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illuminara — How to Create Character Chemistry
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Published: 2016-06-13 22:12:23 +0000 UTC; Views: 14300; Favourites: 301; Downloads: 0
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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.
Superior and Subordinate - the emotion here could be trust like in a partnership, but it’s more often portrayed as an emotion of agitation, violation of boundaries, embarrassment, humiliation, and one character pushing the other to the point where they must take a stand, call someone out, or take matters into their own hands. (Horrible Bosses, The Proposal, and Battlestar Galactica)
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 thi...
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.
Check out these other awesome resources about creating character interactions and emotional reactions that compel your readers:
Narrative Tension
How to Create Tension in a Story
The Secret to Creating Conflict
The One Subplot You Really Need
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
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Comments: 72
An uncommon but still high-ranking kind of chemistry, for me, is a good seduction story. Not romantic seduction, though if that's thrown in as part of the deal, that's cool... I like the threat of being seduced by the enemy the character is fighting. It's about subverting loyalties, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. And the seduction doesn't have to be successful. I like the added dimension of the character having to fight the enemy as well as themselves. No love triangles or other bull for me, thanks. I like a character who isn't pure and their conflicts come from inside. I like a character who lies to themselves and to others for a while.
The first example I saw was probably Labyrinth. (There were fairy tales before that, you know, being seduced into fairyland with the promise of good times and magic, but at the sacrifice of everything you ever knew being gone once the party was over... but I'll stick to what most people might know.) Seductive enemy which is definitely being fought but not in a toe-to-toe, fisticuffs way. The seduction is partly physical but that's underplayed. Ultimately, the heroine gets offered power and freedom if she only sacrifices her brother's freedom, something she had previously been willing to do anyway. You see this kind of thing in political stories or war stories sometimes too.
Cliche: I hate romantic chemistry. I just can't get into it most of the time. Whoop, here's a woman about his age - they're totally gonna fall in love and have lots of sex forever. Maybe there's two women and he has to choose. Whoop whoop. I'd like to read a story where there is literally no sexual tension between the two similarly-aged-and-sexually-compatible main characters.
On the other hand, I've just recently face-planted into the fact that in avoiding writing about romance, I can't write it hardly at all on command. I've got a main character who becomes blindingly infatuated with the wrong guy and whoa man, am I bad a writing this stuff. It's a comedy, but still. Bad. I even went to the forums and the library for reference and have concluded I have a deep-seated personal problem with romance writing.
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I've always liked chemistry that involved conflicting loyalties: whether those are romantic, politic or ideological in nature or just about staying true to one's own morals, it's always so interesting to anticipate the tough choices that need to be made by the characters involved, and the troubles that arise from such situations. So hit me up with the lovers of feuding houses, the infiltrants and the reluctant partners! Intrigue, betrayal and love that conquers all is what it's at. For that last one specifically, I'm also very much a fan of the chemistry between a loving parent and their child: a cornered mom or dad will move mountains (or, in the case of Cersei Lanister, sic a Mountain on someone).
It's hard thinking back of the earliest case of this kind I can remember, but I think Disney's Aladdin qualifies: in it, Aladdin plays the role of prince in front of his sweetheart, causing him a lot of trouble but actually moving the story (and Aladdin's own arc of personal growth) forward, too.
Likewise I've got a bit of trouble thinking up a chemistry cliché... I've seen some bad instances of a lot of inter-character relationships, but they're never inherently evil. All these things can be (and in the past, have been) done well as far as I can see. Or at least to my satisfaction - I can't deny I'm soft on certain clichés, especially if they're handled expertly and from the heart.
What I think I have trouble with in my own work is the type of romantic relationship that involves two intense people: arguing back and forth, but ending up in one another's arms eventually as well. It's interesting to write about such fireworks, but it's also very hard to make the romance believable, and not just something that is forced on them. I keep feeling insecure about having one of those in my work.
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Oooo those ones are the best! I always love it when a conflict of loyalty comes up in an episodic show like Firefly or Battlestar Galactica. It's amazeballs. 
Yeah, most cliches have become so for a reason, so it's hard to say any one of them is always bad. They typically start as being fresh and well-executed, but then they become cliche when people say, "Oh, that's a good thing!" and then just copy it without changing it or adding anything too it.
I can see what you mean about intense relationships. I don't have a lot of personal experience with them, so I don't write about them much. I think the best thing to do if you're going for realism is to draw from the people around you or from fictional examples that really spoke to you and find the elements that make them work and try to emulate them in your own stories. After all, writing is all about empathy and imagining the way other people feel even if you haven't experienced it yourself. It's an important skill to develop, and it comes with practice.
