The Character House, Pt. 8: Residents and Relationships

What’s the only thing more exciting, more challenging, and more rewarding than developing characters?

Developing character relationships.

We’ve been running a series on the Character House, a model that compares the components of a character to the parts of a house. Using this model, you can ensure that your characters’ backstories, beliefs, fears, goals, dialogue, actions, and other traits fit together like a well-constructed home. Here are the previous posts in this series:

Today, we’re going to discuss the Character Relationships, represented by the Residents of the House. We’ll explore the importance of relationships, suggestions for developing them, and practical tools for showing the relationships in your story. With these tips in mind, you’ll be able to make your characters’ relationships detailed, enjoyable, and compelling!

Why Are Character Relationships Important?

You might have a solidly constructed house with a strong foundation, sturdy structure, and comfortable furniture. But what’s the point of the house if no one lives in it?

For this reason, the people who live in the house represent the character’s interpersonal relationships—family relationships, friendships, romances, mentorships, rivalries, hostilities, and more. The most well-developed characters have realistic and distinctive relationships with other characters.

Relationships accomplish several key purposes in a story.

1. Relationships make the characters realistic.

The best characters seem like they existed long before the story begins; they didn’t simply pop into existence on page 1. Relationships can create this illusion of depth. They imply that the character on the page is only a fraction of the character who exists outside the story.

In The Lost Girl of Astor Street by Stephanie Morrill, best friends Piper and Lydia share a history that spans years before the story begins. Their friendship makes both girls seem more like real people who have backstories grounded in reality.

Every human being exists in a complex web of interpersonal connections. On the other hand, characters feel less realistic when they seem to live in a bubble without any relationships.

2. Relationships make characters relatable.

Many stories take place in distant times or imaginary worlds, but relationships can bridge the distance between the characters and the audience. Even if readers have never wielded superpowers, traveled the desert, or carried messages during the American Revolution, they’ve certainly experienced interactions with family members, friends, classmates, coworkers, rivals, neighbors, and others in their lives.

3. Relationships can immediately make characters likable.

At the start of a story, you can quickly get readers to root for your protagonist by showing at least one relationship. Screenwriter Blake Snyder calls this scene a “Save the Cat moment.” Whether your character has a younger sibling, a doting grandparent, a funny friend, or another type of sidekick, spotlighting a relationship in your opening can create an instant bond with your audience.

The novel Silence by Deborah Lytton opens with an interaction between Stella and her best friend, Lily. Their conversation engages readers and highlights the contrast between Lily’s outgoing personality and Stella’s reserved demeanor.

Even a less-than-positive relationship can make your protagonist likable. The opening of Daniel Schwabauer’s Maxine Justice: Galactic Attorney shows Maxine calling her estranged mother to ask for a loan. When her mother refuses, the readers relate to Maxine’s frustration and root for her to find a way out of bankruptcy.

4. Relationships characterize both characters.

Strong interpersonal connections accomplish double the character development: readers understand who the character is individually as well as in relation to the other person. People often show different sides of themselves to different people, so relationships can reveal surprising facets of your characters.

Relationships also introduce a host of character-building questions. How do the characters view each other? What activities do they enjoy together? What are their favorite and least favorite qualities in the other person? If they’re enemies or rivals, what caused them to become antagonistic?

5. Relationships propel the plot.

Oftentimes, relationships motivate the characters to pursue the story goal. They might try to rescue their sibling from the villain, locate their long-lost father, or help their friend start a business. To use a previous example, in The Lost Girl of Astor Street, Lydia goes missing, and Piper risks her life to solve the mystery of her friend’s disappearance.

In other cases, characters form relationships throughout the story. In The Story Peddler by Lindsay A. Franklin, Tanwen weaves stories into glass sculptures. While on the run from the king’s soldiers, she meets a group of rebels who all have various creative weaving gifts, and they provide her with a feeling of community. Relationship subplots add layers to the story by letting the readers get to know the characters more deeply.

