Writing best friend Characters!

More often than not, your main character will have a buddy. They're going to help out your main character and be in their corner. But often times they can be written and be very bland and forgettable. Why is that? Well let's look at how to write them properly.

Don't attach them at the hip

A lot of friendships are portrayed as the main hero and the friend that follows them around like a dog.

Please don’t do this. I know full well if I had a friend who was around me 24/7 I’d get sick of them soon.

The most important thing about best friends is that they need to have their own identity outside of their protagonist main buddy. They have their own goals and life aspirations. Here’s a good way to tell:

If you killed your friend character right now- like right this very second- what would they be ed for? Being the main characters friend? If so then you may need to work on the friend character more.

Now you should still expect there to be interactions. In my eyes, quality beats quantity any day. Have your friends share things, talk about random things as well as important things. The best friend is the one the main protagonist should be able to talk to about almost anything. How deep and or random these conversations go can show just how deep the friendship really is.

On top of this, be sure to give the friend and outside life. What is their day like when they aren’t with the protagonist? What would their day be like if the protagonist was gone for a while? Does the friend have hobbies they don’t do with the protagonist? Other family? Other FRIENDS?! (*GASP*) how could they?!

Let them argue

I can’t reasonably see a real friendship between people if they don’t fight at least once or twice. And when I say fight, I don’t mean fist fight. Everyone is different. Even if your pals have known each other since birth and have a bunch of similar interests, they will disagree on SOMETHING. And honestly you could say the same for couples or any other positive pairing. No one agrees on everything. Even the people you love to death can drive you nuts sometimes. If I ever read about any relationship that’s perfect in every way where they never fight and always agree, it’s going to strike me as unrealistic and pretty boring. Because having no conflict in a relationship means there’s no other perspective the other person can offer. They don’t really gain anything out of being friends with one another and any character development you want to use them for will be at a standstill.

That’s not to say they shouldn’t have anything in common. In fact they’re bound to have a lot in common, but it shouldn’t be EVERYTHING. That’s just a clone. And being best friends with your clone is... well kinda sad honestly. And those things they have in common should only be there if it brings them closer together positively and they have a good time doing or talking about those things.

Also don’t confuse fighting with teasing. Friends tease each other all the time. Heck I do with mine.

“Hey loser.”

“Wow you’re stupid.”

Accompanied with a laugh or a chuckle. The important thing about this is that you make it CLEAR that they’re joking with one another. And also that they know their boundaries with those types of fake insults.

We all know what that’s like:

“Man they’re stupid.”

“Hey. No. Only I’m allowed to call them that. Check yourself.”

Show they care

This includes all the things that aren’t the person saying “you’re my best friend.” Little things like knowing their favorite potato chip flavor or bringing an extra pencil to class because they KNOW their friend always forgets their own. This shows that they know each other without saying it upfront. It shows that their comfortable with each other due the time they spend together. When they fight, show how easily they get over it, or how friend one buys pizza to apologize because they know: pizza always makes friend two feel better. Really you can think of friendships as romantic relationships without the romance. Or in simpler , show they love one another. We love our best friends, maybe not romantically, but we can still show we care about them and that they’re extremely important to us. Be sure your characters show that care in the good times as well as the bad times.

The main thing that earns a person the title of best friend, is that they’re reliable. They’re there when the friend needs them. They’re willing to sacrifice for their friend. A lot of people forget that one. Giving up something they want because they value the friendship more will speak loads about why they have the best friend title. And it’s important that both parties do this. Friendship is a two way street after all. Both should benefit from it and become better people as a result for a good quality friendship. If not, one is clearly being manipulated, or ones a masochist. Or both. And that’s not really friendship now is it? Nooo, we call those emotional vampires. People who don’t contribute anything to the relationship and feed off the other party until the other party is drained dry of all positive emotion, hence forth damaging any future relationships the other party may make. People will be able to see that from a mile away.

There’s also the blind unwavering friendship where the friend will do literally anything for the other no questions asked. I have mixed feelings about this. Not because it’s bad, but I feel like if my best friend was dragged into the underworld and I had to go save them, I’d still do it, but would be pretty scared if not a slight bit hesitant to dive in headfirst into something so drastic.

Power of friendship

If you’ve ever watched main stream anime, this has been used as a plot device in at least one of the titles you’ve watched. I personally think this one is done waaaaay too much.

*COUGH* fairy tail *COUGH*

If someone turns evil or is about to loose a fight, more often than not you can expect a chocolate-covered-friendship speech, an epic one liner, and then the happy conclusion. This isn’t BAD. But please don’t do it to solve every problem. And don’t use it if you haven’t established the things above in the post. Nothing gets people angry more than reading about how strong a relationship is supposed to be when it hasn’t been shown. At the climax of the book, your main character shouldn’t have to say: “I’m their best friend, I’ll talk to them.”

We should already know well in who’s friends with who. And it should never be hard for the reader to figure out why they’re friends. (Unless that’s the main point of the story.)

Then we have the villains who try to prove to the hero that friendship doesn’t work only to be proved wrong by the hero’s friend-power in an epic finale. Just once it’s be interesting to have a set up where you THINK that’s the route the story will go, only to see that the villain was right and friendship power is really useless like they said. Yes it’s a darker take on it but it’s would be SUCH a breath of fresh air. Really it’s so tired out at this point it’s just insane. The only problem with this really is that it almost always works. Brainwashed friends, turned to dark side friends, final blow to the bad guy when previously the evil guy was totally wrecking house on the hero’s before hand.

Or heck, give the villains the friendship power against the loner protagonist. (Inuyasha and akame ga kill are great examples of this.) Even better if they kidnap the protagonist, knowing their friends will come save them, then kill all said friends but the most important one and give them the option of “save the world or save your last friend.” Nine times out of ten, you can be pretty sure they’ll choose the friend.

And that concludes the best friends post! That got a bit darker at the end than I had planned, but I really wanted to spill my thoughts on this topic. I feel like I probably should have made this one a bit earlier, but nonetheless here it is now. Hope it was helpful!

#adventurehouse