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Glad you agree! I never saw Firefly but I remember there being some great instances of conflicting loyalties in Battlestar Galactica. Fingerlickin' good!
I get what you're saying there about drawing from people around you. I sure can't rely on my own self for inspiration, since I'm very calm and playing-it-safe by nature, which is why I suppose I enjoy exploring more extreme personalities. I DO know a couple who used to be in one another's hair ALL OF THE DAMN TIME, yet sit on eachother's laps and murmur in eachother's ears at every opportunity also, but since I can't write about someone I don't understand, I end up building people from the ground up, anyway: give them preferences (and then take care not to have their romance partner match those completely), see what makes them tick, find a common ground etc. Granted, there's always going to be something of me or a person I know in there, but still it's a bit like changing the rules of a game and seeing what that gets you - if you stick to them.
Evaluate if you will, the romance I currently have in mind doing something with:
Both are wizards; flamboyant, violent (can't spell temperamental without MENTAL), prideful and also damn funny. While they made a point of insulting one another and competing for supremacy from the moment they met, they do develop an appreciation for one another's skill and talents, and they enjoy being challenged (whether that's their wits or their skill with magic) to the point they like having the other one around. Add to that the fact that neither is afraid to exchange some blows when things get physical, and so, well - things get physical.
I'm only hoping no reader will go, 'Hey, that's not right - if I was in a fistfight with someone, I wouldn't feel attracted to them' but I'm hell-bent on making that work, since there's no way either of the wizards will settle for a plain, well-behaved partner to go steady with.
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Very interesting read, this got me thinking!
Oh man, a favourite character chemistry... Let me be a totally cliché girl here, but I am a sucker for romantic chemistry. I have many books here on my bookshelf that contain characters whose romantic chemistry made me laugh, shake in frustration, and cry of joy. Then again, when you ask me which chemistry is overused, it might very well be this one! I think romantic chemistry exists in nearly every story, and it drives many plots. Not that that is a bad thing, haha, since love pretty much drives the lives of many people, but yeah!
Personally, I would love to see more of Family Chemistry in stories, since many stories I know completely skip this altogether. How many books do you know where the protagonist doesn't seem to have parents, or where the parents/family is only mentioned in a subline? More family interaction can make us understand why characters are and act as they are, since we learn so much from our family and inherit so many opinions, beliefs, and habits from them.
Also, for the challenge part, I must agree with queenofeagles ; I've taken many of my characters, pondered and thought, but I cannot do this challenge for any of them, since it will spoil years of my story. The character chemistry is a pretty big plot driver in my story, and I don't want to ruin the fun by doing a challenge that will reveal a complete plot that will take years to develop xD I hope there will be some spoiler-free challenges, or maybe an alternative challenge to this?
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I love it when people get thinking!
Romantic chemistry is such a universal thing, and we all want to experience it in it's purest form, so it's no wonder it's in almost every story ever told. I don't think it should be used as a subplot in action movies just to try and squeeze an often ineffective emotional resonance from the audience, but it's totally understandable to use in most stories because it's so central to the human experience.
Yeah, family chemistry seems to be an all or nothing deal. You have stories like Malcolm in the Middle, Arrested Development, Modern Family, and Raising Hope that are totally focused on family and not much else, but most other types of stories focus on family very little. I think it's because family drama is an all-consuming thing that can easily take over a story when the writer wants to focus on something else. In that case, it's easier to leave family out of it altogether. That's just my personal opinion though. Then there are occasionally gems like the 90s TV show The Pretender that perfectly balances family dynamics (in an brilliantly suspenseful way, I might add) as well as an almost uncountable number of other relationships and issues. I totally recommend it!
As for your concern about spoilers, I totally understand, but I can give you the same alternatives I gave her:
1) You don't HAVE to tells us which of the multiple possible outcomes you settle on in the end. Leave it a mystery!
2) There's really no way to do this kind of exercise without spoilers because it's designed to help you plot/characterize the story, so maybe you could do it for a small story you're not worried about spoiling? Or people will like the challenge and go read the actual story! (Personally, when I've done something like this and given away all the details of the story, it's only made people excited to go read the actual story.)
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I've seen parts of Modern Family, but I need to check out the others that you stated! 
I followed your advice, and instead of focusing on one character chemistry, I took four, made one situation for each, and gave ten possible outcomes :'D I took some of the most boring situations happening in the story though, since I still don't want to spoil the major plot turns and twists xD I'm so protective over spoilers...
