[b]Relationships, and why Characters are not People[/b]

I am not a romance writer. I have no idea how the advice I’m about to give holds up in a full blown romance RP. But if you want to do a romance subplot or a platonic relationship, this should be effective. 

To start, your characters have to want or need something that the other one provides. You might have one character who’s unsure of himself, but capable. You could pair them up with a brazen character who talks a big game, but can’t back it up. They can feed off one another and move closer to their goals. Alternatively, you could make a toxic relationship by pairing a character who wants to be loved with one that wants to control. There isn’t a huge difference between romantic and platonic relationships. Aside from some sexual tension, both types of relationships follow the format of “We benefit from spending time together, thus we do.”

And that’s it, really.

But we’re not here to write relationships, we’re here to write [i]interesting[/i] relationships. Anyone who’s been reading along knows my favorite method for creating interest is to have some [i]conflict[/i]. The relationship could have internal conflict. Maybe some loser needs to “get gud” to impress the girl of their dreams, or two characters with diametric flaws need to learn how to deal with each other while trying to overcome their weakness. Alternatively, you could have external conflict. Two characters instantly fall in love, but their social status, race, or occupation makes such a pairing undesirable due to external factors. That creates tension outside of the relationship. Not every relationship needs to be founded by flawed characters. You can certainly have “static” characters that had all that development in their background already. But there’s a reason stories about happily married couples don't focus too hard on relationship drama. 

You might be tempted to put two characters in a relationship because they fill a dynamic you like. “That cute girl and that serious guy would make quite the couple.” And that might be true. Opposites attract and all that. But it can be hard to work out why these two want to be around each other if they gain nothing out of their union. When the going gets tough, when something better comes along, why do they continue to stick around? It’s fine to have couples with wildly different personalities, but make sure there’s more to it than that. 

But not [i]too[/i] much more. I’m willing to bet that a lot of new writers want their work to be good. They aren’t afraid to do a little bit of work to make their character more complex. I know some people who try to figure out every detail they can. They will flesh out their character's parents and siblings, even if they never show up in the RP. They’ll create lists of their favorite foods, where they go out to eat, down to their most trivial hobbies. Pets past and present, modes of transportation, irrelevant hobbies. Because all of this extra detail is sure to make a great character. Because characters are people and-

No, no that’s not quite right. 

Characters are [i]distilled versions of people[/i]. They’ve been stripped of unnecessary fluff so that a story can be told. Rilla, my German steam suit pilot character, would likely order a draft beer if she went out to eat. She does this for no other reason than she’s German and they like the good stuff. If you let me order, who can say what I’ll get? Some days I feel like an Arnold Palmer and other times a water will do. Maybe I want to try something new? This isn’t a problem in real life, but in a RP my actions would be hard to keep up with. Never mind ordering food, these “inconsistencies” in behavior become more baffling during critical moments. If I had to choose which of my friends to prioritize saving from a burning building, I would be expected to panic. No one would assume that who I chose to save had any bearing on my personal feelings. But Rilla would be scrutinized for her choice. Who she chose to save would (and should) be seen as revealing a truth about her character. Not only the readers, but other characters would form opinions based on what she did. This “keep it simple, stupid” mentality also works for relationships. Many have written books on how to get a partner, and they still fail to illustrate the complexity of navigating relationships. That kind of depth isn’t needed or wanted to explain why two people choose to stick together. A simple, logical reason will suffice. We want a story at the end of the day.

Let’s put it all together and give Rilla a boyfriend. We’ll start by listing off her strengths and flaws. Rillia is quite the craftsman. She made her mech suit herself and performs all of her own maintenance. She’s also crafty enough to repair machines that she didn’t personally build. Rilla is fiercely motivated and shows more bravery than anyone else in her squad. She’s not afraid to take charge and doesn’t let setbacks slow her down. Her weaknesses are just as numerous. Rilla’s mech suit may be a sight to behold but her craftsmanship is better than her marksmanship. She also gets a lot of her drive from her desire to avenge her parents, so she’s rather passionate about killing the Italians. Sometimes her actions are more reckless than brave.

Distilled to their simplest elements: Great with steam tech, motivated and brave, angry and a weak fighter, reckless. For a good relationship, we should pick someone that can benefit from her strengths and cover her weaknesses. We’re not looking for the ying to Rilla’s yang, just a few areas of compatibility are fine. We could address her combat ability and bravery with a war hero who suffers from PTSD and feels he can no longer fight. He could teach her and rekindle his fighting spirit. Maybe she encounters a fresh recruit like herself who loves and tolerates everyone, but doesn’t know how to properly maintain his steam tank. Maybe she hits it off with the squad’s operator. He’s lethargic but cool under pressure. These are three very different guys that would all make a great romantic interest for Rilla. They can both grow from one another and will have plenty of tension between them.  

So there you have it. I didn’t really cover a whole lot of new stuff here. We just took the basics we already knew and applied it to a complex topic like relationships. The only thing I didn’t explicitly cover is the chemistry between players. The above assumes that you are writing your character's love interest yourself or writing with someone who values good story craft. Theoretically good relationships can still fail to be interesting if the players change how the characters behave. I’ve seen relationships that promise to have strong development fall flat because the players decided that the characters can overlook all of their partner’s flaws. Even ones that run against the character’s morals or logic. So strive to understand your character’s needs, and they’ll never (theoretically) enter a boring relationship.

[hr]

Has it been three months already? I went on a bit of a bender there where I was joining roleplays left and right. Now that most of them have [s]died[/s] slowed down I’ll probably get the next one out sooner. I don’t think I’m going to do many more in this style. I have a few more articles on Storycraft left in me. We’ll see how many I have before capping things off with that collaboration tutorial I’ve been putting off for a few years now.