in dynamics, in proximity to people they would have simply stopped seeing in a city. The woman who is still friends with her ex-husband's sister because their kids go to the same school and their mothers are in the same Bible study and it would be more work to be enemies than to just keep showing up. These relationships have layers and scar tissue. They are not warm exactly, but they are not cold either. They are maintained. Writers often write relationships as chosen. In small towns, a lot of relationships are simply continued.

⋆˙⟡ Local history is oral and it is everywhere and it is not neutral. The story of what happened to the Henderson property, why the Murphys and the Dales don't speak, what exactly went on the summer of the flood; this history lives in people, not in records. And it gets told selectively, with emphasis and with meaning. The version your family tells is not the version their family tells. History in a small town is a living argument. A character who grew up there absorbed a version of local history that shaped their understanding of who deserves what and why, and that version has gaps and biases they cannot fully see. A newcomer doesn't have access to this history at all and will keep misreading things because of it.