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The Pretender is freaking amazing. They just don't make shows like that anymore. 
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ahh, +1 for the family chemistry! That's one that's overlooked indeed! I've read Hex recently, that one has, amongst other relations, a good father-son (also other family members, but this is the most important one) chemistry in it. It's horror though, the ending is quite... well... you need to be a very special person to like that kind of story.
I guess you couldn't do the previous challenge for the same reason. Maybe we can come up with an alternative version ourselves: some of your character relationships are already known (your cowboys will show family chemistry, for example). Wouldn't it work to list character chemistry at the beginning of the story? So list these relationships that are already there at the beginning of your story - and since you have tons of characters, you will not be done quickly - what kind of chemistry they have and then add a huge list of possible options about what will happen next. You will not spoil things that way (and besides, telling a bit more about your characters can't do harm, because we now know almost nothing 
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I've never heard of Hex, who wrote it? Seems interesting to me, and I'm curious because of that ending ;D
And yeah, just like you, I'm totally afraid of posting complete or even half plots on the internet. Even for the cow family it would spoil some major surprises.
The idea of stating "starting" chemistries is a nice one, one that I can try to make as spoilerless as possible. I'll try out that 'huge list of possibilities', and try to make some super original ones! Heck, it might even inspire me in ways.
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The author is thomas oldeheuvelt - dutchie, as the name implies 😉 even the setting is dutch (and good, the guy clearly did some research about the pleistocene history of the Netherlands
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HEX is awesome, even though I haven't read it XD
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how do you know it is awesome then?
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Because my brother has read it and he said it was one of the best books he ever read. I spoke with Thomas himself on Elfia about the book.
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Really? I liked the beginning of it, but the story lacked a clear goal which makes it a bit lengthy (though the things that are going on are quite funny and interesting to keep you going). Or well, there might be an overall goal (not something specific to the main characters), but... SPOILER: it doesn't get solved. That's not a problem, but it doesn't get near to that. Hmm... do you know the story well enough that I am allowed to go into detail here? this sounds so very vague now. Anyway, I wasn't very fond of the ending. It would be fun if the ending would be the start of a new story but like this... Nah. Though Thomas writing style is absolutely brilliant. The thing got translated to English, I wonder what that looks like. The whole story is very Dutch you see (not just the names, locations and history of the place, but also the way people act. It's all very 'kneuterig').
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Ha i have started the book today! Damn! >
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I was so vague I wonder if it counts as a spoiler
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I missed you terribly! DA has been empty without you. I missed our great conversations. I now hope for some activity in your gallery soon, but first ff bijkomen van je vakantie
(I think the time has come to finish that bloody comparison of ours
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I feel so important now XD Yeah, I still go to sleep at 8 PM :') and wake up at 5 AM... I hate jetlags.
(and indeed. Where the heck is that list with my favourite questions? When we've picked 10, we can start writing the replies that goes with them. Like, I start with one half of the questions and you with the other, and let the characters reply to each other's answers. Some interaction is funny!)
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Every time I read 'character chemistry', I see my characters standing in lab coats and safety goggles on, armed with a Bunsen burner and an Erlenmeyer flask. My favourite kind of chemistry, haha! Okay, I can't pick one, it depends too much on the situation, but I like things when characters do not get along perfectly, or not seemingly. I like buddies who throw nasty remarks at each other constantly, or romance when things aren't actually that romantic. Though I do cheer a lot for a couple that starts off hating each other, even though it's terribly cliche.
When I think of bad character chemistry, I think of those natural disaster movies (which are bad on their own). These stories seem to be so highly focused on the world falling apart (in a way nature would never do) and surviving it that character relationships are kept simple and hardly change. It has been ages since I've seen one, so I can't come up with a good (bad) example.
This is also a reminder to do my previous challenge, haha! Though I will probably skip this one: I don't know how to do this without spoiling everything... Will there be spoiler-free challenges too?
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Yeah ... man agains nature stories are kind of archaic, though I suppose they can occasionally be decent. I typically dislike them too.
Well, you don't HAVE to tells us which of the multiple possible outcomes you settle on. There's really no way to do this kind of exercise without spoilers because it's designed to help you plot/characterize the story. Maybe you could do it for a small story you're not worried about spoiling? Or maybe people will like the challenge and go read the actual story! (Personally, I don't give a flip about spoiling my own work because I honestly don't think anyone cares enough to be bothered by any potential spoiling haha. But seriously, when I have done something like this and given away all the details of the story, it's only made people want to actually read it.)
