Oftentimes, students write essays and other academic papers about relationships. Besides, many novelists inevitably face this issue too. It’s not always easy to explain and develop relationships among characters. Nevertheless, not a single novel can do without a character’s development because it’s one of the main clues to successful writing of any essay or book. Once an author fails this task, his/her story is doomed to fail. That’s why you should know how to discover character relationships properly.
Highly qualified essay writers from CustomWritings company have analyzed some data and offer 8 secrets that help to write strong character relationships. Prior to reviewing those secrets, we’d like to pay your attention to some questions you should put. As you review relationships of the main characters or even several ones, you should always analyze their “collaboration” with others. What are their relations like? To define these issues, ask the following questions:
- How your characters met and knew each other?
- What feelings do they experience?
- What do they like and dislike about one another?
- How they treat one another? Describe their clashes and the situations they get along.
- Who dominates? Why?
- How much do they have in common, and do they work out their differences?
- Who prefers peace, and who is more distracted?
- Are your characters close to realism, or do they perceive the world objectively?
- Do they care about one another?
- Do the characters meet each other’s expectations?
Depending on your story and intentions, you may ask other questions as well. After you receive clear answers, you will receive important information to use and disclose strong character relationships.
Secret #1: Characterization
verything begins with a characterization of the heroes. It explains who your heroes are and what personal traits they have. The author is expected to give a physical description, as well as mental. Tell your readers what temper and worldviews they have. Mention their attitude towards “eternal” themes of love, friendship, enmity, socializing, politics, religion, and so on.
- Tip: To make things clear, always implement examples from your heroes’ life.
Secret #2: Conflict
Your characters cannot do without each other, and you should regularly put them close together. Show their similarities and differences to reveal their true natures. The conflict between heroes is one of the most important necessities. It sets the general tone of the story and determines the way it’ll develop. For example, heroes may love each other but have totally different tempers and life values. Set a conflict that shows how they labor to overcome all the difficulties to be together. Your readers will be waiting that they’ll be finally together. However, you may choose a sad ending.
- Tip: Always clarify the causes of their conflict.
Secret #3: Dialogues
Bring your characters to life via dialogues. Show the way they interact and how they react to different words and situations. Write authentic dialogues to make your plot development livelier. You may implement some hidden symbolism. Your characters may hide something before their words, which don’t sound genuine.
- Tip: All dialogues must obligatorily affect plot development.
Secret #4: Internal Monologues
Another important technique to reveal a character is to write internal monologues. Writers choose two perspectives of narration. These are either the first or third person. Each perspective helps us to understand the feelings of the characters. Nevertheless, the third-person perspective is limited.
- Tip: To reveal the true nature and feelings of your characters, use the first-person perspective that provides more personal facts.
Secret #5: Changes
You reveal every hero through gradual changes. After you introduce your heroes, show how they change their viewpoints and attitudes towards one another and what happens to them. Some heroes may be stubborn and unable to change. However, you can add some unexpected event, which may be full of happiness or sadness. They may strongly affect your heroes and lead to a sudden reevaluation of their values. For example, an antagonist becomes a protagonist and vice versa.
- Tip: Make sure these changes also affect the development of your story.
Secret #6: Backstory
Another crucial secret is the use of backstories. Smart authors steadily add some unknown facts related to the past of their heroes. They add mystery and kindle intrigue. Make some flashbacks occasionally to explain some of your heroes’ motivations.
- Tip: Try to be mysterious and don’t reveal some important facts from previous life too fast. Do it steadily to increase the tension.
Secret #7: Motivations
Don’t forget to mention conditions that motivate your characters. Review your characters from different viewpoints and explain why they act as they do. We’re all different and have different attitudes towards various situations.
- Tip: Always ask “why” people act this or that way to write plain motivations.
Secret #8: Minor Characters
Finally, you should obligatorily implement characters that don’t play the main role in your story. Nevertheless, their interaction with the main heroes is decisive. Even a small event may tell us more about this or that hero and become the necessary clue.
Use them actively and do it invisibly. Many writers describe situations that seem to be trivial at first. Nevertheless, every slight event makes the portrait of your heroes fuller.
- Tip: Give short stories of some minor heroes to underline their importance.
- The use of word count tool is very important because it provides an extensive statistics about the word count, character count, the number of characters without spaces.
Use these 8 secrets for your books. If you’re a student and have to write an essay about characters’ development, they’ll be useful too. They will surely help to write strong characters relationships.
