Writing Wednesday: Relationships

A lot of time we think about how much we love characters in a particular book. But I think what we actually love is the relationship that character has with another character, or with multiple characters. This is partly because the main way we get to know characters is by seeing how they interact with other people. But it's also simply that human beings are social creatures. We want to read about other social creatures, generally. We relate to other social creatures. So, when writing your novel, think about these questions:

1. Do I begin the novel with a sense that this character has relationships with friends and family, past and present?
2. If a character does not have friends, is there a good reason for this, other than the convenience for me as an author, not needing to write backstory?
3. If a character has no family, have I really thought carefully about the consequences either an orphaned life or a loss of family would have on this character?
4. Is this relationship realistic? Do the characters tease each other and see each other's flaws and virtues like people in a real relationship do?
5. Is there humor in the relationship? Even autistic people have some sense of humor, and it ought to come out. We humans need humor to relieve the darkness in our lives. When it isn't there naturally, we make it up.
6. Is there a conflict in the relationship? There are always conflicts in relationships, believe me. You as the author can choose whether or not to make them obvious from the first or put in more subtle hints. These conflicts are great for creating problems between the characters later on, when the stakes are really big.
7. If these people do not actually care about each other, is there a reason that they remain in relationship with each other? I ask this because occasionally a relationship feels so horrible that I can't see why someone would remain in it. People do stay in bad relationships, but they also have reasons for doing so.