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Cliches can be so great, even though slightly predictable
Oh, as an earth scientist, I find nature getting angry quite fascinating, but it has to be done correctly. Still fun to watch those movies with fellow earth scientists. Feels like we are watching a comedy because so many things do not make sense, haha!
That's true, but then I will not be able to point out chemistries that happen later in the story. Like you said, you kinda have to show spoilers here. And well, I know for certain that some people will not like reading them. I can put big warning signs up and such, but well, knowing that the entire plot can be found on the internet is quite a disturbing thought... I don't feel comfortable with it. I am on over-protective mother hen, I'm afraid
Ehh... I've been writing for just over a year. My personal library consists of only one work :') I know, it's sad... I just get too much stuck in it, haha!
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My favorite type of character chemistry? An interesting question I admit I had not thought about before. Although love stories can absolutely be awesome (I used to read -Pride and Prejudice- once a year), in a lot of fantasy stories, the romantic path seems to always be the same, and as soon as I see a male and female character pissed at each other upon first meeting, it's like WHELP, GUESS THEY'RE GONNA END UP TOGETHER. So I think I'll have to say my favorite relationships are those of really, really close friends. Patricia C. Wrede's -Dealing with Dragons- is one of my favorite books OF ALL TIME and she does a fabulous job of building the playful but deep friendship between Cimorene the human princess and Kazul the dragon (and her...employer?). I have to admit I had not considered how to use character chemistry, for the most part, though I certainly was worrying about how to demonstrate connections between characters at the back of my mind. I'm really looking forward to this challenge, I think this will help me round my characters out a lot.
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I'm happy this got you thinking! And I totally agree with you on the two characters fighting and then end up together trop. I mean, it's become cliche because it works well as a character arc, but there are plenty of ways to make it more interesting and original. I also love it when a story can pull of a deep friendship, and that's a great example. I can't wait to see your entry for the challenge!
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Very interesting and very helpful! I've always had the urge to make stories of my own, with the beginning of my creating characters.
Their personalities, attitudes,etc. Mostly sketching them to have a better look at it. About the people involved in the fictional world. I try to be as creative as I could.
Like how I want readers to feel about them. Misunderstandings and problems happen. Though I'm not so sure about it.
The decisions I want people to think that the character decides. I wouldn't let them think that that's just what the character is. Making people relate to characters through their experiences. Which I've also felt, through stories,games,movies,etc.
Thank you so much for sharing this useful topic. Character Chemistry. And for giving examples. Very helpful.
I will now slowly make use of the ideas that I've had before. This would certainly help me improve my writing.
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That's awesome! It's definitely a challenge to relate what a character is thinking of feeling to a reader, but that's part of the fun of writing and inventing characters, I think. It's also great to see different readers put their own perspectives and interpretations onto your characters and depict them in a way you might not have imagined yourself.
I'm glad you found it useful, and good luck with your writing!
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It is great to have this in one place, really! Especially the last "remember" point, that one is the most important and I think that every writer came across this somewhere during their writing career!
To the challenge part, I would like to participate, but then again, all of my original work is in my native language and I would really like to show the members the story itself.. unfortunately I do not have enough time to translate it properly
To the discussion topic:
Favourite type of character chemistry ~ when I have to choose from the list above, it would be probably mentorship. There are so many ways how to depict it, the relationship between the student and the master/teacher can be based on their mutual respect, on superiority, on fear etc etc. The most appealing for me was the chemistry between Phantom of the Opera and Christine Daae in Susan Kay´s Phantom novel. For those who do not know it: it is the complete story of Phantom´s life from before he was conceived and born to 16 years after his death. During that lifespan, he goes through various stages of being the apprentice (of many arts) to be a master himself. With this novel, I realised that my stories does not have to be under 20 pages long and have everything spilled at the reader at once (I was 13/14 there). The chemistry evolving goes hand in hand with the characters´ development. Sometimes it takes some time to get them to the chemistry you are heading for. The path may be much longer than you have anticipated and you have to be patient about that. No one would believe the character that hates some other character and on the next page, they are deeply in love with each other. Nobody will be a master of some art in a mere night. Certain stuff takes certain time. I think, this is something I discovered in mentioned S. Kay´s Phantom and what I implemented to my stories couple of years later.
