Crafting an organic female platonic relationship [closed]
Closed by System on Jan 8, 2019 at 19:54
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There has been a story in me for quite a while. It is of two girls, set in a feudal/medieval era. They met as children. One is a antisocial bookworm, highly opinionated with a quiet steely composure. The other is the youngest heir of nobility; a free spirit used to having her way all her life. Not an arrogant rich kid, but wild and untempered.
When they meet there are sparks. Through the friction there is borne a friendship. And from the friendship something more.
Can anyone advise me how go about developing their relationship?
- I do not need specific plot points or story lines and such, just how can I get into the characters' minds.
- Being a male writer, is there any advice on capturing the opposite gender's voice as well?
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1 answer
One key difference between a friendship and love is the sense of longing.
You can show a friendly relationship when the two characters are together, but it is in the moments of separation that you can show the reader that there is much more than what meets the eye. A reader does not need a definition of their feelings written down, they need to feel it. As a matter of fact, expressions like "love each other" or that "care for each other" can have such different meanings across people and cultures, that you would be detracting from your love-story by even trying to define such a relationship.
Some stereotypical examples of longing:
Character A may repeat the same way every day, hoping to come across character B. She may even slow down her pace hoping to give more time to the other character show up. She may frequently stop and turn her head to the direction where she thinks the other character is.
Character A is shown as distracted, bothered in every single task, until character B shows up, in which case everything becomes exciting again.
Character A starts measuring every person and detail of the world by comparison with character B. The corn fields are golden like her cheeks; the stable boy is not taller than character B; the soup taste like the soup she had with character B; the chair is cold like character B's hands.
A short delay in the encounter with character B causes a major drama.
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