Okay guys! It’s time for the fifth post of the series. I almost forgot that I had to post this one today. I was about to turn my computer all the way off after working on it all day and then I remembered that it was Friday. Yikes!
Building Better Characters: Dating?... Single?... Too Busy Being Fictional?
All right so we’re going to talk about a character’s relationships today. Despite the title of this post the characters relationships are not always the dating kind. A relationship, as defined by the dictionary is: the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected. A connection between one of your characters to another is called a relationship. The first important step in writing a relationship is defining what kind of relationship it is and before you can do that you need to define who your character is in a relationship with.
Say that Character A is a happy girl who enjoys riding her bike to and from school. She goes out to hang out with her friends in town sometimes and she has a good home life. Consider (just for funsies) that Character A is secretly a gangster, the boss of a gang called the Tigers whose rival gang is the Sharks. Character B is a happy go lucky boy on the surface who enjoys spending time with his friends and never rides a car or bike anywhere, he always walks. Imagine that Character B is the leader of the Sharks. What’s the relationship between character A and character B? This relationship could be the turning point of the story. If Character A and Character B are enemies outside and inside of school, then the story will be about rivalry. If Character A and Character B are friends inside school but enemies outside of school because they don’t know the leader of the opposing gang then it could be a comedy. If Character A and Character B are in love with each other then we have more of a Romeo-and-Juliet-esque story. The relationship between these two characters is the defining point of this story.
But if you want more human characters and a more complex plot line then your character can’t just have one relationship. Character A needs a best friend, who knows something is up but doesn’t know what it is. Character B needs a best friend who doesn’t understand why Character B pretends to be so happy and excited at school. Perhaps Character A needs an older brother character who is trying to steer her away from the thug life. Maybe Character B has the same character.
All of the relationship that a character has are important to the story. If I only gave my character one or two relationships, then the story wouldn’t be very interesting. It would be about one person and their one friend. This works for some short stories but if you are going to write a novel then you need more characters. All of these characters need to be in multiple relationships. If your fans can write a character relationship chart without crossing the lines a couple times, then your characters don’t have enough relationships. (If you’ve never drawn or seen a character relationship chart you might want to look them up. They’re actually pretty fascinating.)
There are several different relationships that a character can be in. A romantic relationship, a friend relationship, a frenemies relationship, an enemies relationship, a mother-daughter relationship, a mother-son relationship, a father-daughter relationship, a father-son relationship, a brother-sister relationship, an older sibling-younger sibling relationship etc. There are so many different relationships that your characters can be so why should they only be in one.
Think of it this way, do you know a single human alive who only has one relationship their whole life? No. It’s not possible. Human beings are social creatures. If your character only has one relationship, then they can’t possibly be a human. And as I’ve been saying time and time again your characters need to be relatable. Humans are reading your story. Your characters need to have human characteristics.
Anyway, that’s all I have for this week. I’m glad that I made it up in time. Hopefully next week I don’t forget. I only have two finals left next week so I shouldn’t have a problem being one time as long as I remember to write it. With that being said,
Get Up, Get Writing, and Get Published. See you next week!