Legit Tip #194
or - “Introducing Established Relationships”
Writing good characters is hard.
Taking it to the next level and writing the relationships that occur between those characters, be they romantic relationships, friendships, or antagonistic relationships…that can be a nightmare.
It’s often a little bit easier when you’re writing about a relationship from the beginning. That’s because you get to show the reader everything that transpires from the Point of Contact to make them feel however they feel about one another.
Much more difficult for most is introducing and expanding on a relationship that already exists.
When there’s a lot of history between two people and you just can’t fit that all on the written page… well, that makes things tricky. You want to give the reader just enough information to understand why the characters feel the way they do about one another, but you don’t want to info-dump everything there is to know about their history. (And you definitely don’t want to just say “Character A is in love with Character B and that’s that.”)
So How Do You Introduce the Relationship?
I’ll tell you this right now. The first scene between these two characters is going to be very important. This scene will establish their relationship at present, the way they feel about each other, and the way they act toward one another.
Essentially, you want to condense all the history the characters have with one another into a scene that showcases it to its fullest extent.
For example, let’s say that I have a character who is a witch in training, the apprentice of a warlock. She has an ongoing rivalry with another witch her age, who is apprenticed to a close friend of the warlock. These two hate each other.
Obviously, we don’t know what happened to make them hate each other. We don’t know what drove them to this point. So it’s going to ring a bit hollow if your character/the narrator is just telling the reader “Beth hates Katie.”
So what do we do instead? Well, we craft a scene that shows exactly what happens when the two of them together. You can push things here, and make them a little over-the-top for the sake of depicting this relationship to the reader.
Ex.
Beth stood at the apothecary counter, peering through the dim windows at the other side of the shop. Darkness had fallen, but she still had another hour to go before Nathaniel would even think of letting her leave for the night. What a waste that was. Beth could think of a thousand things that would help her magical training more than standing in that empty room.
She had been lingering near the counter for who-knew-how-long, eyes fixed on the glass, when she saw a familiar figure stride into view. Tensing up immediately, she hurried over to the potions table to begin sorting through ingredients, hoping against hope that Katie was only passing by.
But to her utter dismay, the shop bell rang.
“Oh. It’s you,” said the other girl, her shrill voice cutting like a blade through the silence.
“This is my teacher’s shop. I’m supposed to be here. What’s your excuse?” she snapped without even turning her head to look at the young witch.
“I was sent for some supplies.” Katie spoke in a bored tone as she slid over to where Beth stood, before practically shoving a piece of parchment into her face.
Beth jumped, then turned, feeling her face flush. “You know where everything is. Help yourself.”
Let’s Talk About the Past
All this isn’t to say that you can’t share some little details and bits and pieces of personal history between the characters. In fact, it’s a good thing to do that… at the right time, and when the right opportunity presents itself. Perhaps a certain phrase sparks a memory, or a present moment reflects a past moment.
Don’t shoehorn this information and history in. Let it come up when it matters - for example, when the character does something that mirrors a past event, or even does something that is completely different than something they did in the past. (What better way to show that a character and relationship has developed in the time they’ve known one another?)
Ex.
“He’s not a traitor.” Katie’s expression didn’t change, but there was something in her voice that surprised Beth. She wasn’t used to the young witch showing any kind of emotion - nothing beyond arrogance.
Except that wasn’t true. Thinking back, she recalled the first time she met Katie. It had been years since then, so it wasn’t surprising that she didn’t think of it right away. But back then they had just been two little girls, both waiting to meet the warlocks who would become their teachers, both terrified of what that entailed.
“Do you think he’ll be better than my dad?” Katie had asked as they sat there, side by side on the bench outside the council chambers. Beth had been too ignorant back then to ask what that meant. It was only later that she had learned of Katie’s father, his history, everything that he had done.
Developing the Relationship Further
All relationships grow and change over time, no matter how long two people have known one another. Whether that change is drastic or subtle, you’re going to want to have changes take place in the relationship you’ve established. But again, this is a little more difficult when you aren’t starting from scratch.
My suggestion is this. Start showing some of those changes taking place after you’re fairly confident the reader understands the relationship between your two characters. Read back what you’ve written and think like a reader.
What does the story so far tell you about these two? What would you think of them as an outside observer?
in addition to that, use the relationship they already have to showcase their development. In my example with Beth and Katie, I’m using Beth’s predisposition to think of Katie as arrogant along with some small details from their history together to make Beth realize that maybe, just maybe, Katie isn’t everything she thought she was at the outset.
Ex.
“You… really care about him, don’t you?”
“Of course I care about him!” Katie hurriedly wiped her eyes, but Beth had already seen the tears welling up in them. “He’s the best person I know. And now… now people are saying all these awful things about him. He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve any of it. And I’ll do anything I can to prove everybody wrong.”
Beth winced, and then sighed. She may as well tell Katie the truth.
“I…believe you,” she said. “About him being innocent. I overheard Michael talking, and I think - I think he’s the one behind everything.”
So there you go. There’s a lot more I could say, I’m sure, but these are the basics. Essentially, just remember that you don’t have to tell your reader everything at once. Start with a strong scene that tells the reader enough to know how these characters feel about one another. From there, you can drop bits of history and start developing the relationship as you see fit!
(Thanks to @crimson-fallen-angel for the tip idea!)