Finally, in some genres, the relationship growth is the plot. Romance novels highlight the emotional connection between the male and female leads. Similarly, many contemporary coming-of-age stories focus on the protagonist’s relationships. Life in the Middle, a YA contemporary by Stephanie Coleman, emphasizes Tessa’s changing relationships with her parents, friends, and boyfriend.

In all these ways, relationships can form a crucial cornerstone of your plot.

6. Relationships raise the stakes.

Stakes are the consequences of failing to complete the story goal. Characters have more to lose when they’re fighting for more people than just themselves.

In Water’s Break by Sophia L. Hansen, a water-dweller named Nica tries to escape from the landwalkers who seized and enslaved her. Later in the story, she meets other tribe members, who also depend on her efforts to escape. As more people become involved, the stakes rise. Failure won’t just affect Nica; it will also hurt everyone around her.

Most readers can relate to the dread of making mistakes that hurt their loved ones. For this reason, meaningful relationships can effectively raise the stakes.

Developing Character Relationships

You might understand two of your characters individually, but figuring out how they interact can be a challenge. If you encounter this problem, check out Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi’s Relationship Thesaurus. This online tool covers over forty different relationships—siblings, neighbors, rivals, teacher and student, author and editor, etc.—and lists possible dynamics, challenges, contrasting traits, and development opportunities for each one.

To develop the relationship between two characters, you can flesh out the following areas.

1. Create a shared history.

How did your characters meet? What events have they experienced together? Are they siblings who grew up together? Are they friends who have shared sleepovers and movie nights? Are they opponents with a rivalry spanning decades?

2. Examine the relationship from both sides.

The characters’ respective feelings, thoughts, and beliefs will shape their behavior toward each other. What qualities does each character like or dislike about the other? How would each character describe the other? Considering each character’s perspective on the relationship can help you understand both characters individually and together.

3. Add nuance.

Relationships are rarely always positive or always negative. Rivals can still harbor a degree of mutual respect, and close friends may have pet peeves about the other person.

4. Give the characters something in common.

Many relationships thrive when the characters share a history, a favorite activity, or even a common backstory event. Think about the people with whom you enjoy spending time. Do you participate in the same hobby? Do you have similar senses of humor? Do you share a love of traveling or animals? Shared interests and experiences can strengthen your characters’ relationships and provide them with conversation topics and inside jokes.

5. Pair contrasting traits.

Although characters should share common traits or interests, they should also be different from each other. Contrasting traits can highlight each personality more clearly. Tessa Afshar’s Thief of Corinth contrasts Ariadne’s impulsivity and quick temper with Theo’s calmness and steadiness. This juxtaposition ensures that both siblings are distinctive characters.

Similarly, contrasting personalities can foster growth for both characters. In the example above, Ariadne’s confidence encourages Theo to get out of his shell, while Theo’s gentleness helps Ariadne learn to think before she acts.

Finally, opposing characteristics can generate organic interpersonal conflict. Characters with opposing priorities may disagree over how to solve a problem. A cautious character might want to analyze all the options, but an adventurous character might want to jump right into action. Not every scene has to include a battle between the hero and villain; some scenes will involve disagreements between characters on the same side.

6. Consider putting a twist on common relationship dynamics.

The best ideas often come from turning your initial idea on its head. For instance, instead of your teenage character having a strained relationship with his parents, what if he has a great relationship with them? Instead of your protagonist being irritated with her younger brother, what if she intentionally takes time to help him with his homework?

To be fair, sometimes the first idea is the best choice. Don’t get so wrapped up in breaking expectations that you lose the heart of your story. Nevertheless, you’ll always benefit from inspecting your ideas to make sure you’re not defaulting to common clichés.

Showing Character Relationships

Once you pin down the details of your characters’ relationships, it’s time to show those relationships in the story. This task can be challenging—readers will be bored if you simply tell them that Carol and Eli are in love or that Ian and Michael are mortal enemies. To engage your audience, you can show relationships in many different ways.

