Fantasy Relationship Building: From Real World to the Page

When I mentioned at the end of my last article that I was looking for some ideas for future columns, our esteemed Overlord suggested that I tackle romantic relationships in fantasy. Never content with confining myself to just one idea, I thought, “hey, why not look at some of the relationships we’ve come to know and love in fantasy and see what’s good and bad and dysfunctional about them?’

Thus begins my new series: Fantasy Relationship Building.

I think some fantasy authors hesitate to write fully fleshed-out relationships. I know that I’ve read fantasy where I was just not feeling the love (or hate, angst, tolerance, bitterness, etc.) between characters. I think that authors all have their strengths and weaknesses, and when an author is really good at plotting or world-building, it can be easy to let character development (and, consequently, relationship building) slide a bit. Many times, the author ends up telling us how characters feel about each other rather than showing the relationships.

I also think fantasy can easily fall into several traps where relationships are concerned, and I’ll look at each one in turn as we discuss various specific relationships. However, the one overarching relationship trap that I see in fantasy is the “these people are together because they’re supposed to be together” trap. Now, with the exception of a blood relationship, no relationship in a story world should feel forced or convenient. If two people are meant to have some kind of relationship that’s important to the plot, the reader needs to believe there’s a compelling reason for the relationship.

Now, what I’m not saying is that you can’t use coincidences. I think coincidences are a fine plot device, especially in fantasy. And really, in our own lives, we see coincidences all the time, right? But what I am saying is that if you put two people together as friends, lovers, spouses, army buddies, students, whatever, and if those two people need to function together in some fashion to move the plot forward, then we need to believe that their relationship is based on genuine love, affection, admiration, bitterness, annoyance, or even downright loathing. You can’t just put two people together in some way and then have them be instant BFFs the next time we see them together. Show us how they got that way.

So, what are the particular challenges to writing compelling character relationships in fantasy?

• Poor character development. For me, character development is the fun part, and this is my area of strength as an author, I think. I like to get in the characters’ heads and analyze them, find out why they make the choices they make, figure out what they’re afraid of, and on and on. But if characters are a challenge for you, or if you tend to write more plot-driven or setting-driven stories, this is a huge obstacle to overcome when writing compelling relationships.

To write compelling relationships requires that you have a good, deep understanding of the characters involved, and that you translate that understanding to the page in the first place. Character development is a whole other topic that I’d love to tackle one day, but suffice to say for the moment that it goes far beyond physical descriptions and a particular tic or two. You, as the author, need to understand your characters on a far deeper level. Analyze them.

• Plot-driven relationships. Another challenge is one I alluded to above—the need for certain people to be in certain places and have a certain relationship. There’s nothing wrong with that, and it’s part of plotting, but where it falls apart is often on the relationship end. We get the “instabond” effect where two people are immediately in love or instant best friends or whatever. When you’re building a new relationship in a story, there needs to be some lead-in. Even if you have to skip over a span of time, don’t just return to those characters and tell us that now they are in love. Show us the attraction at first, skip the time, and maybe show us how things have progressed.

• Showing vs. telling. Which leads me to the third big challenge—showing vs. telling. I think this may be the biggest challenge of all, partly because it’s a big writing challenge no matter what part of the story you’re looking at. Showing vs. telling is just something you have to practice. When it comes to relationships—any kind of relationship—showing is especially challenging, because you have to show something that’s intangible. Love, hate, loathing, indifference—they’re all emotions, and emotions manifest themselves in a hundred different ways. The key is to figure out which way your characters’ emotions manifest in the physical world and then SHOW us those manifestations.

• Wish fulfillment. Hey, we all have wishes for our own relationships. We all long for siblings, parents, neighbors, friends, spouses to meet our every need. That’s normal. The problem for authors is that we sometimes forget to separate those wishes and desires from our characters’ wishes and desires. The problem is that your characters don’t feel as authentic. You don’t want them to feel like made-up people to your reader. You want your reader to see your characters are real-life people with real-life problems (even if there’s a dragon bearing down on them). I’m not saying you can’t write healthy relationships—I think you should. I’m just saying don’t write perfect ideals that are really more about your own wishes and desires than about your characters’.

Next time, I’ll look at the romantic relationship in fantasy and discuss what works and what doesn’t. Update: Here it is.

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