Or how about Jo and Laurie from Little Women? There’s a reason everybody ships them-and it has nothing to with romance and everything to do with chemistry. These archetypal frenemies lit up the screen with their bickering every time they were together. You know what I’m talking about: the ones where you just can’t wait for two particular characters (whether they’re romantic or not) to get together on stage because you know the results are going to be electric.įor a very basic example consider Barney and Otis in the classic sit-com The Andy Griffith Show.
This is perhaps most obvious in by-the-numbers romance stories that throw flabby Marty-Stu and Mary-Sue characters together and expect readers to care just because there’s gonna be a kiss in the end.Ĭontrast that with books that offer great character chemistry. They were bland, they were boring, and they had zero chemistry. I’ve read far too many books that were excellent in all respects except their characters just flopped around on the page like dying fish. Character chemistry can make all the difference in creating a superior story.
It’s kind of like theme in that we all know it when we see it, but we don’t instinctively understand how to break down something so abstract into a practicable approach that can be applied consistently to our own characters.Ĭharacter chemistry shares another similarity with theme: it’s far too important to leave to the whims of our subconscious. It’s such a nebulous thing, right? Even after I spent those nine paragraphs up there explaining what chemistry is, do we actually have any solid info on how to create it? I’ve been kicking that idea around for a long time, trying to get a handle on what it is that creates character chemistry. The one that I neither wrote about nor threw away was a request for a post about-you guessed it-character chemistry. That was years ago and I’ve long since written about almost all of the viable ideas from that poll. Long ago and far away, I ran a poll asking readers what they’d like me to write about. I’m willing to bet my typewriter that character chemistry played a huge role in creating this dynamic (and, yep, even if the scene only featured one character-because, guess what? that character still has chemistry with you). They’ve engaged you permanently, either because they’ve intellectually stimulated you, emotionally engaged you, or (a combination of the two) entertained you. And yet these scenes are branded into your brain. What makes them great? They’re not doing anything more than presenting characters who are either showing or telling you something.
Think about some of your favorite scenes. In fiction, as in life, the chemistry between people lifts simpleexchanges of dialogue or action beyond the status of basic information and into “entertainment.” We can potentially do this dance with our worst enemy just as surely as with the epic love of our lives.Īnd that’s where character chemistry becomes so valuable to fiction. When we have great chemistry with someone, we discover an almost instinctive synchronization that allows us to rest into our peak energy while easily batting back and forth the ball of interaction.īut chemistry doesn’t necessarily have to be friendly.
Instinctively, humans respond to one another according to any number of social and subliminal signals that end up creating paradigms that belong uniquely to any two of us. It’s a subtle dance, in which we take cues from one another, testing out our moves, discovering to what degree we can unleash the full power of our personalities in an ever-shifting dynamic of opposition and harmony. Either way, chemistry is basically just an energetic exchange between people. Some chemistry is positive some negative. To one degree or another, chemistry exists in all relationships, whether they’re romantic, familial, friendly, or just casual. They amp up your energy, instantly make you happy, and make it easy for you to be your best self. Some of them get a smile and a casual wave from you. Even assuming you like them all equally, I’ll bet you don’t respond to them all in the same way when they walk into a party. When two people show up on stage together and the result is a special “spark,” you know you’re seeing chemistry.Ĭhemistry is the “it” factor in all great fiction.Ĭonsider some of the people you know. Chemistry is hard to define but easy to spot. We most often hear about character chemistry in reference to actors-particularly those playing love interests to each other. What is character chemistry? And how can you use it to make your story un-put-down-able?