How to write Authentic Friendships
Developing powerful character friendships requires focusing not only on the dynamic between the characters but also ensuring that each individual is fully realized, and that their interactions are realistic and complex.
The best tips for creating strong character friendships include:
1. Establish the Individual Characters (The Foundation)
Make Each Character Their Own Person: If a character's sole purpose is "be the friend," they will be flat and uninteresting, making the friendship uninvested.
Apply all the same character creation rules to the friend as you would the main character.
Flesh out both characters by giving them a history, passions, dreams, values, and other relationships like family and friends.
Ensure they both have different internal journeys, even if they share the same external goal.
2. Define Their Connection
Give Them Something in Common: Provide similarities that give them a reason to be friends and offer common ground for communication. Similarities can include shared struggles, hobbies, interests, history, background, goals, dreams, or even an enemy. Even if characters are vastly different, they need a common factor that ignites the friendship, like a love of cheesy movies or shared ambitious characteristics.
Give Them Meaningful Differences: Don't just make them different; give them differences that complement each other. These differences should allow them to support each other's strengths and build each other up during times of weakness. Examples of differences include:
Skills: One is intelligent, the other is hands-on; one is good at planning, the other is good at improvising.
Conflict Resolution: One wants to confront issues (like a bully), while the other chooses to ignore them.
Personalities: One is confident and sly while the other is quiet and awkward.
Reactions: One friend might freak out during an event while the other stays calm, or one might get discouraged while the other encourages them to keep going.
Create a Glue: Identify what is keeping your friends from parting ways. This "glue" can be a shared goal, an existing character dynamic (like a gardener and the person they serve), or a situation where they are thrown together and cannot get away from each other.
3. Show History and Depth
Give Them a History That Shines Through: Throw out hints that the friends have known each other for a while to make readers curious about their past. If they are new friends, sneak in hints that they are learning more about each other as the story progresses.
Utilize Communication Cues: Show history and depth through specific interactions:
Give them an inside joke that only they share.
Give them a silly, ongoing argument (like arguing over pineapple on pizza or Star Trek versus Star Wars) which makes them feel real and reveals different shades of their personality.
Utilize nonverbal communication, allowing them to sit comfortably in silence, convey meaning through gestures, or predict what the other is going to do.
Show that they know each other's likes and dislikes, such as one ordering the other's "go-to coffee order" without asking.
Know the Other’s Past/Family Life: Good friends know the highs, lows, and mundane details of each other's backstory. They might refer to shared historical events with just a few words (e.g., “The ‘09 Thanksgiving disaster”), indicating a deep, unspoken understanding.
Develop chemistry through easy banter, teasing one another without missing a beat. The teasing should be good-natured and not used to hurt the other.
Ensure mutual support by showing characters being vulnerable and being there for each other. This support should be tailored to the specific needs of each friend, whether they respond to physical comfort or material comfort like ice cream.
Be Protective: Make the friends fiercely protective of each other. If one is hurt or demeaned, the other should be furious, defend them vehemently, or try to exact revenge.
4. Inject Complexity
Create Meaningful Scenes: Insert key moments in the novel to demonstrate the relationship's power, such as sharing a jacket, eating food together, giving a gift, or teaching each other something.
Don’t Make Their Relationship Perfect: A perfect friendship will lead to a less poignant story. Set up conflicts that naturally occur because of who the characters are and what they believe.
Introduce complexity by allowing their differences to get the better of them, having them react differently to a pivotal event, or having one friend's internal demons create tension that the other must address.
Hurdles make the friendship feel more earned and compelling. Watching characters overcome these obstacles and remain friends makes the relationship feel more real, deep, and deserved.
A good friendship can turn an okay story into a memorable one by adding emotional weight and making readers care more about the narrative.