1. Imply the characters’ history through their interactions.

Once you develop your characters’ shared history (as described in a previous section), you can mention these details in your story. A pair of friends might have favorite activities and memories. Siblings might know exactly how to get on each other’s nerves, while a husband and wife might give each other heartfelt gifts. One mother-daughter duo might tiptoe around a topic of disagreement, while another pair might be so close that they can cook dinner without saying a word. These interactions reveal important relationship dynamics.

In addition, small details—such as nicknames, inside jokes, birthdays, and anniversaries—can help the audience relate to the characters. When the story portrays siblings teasing each other or friends throwing a surprise party, many readers will recognize traces of their own relationships.

2. Put the characters through a stressful situation together.

YA author Stephanie Morrill explains that high-pressure scenarios can strengthen relationships—whether it’s a life-or-death battle or simply a shared science project. When circumstances force the characters to rely on each other, their outward facades crumble, allowing them to get to know each other at a deeper level.

In McCall Hoyle’s Meet the Sky, Sophie and Finn must work together to survive a hurricane that strikes the Outer Banks of North Carolina. This dangerous situation forges a close connection in a way that simply meeting at a coffee shop would not.

3. Show complexity in the relationship.

In a complex relationship, the characters don’t interact the same way all the time. Siblings might love each other but drive each other crazy. Friends might take turns encouraging each other. Rivals might come to an uneasy truce. In all types of relationships, misunderstandings and miscommunications abound.

Even if your story only has one point-of-view (POV) character, the siblings, friends, parents, and rivals should have lives of their own. Give the best friend a chance to discuss her own problems with the protagonist. Give the older brother a hobby that he shares with the hero. When you give side characters lives of their own, the depth of the relationship will delight readers.

4. Show the relationship changing throughout the story.

Just like real-life relationships, the best fictional relationships change throughout the story. Characters might progress from enemies to friends or from friends to enemies. They might go from unacquainted to acquainted or from estranged to familiar. They might develop a friendship or a romantic relationship.

The ups and downs of the story should challenge the characters’ understanding of each other. As each character learns surprising facts about the other, the audience will keep turning pages to see how the relationship turns out.

Relationship changes should occur incrementally—each scene brings the characters a little closer to or further from each other. In The Geography of Lost Things by Jessica Brody, Ali takes a road trip with her ex-boyfriend, Nico. Each scene teaches them new things about each other, revealing lies, assumptions, and hidden strengths. In both real life and fiction, building trust is a process, not an immediate result.

Try These Practical Exercises

Choose two of your characters who interact frequently. Ask each character this question: What do you think of the other person? Write a short paragraph from each character’s perspective.
Consider a relationship from your novel. What personality traits does each character bring to the relationship? How do these contrasting traits help both characters learn and grow?
Brainstorm three specific details (favorite activities, traditions, inside jokes, conversation topics, etc.) for a relationship in your story. What are some natural ways to incorporate these details into your manuscript?
Think of the most major relationship in your story. What are three scenes that progress this relationship, either by strengthening it or weakening it? If you don’t currently have any relationship development scenes, brainstorm some possibilities.

Taking Up Residence in the Character House

Just as the purpose of a house is to provide a home for residents, characters become more likable, realistic, and well-rounded when they have strong interpersonal relationships. These relationships can drive the plot and raise the stakes of your story.

To develop relationships, consider external traits (such as common activities and memories) and internal traits (such as shared experiences and contrasting personalities). When showing relationships in your story, incorporate specific interactions, stressful situations, and complexity. Finally, use each scene to show the incremental transformation of a relationship throughout the story.

Complex, dynamic relationships will nestle in readers’ hearts long after they close your book.

Next week, we’ll take another brief break from the Character House series to discuss three ways to supercharge your scenes. These simple tools will help you make sure every single scene in your story is engaging and purposeful!

What’s your favorite character relationship in your novel? What fictional relationships have made you laugh or cry?