Two characters step onto the page and begin to interact. What do they say? How do they react to each other and play off each other? How do they respond when more characters join the party? It all depends on their character chemistry.
What Is Character Chemistry?
According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, chemistry is "the complex emotional or psychological interaction between two people."
In real life, this interaction happens naturally. But in fiction, this interaction is carefully designed to create a specific emotional state between the characters. The goal of this chemical engineering is to keep readers emotionally invested in your characters all the way to the end.
Why Is Character Chemistry Important?
Character interaction is one of the main ways to create tension in your story. Tension is what makes your readers ask, "What will happen next?" and keeps them reading until the question is answered. Without tension, no one cares about your next plot twist let alone the final outcome of your story.
Good character chemistry is all about building tension between two or more characters. What will happen next in their relationships? What will they say to each other? What will they do to each other? Will they fall in love? Fight? Learn to get along and work together to save the day? Will they just do it already?
This underlying question about your character's relationships is one of the most powerful storytelling tools you can wield. Crafting a dramatic question and plot that keeps your readers guessing is one thing, but characters are what make your story relatable and give it the human and emotional element we all crave. After all, we seek out stories to feel something, and the most powerful and effective way to give your readers this emotional experience is through their empathetic response to the emotions felt and portrayed by your characters.
What Does Compelling Character Chemistry Look Like?
Chemistry between characters comes in a lot of different forms. When I say "chemistry," of course I don't just mean romantic chemistry. It's the spark or engaging element between any two characters. It's their connection, the thing that brought them together and is keeping them together, and this looks different for every unique character interaction in a story. But the base element of all good character chemistry is an emotion, and there are a finite number of them.
Here are some common types of character chemistry you’re likely familiar with:
Buddies - war buddies, buddy cops, school buddies, the Shawn and Gus (Psych) always arguing but still humorous duo. The main emotions here are platonic love, friendship, brotherhood/sisterhood, and camaraderie. Everyone can relate to this kind of chemistry, which gives it a universal appeal.
Partners - this is based on the emotion of trust that can withstand danger, responsibility, duty, hardship, and anything else that’s thrown at it. It's about working together for a common good, shared passion, or mutual goal. Common examples are law enforcement partnerships (Life), marriage and parenthood (Lily and Marshall in How I Met Your Mother), business partners, partners in crime, etc.
Romantic - attraction and all the warm fuzzy feels of falling in love as seen in most romantic comedies. Of course, romantic relationships are more complicated than just love, and there are almost always elements of friendship, partnership, sexuality, family, culture, etc. that will add depth to the character chemistry.
Sexual - there are a lot of possible emotions behind sexual tension depending on the circumstance, notably desire, vulnerability, temptation, and need. If the characters never give in, the emotions might be more those of faith, conviction, principle, loyalty, or perhaps shame, lack of confidence, discomfort, or self-deprecation.
Enemies - commons emotions here are hate, jealousy, rage, betrayal, disdain, disgust, etc. However, there can be a lot more involved such as the disagreement of principles, misunderstanding, justice, or revenge and vengeance. (Batman Begins and The Count of Monte Cristo)
Rivals/Enemies Turned Friends - at the beginning of this relationship, it’s all about selfish competition and proving who is right or who is best. But it turns into a relationship of humility, forgiveness and acceptance, working out differences, and/or learning to understand and appreciate different perspectives. (The Heat and The Emperor’s New Groove) Or it doesn’t, and the characters remain enemies.
Teacher and Student (AKA Mentorship) - this character relationship can have elements of all the emotions listed above, but the main distinction is the transfer of information, knowledge, or skill from one character to the next. This transfer is typically vital to the story regardless of how the characters feel about each other, which can add even more tension to the relationship. (Star Wars)
Family - emotions in a familial bond can get complicated and messy quickly, but the unique thing about family relationships is that they are often more than one type at once or shift quickly from one to another. Brothers might start out as friends, turn into rivals, then enemies, then partners in crime all in the span of a twenty minute sitcom. (Malcolm in the Middle, Arrested Development, Supernatural, The Last of Us, Dexter) The parent/child relationship can be just as complicated because it's friendship, superior and subordinate, mentorship, and sometimes enemies all rolled into one. Along with all that, emotions of obligation, commitment, duty, guilt, and fear of failure are often driving forces in the relationship. Even though they often fight, disagree, and can't stand each other, they have no choice (or a deep desire) to stay together. Breaking this bond can be emotionally devastating, but it's not always bad. The emotional payoff of family members loving each other and sticking together despite all this is incredibly powerful. (Note: Stories with large casts of characters such as Firefly and The Avengers basically act as family units but sometimes with benefits.)
This is certainly not a complete list, and there are many subcategories that could fall beneath these such as authority and lawbreaker, skeptic and believer, native and invader, etc. There are endless types of character chemistry, and each pair of characters within a type is its own unique recipe. Not only that, but each character in a story is involved in a different type of relationship with every other character in the story. Your hero might be in a buddy relationship with a friend, a rival relationship, a mentor relationship, a romantic relationship, a family relationship, and an enemy relationship all in the same story. That's a lot of chemistry, and each one of these relationships needs to be compelling to make the character compelling.
How to Create Tension in Character Relationships
So how do you take all this and use it to create character interactions your readers love and also provide tension and conflict in your story? The first step is sit down and work out the end goal of the relationship before you start writing any actual character interactions. Every scene between your characters should include tension, making the readers want to know what will happen next at any point in their interaction.
