RELATIONSHIPS MAKE CHARACTERS INTERESTING

I doubt many novels have been written in which characters didn’t interact (actually or virtually) with other people or animals. Think about it. Relationships, not really appearances or jobs, make characters interesting to readers.

I looked at dozens of columns written by psychologists, experts on managing stress in the workplace, and writers of columns to the “lovelorn.” In essence, they mentioned three key issues central to all relationships. You can add depth to characters in your novels by showing their relationships in terms of these parameters. 

1) Communications

A sympathetic protagonist listens patiently to others. He/she communicates through actions as well as orally. 

Characters not interested in a relationship interrupt, raise their voice, doodle, look at their watch, or pick at their nails when others are talking. They nag their cohorts. These are good traits for villains.

In Murder...A Way to Lose Weight, Abel Raines never really listens to Richard Varegos. He's always busy cleaning his office or doodling. That's how I hint the two colleagues (who are both faulty members at the university hospital and apparent confidants) might not be friends. While the main question in Murder...A Way to Lose Weight is who killed the diet doctor? One of the subplots in this mystery is: what do these two men have in common, besides work? Can they trust each other?

2) Goals 

Allies or lovers, who have no shared goals, are not realistic partners on a long–term basis. The dissolution of shared goals (divorce, business failure, or war) is the basis of strong plots. If one of your character steamrolls the rights of others to attain a shared goal, you have created a villain.

3) Struggle for control

This is universal to all relationships. If you doubt the statement, think about raising children or training a dog. These struggles, when mainly petty bickering, can add humor to fiction or can foreshadow a crisis. 

In She Didn't Know Her Place, the heroine, Dana Richardson, doesn't share the same goals as many of her colleagues at State U. Yes, she wants the university to enlarge its research portfolio but not at the cost of all ethics. She also wants to discover who killed Sally Stein. Most of her colleagues don't care. 

Think of your favorite fictional characters. How do they interact with others? Now think of your neighbors. Which are your favorites? Do they interact with others in a manner similar to the way your favorite characters interact with others?