Character Design: Inter-Character Relationships

By Ben Miff

So you have your characters, warped and twisted though they may be. Now comes one important facet to consider; how are they going to react to each other? Will they be friends, lovers, mortal enemies, sort of enemies, friend of a friend of a friend, what? This is important to figure out.

Firstly, you need to decide how they are likely to meet with each other, and whether they actually meet with each other at all. If it’s going to be only over the internet, ugliness is unlikely to have much effect, for example. And if they are never going to meet, then making up what they’ll do when they meet is a bit pointless, to be honest. Still, once you have the possible character meetings likely, then it may be an idea to draw up a “spider web” to help you remember your character relationships. Simply draw lines between each of the characters that are going to meet, and park a small description of the main meeting type on said line.

Next, you need to consider the likely reactions to each other at the “first encounter”. Obviously, this can be a variety of occasions, each with their own set problems. However, it is also important, as these first meetings often set up the basis of the characters relationships. View the situation to first decide what facets of the characters personality and appearance will be shown; a telephone conversation will ignore appearance, while seeing them across the street will be almost purely appearance. Next, decide how the character is likely to affect the other character’s view of this character; will their personalities, interests, and beliefs conflict, or will they compliment each other? In the first case, it is more likely that they won’t get on; in the second, it’s more likely they will. This is necessary to shape the base of the relationship between the characters, and while the relationship can change, it is difficult.

The next stage is to decide these changes in the relationship. If there were facets of personalities that were held back in the first meetings, then it is likely that you can get the relationship to change by revealing these. Also, you can begin to drag in bits of appearance and personality that may have been obscured due to the nature of the first meetings. Another way to change the relationship is to have the characters actions directly affect the other. While these character actions have to be within reason (you can’t have your character suddenly confessing his undying love to someone they’ve hated for the last two thirds of the story), they can be a good influencing force upon the story. Also, you can to some degree get away with indirect effects; character A does something that causes B, intending to affect C, but also effects character D; if character D traces this back to character A, then depending on B, the character relationship can worsen or improve, in the D -> A direction anyway.

Once you have the character relationships roughly charted for the story, there is only one more important facet to consider. That is that the chart is a rough chart. While writing, often there will be bits and pieces that do not work within the story, that are placed in the plan, and bits and pieces that aren’t there that are necessary. Unless it’s going to effect the main story in some drastic way, so it becomes completely unbelievable, then it is likely that it can be worked around. Chopping and changing is an integral part of writing; stiffness can often lead to many many problems.