Goodreads asked Matt Ingwalson:

Who is your favorite fictional couple, and why?

Matt Ingwalson Are we talking about just romantic couples? If so, I'll say Gretchen and Jimmy on You're the Worst. He's self-involved and oblivious. She's depressed and chemical-dependent. But somehow they fall in love and have to make it work. The thing I like is that the characters work for the audience, too. I actually like Gretchen and Jimmy. (Unlike, say, the couple in Silver Linings Playbook, who can both drive off a cliff as far as I am concerned.)

If we're considering any fictional twosome a couple, well, I could write about the buddy-cop formula for a very long time. There are two types of teams. The first (call 'em Sherlock and Watson) have the same goal but different skill sets. The second (call 'em Hap and Leonard) have the same skill set but different personalities.

The first genre usually pops up in mysteries. My Owl & Raccoon books are one example. The fun is in seeing how the detectives interpret clues and end up respecting each other.

The second team is more common in thrillers, where the cardinal rule is, "Keep making things worse until it's time for them to get better." The team's conflicting personalities add another layer of chaos that drives tension and causes conflict. My Sin and Nicki books follow this path. Sin buries depression and violent thoughts. His sister, Nicki, is narcissistic and so fearless she borders on insane. Chaos ensures.

Thanks for asking! It's funny how answering questions like these make you think about your own characters in ways you never consciously did before.

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