Cliche character chemistry ~ in general, the chemistry "enemies turned to lovers" is the most cliche I know. Sure, it was cool once, but not anymore. I would like to see more "enemies starting to tolerate each other" chemistry between the characters, and they do not necessarily need to end up as friends. When I think about my own stories, the first ones were based on romantic chemistry (female character falls deeply in love with male character at various flavours). Then I implemented more mastership chemistry, often mixed with superiority, and not in the best meaning of that word. Too bad, and I am scolding myself for so long, is, that my characters tend to develop a stockholm syndrome. That is something I am trying to pull off, but I fail miserably.
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I’m glad you like it! I would suggest a translation service like Google translate, but I’m not sure how accurate it is.
Exactly! Mentorship character chemistry is ripe with all kinds of different possibilities. That’s a great example, and it’s really interesting to watch a character go from apprentice to master. It makes a great character arc and is very emotionally satisfying to see a character do something with (relative) easy at the end that they couldn’t do at all in the beginning.
Yeah, I like the idea of two people who hate each other finding a way to work together for one job and then splitting up to never see each other again at the end. 
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This is quite the informational read. I've learned a fair bit from analyzing everything said, and from where I already do a little bit of writing, I can use the new info to bring forth better content.
A common way I can bring forth character chemistry is through conflict, but typically not over something that's easily seen, but usually a secret being hidden, or a past scene that causes present conflict. That is more along character development, but it meshes well into character chemistry since learning deep information can cause characters to change their mindset when interacting with the character unveiling their secret.
Again, thank you for this informational submission. I'll hope to utilize it to great knowledge.
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Fantastic! Analytics is a great skill for learning about storytelling.
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I'm glad to read this topic. I notice now that the chemestry between my characters seem very intense for me, but not for the reader. My little tip is for that to write more background story of them. You can do this of course with flashbacks, but also with dialogues. With the last one keep in mind that it has to be interesting for the reader. I think my favorite kind of chemestry is soulmates between a woman and a man, or between same sex. I think the enemy-to-friend chemestry is the most cliché. The first example that comes in mind for me is Garfield and Odie XD. I I find chemestries with a moral very cliché.
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It's definitely important to develop your characters' backstories and motivations. It can be frustrating to read about a character and have no idea why they're doing what they're doing--especially if they're actions doesn't make sense or aren't very interesting. But leaving a character's backstory and motivation a mystery can also work very well if they're a compelling character making a lot of interesting choices that move the story forward.
That's a great type of chemistry! It can be very rewarding and inspiring to read and/or write about a relationship like that.
Yeah, those can both be a little cliche. But they're also some of my favorites if they're done well. (I freaking love The Emperor's New Groove, and it has both! 
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It also depends whether the chemestry is well worked out. I think that's very important, as I mentioned the chemistries I find the most cliché,
I 'm now watching an Italian series, Gomorra. It's a maffia series. The main character has a friend that's like a brother for him. Friend is a really nice guy who doesn't even want to be in the maffia world at first. In the first episodes you see that they really care about each other, like family. His friend is son of the maffia boss, but that boss goes into prison and that means friend has to replace him. Their maffia gang is about to collapse because of this and friend changes into a total asshole, killing, commiting crimes, just for fun. So they become real enemies and in the end one has to kill the other. It's an example which is amazingly worked out in my opinion, so yeah, it just depends if it feels cliché or not
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It's hard in my story to tell the readers why everything happens. I do not really know yet what I can tell or not. I want slowly give the reader more and more information about what happens. By the way, is there someway I can get a critique on my new chapter? The new one is all about character chemistry and I find it very hard to describe the connection between brother and sister. It's not finished yet, but I'm working on it.
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This is something that takes practice to get the hang of. Also, you don't always have to describe character chemistry and how the characters feel about each other. It's often more powerful to show it through their actions and how they talk to each other.
Another good group for getting feed back is theWrittenRevolution , which is a designated critique group. I believe you have to show that you've critiqued something yourself before you can submit something to the group, but check out their rules for details. You could also check out Beta-Readers and Adopt-A-Writer , though I'm not sure how active they are.
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Have you heard of the monthly critique folder on the forums? That's a place where you can always share your chapters. Just make sure you say you want feedback on the character chemistry
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This was very helpful to me! I always had this kind of problem with the stuff that I write. Thanks a bunch
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You're welcome! Glad you like it!
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I see now! Thank you so much. I always wanted to know what character chemistry is and what makes a working chemistry. I learned so a lot from this. I hope to see more. And learn more!
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You're welcome, and I'm glad you learned something!
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Thank you and I wish you good luck as well with the upcoming tutorials
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Very well written! Minus the Deadpool spoilers though. I had to skip that because I still haven't seen the film yet.
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