It’s important to note the difference between conflict and tension here. Conflict is when your characters fight, but they can’t be always fighting. In any given story, the characters spend more time not fighting than fighting because direct conflict only makes your readers ask one questions: who will win the fight? Honestly, that’s a kind of boring question and nearly irrelevant if your readers are emotionally invested in all your characters.
Tension, on the other hand, is all about what happens next. This question can take on infinite forms and is ideally a series of questions that lead from one to the next as soon as one is answered. All of these questions must have multiple possible and plausible outcomes to really keep readers on the edge of their seats. If your story only allows for one reasonable outcome, the scenario isn’t very tense.
Example
Let’s take the relationship between Wade Wilson and Vanessa from the recent Deadpool movie and break it down. You might think it’s just another cliche romance, but it has the distinction of being the driving force of the story. Wade Wilson would not have been compelled to do anything he did in the movie if not for his relationship with Vanessa. So, let’s map out all the major events and subsequent tension questions in this relationship. (Obviously, there will be spoilers.)
1. Wade and Vanessa fall madly in love, and then Wade gets cancer.
Question: Will he stay with Vanessa?
Possible outcomes: 1) He says with her and fights, 2) he runs away and dies alone, or 3) he leaves her and tries to battle cancer by becoming a mutant.
Winner: #3
2. Wade gets the superpower of eternal life, loses his hotness, and is left for dead.
Question: Will he be able to find a way to reverse his ugliness so he can get back with Vanessa?
Possible outcomes: 1) No, he won’t even try, 2) he’ll use his new superpowers to track down the man who did this to him and make him reverse it, or 3) he’ll do all that and find out there’s no cure for his condition.
Winner: #3
3. Wade now has to face Vanessa.
Question: Will he finally come clean and reveal who’s in the Deadpool suit?
Multiple possible outcomes: 1) No, he runs away again, 2) he tells her what happened but doesn’t show himself and they don’t get back together, 3) he reveals himself and she rejects him, or 4) he reveals himself, she accepts him, and they’re back together.
Winner: #4
Note: This is the culmination of their entire relationship, all the actions Wade took to get to this point, and the defining moment that reveals if it was all worth it. It’s the biggest, tensest moment in the story, so naturally it should have the most possible outcomes.
Here are my thoughts on Deadpool's chemistry with the other characters in the film:
Deadpool Character Chemistry ExamplesWade Wilson/Deadpool and Vanessa (romantic)
This relationship is the crux of the story. You might think it’s just another cliché love story, but it has the distinction of being the driving force of the story. Wade Wilson would not have been compelled to do anything he did in the movie if not for his relationship with Vanessa. Without this one relationship, he’d have no reason to try and beat cancer and get caught up with Ajax/Francis, fight so hard to stay alive, become Deadpool, or use his new powers to kill his way to the Francis so he can get hot again.
This relationship ties directly to the protagonist’s motivation, which I think is excellent. Stop and think about it. How many real people are motivated in one way or another by the relationships (positive or negative) in their lives? How can you emulate this in your storytelling to tell emotionally powerful stories—even if you’re writing about a jackass?
Deadpoo
See how this works? It looks a lot like plot, doesn’t it? That’s because the story was set up from the very beginning to revolve around character interactions and choices. The characters’ actions and reactions to one another dictate the events of the story (i.e. the plot) rather than the other way around. This is what makes powerful character chemistry and results in a nail-biter of a story your readers won’t be able to put down.
Character Chemistry Gone Wrong
Have you ever read a book or watched movie where the character interactions seemed completely forced? Did the dialogue feel like it was cut and pasted from something else? Or maybe it relied solely on plot (outside events not determined by character interactions or choices) to move the story, and you didn’t care what happened between the characters at all. They just felt like pawns instead of the active agents controlling the story.
Unsettling, isn’t it? This is what happens when proper care is not given to character chemistry or when it's deemed inferior to plot. Sure, you might have an amazing concept and a mind-blowing twist at the end, but your audience won’t care if they’re not invested in the characters. Character interaction and reaction provide your story with an emotional heartbeat that, when well executed, you readers will feel beat for beat.
Just Remember
- Your readers want your story to make them feel something, and the most powerful way to accomplish this is through the emotional journey of your characters.
- The foundation of good character chemistry is emotion.
- Use a series of “What will happen next?” questions with multiple possible outcomes to create tension between your characters.
- Don’t force a character interaction to happen a certain way for the sake of plot. Instead, engineer your character’s choices to dictate their interactions and become the driving force (plot) behind the story.
Resources
Check out these other awesome resources about creating character interactions and emotional reactions that compel your readers:
The Challenge
Take a moment to think about the character interactions in your story. What types of character chemistry is your protagonist involved in? List out all of them and pick the one with the most emotional impact on the story. List out all the major events involved just like in the example. List the main tension question, multiple possible outcomes, and then the winning option. Is this succession of events a logical progress of the character relationship caused by character choices and reactions? If not, how can you change the story so the relationship plays a bigger role in dictating the story events?
If you’re not sure, use this opportunity to ask the NaNoPlotMo admin and your fellow NaNoPlotMeisters for help and suggestions!
Upload your challenge as a deviation and submit it to our workshop gallery for a chance to win 1,000 points and other awesome prizes! Also check out the other challenge entries and comment with feedback to get your name in the draw for 500 points and a feature. You don't have to be a member to participate!
Discussion Topic
As a reader, what's your favorite type of character chemistry? When did you first discover it in fiction, and how have you used it in your own character interactions? What types of character chemistry do you feel have become cliche, and which do you have the most trouble pulling off in your stories?
Skin by Dan Leveille
