How to Write a Character's Social Group?

drawn by: Nili DooL

Social dynamics and friendships can be the backbone of lots of stories. Therefore, it's one of the topics that's important to explore and research. Remember, the social groups in your story can hold many people. Usually, three, four and five are the most common ones I've seen. Make them compatible and nuanced, so it can make the reading or dialogue and their interactions are much more interesting.

Personal experience

As always, you can draw inspiration from your personal experiences within the group setting or your friendships. Keep in mind to ask for consent when it comes to more personal things, and respect the privacy of people around you.

Influence on other characters

Explore the influence they're having on other characters. Here you can explore toxic, healthy or mixed dynamics. Ask yourself:

• How do they deal with conflicts? Disagreements?
• What would break their relations?
• What would cause them to distrust each other or themselves?
• Do they make each other's lives easier or harder?

Playing with Established Tropes

Feel free to give your characters more layers. Give them opinions, worries, fears, frustrations.

Of course, it always depends on the genre and the plot of the story you're writing. You can leave your characters bleak if the message of your story is, for example, the one that we're all just sitting around and waiting to die.

Still, giving them a strong foundation rooted in some tropes can help you in the long run.

For example, a seemingly smart student begins to struggle with studying, so his friends try to help him with either studying or cheating. 

Examples from my own story

In my story "Secrets of Leftover Children", our main character, Ellis, encounters Jericho, Danail, Maie and Edythe.

Each of them has a distinct personality, look, conflict and storyline that gets explored over the course of the story and eventually gets tied to the main character.

Without spoiling too much, I'll give you examples of their dynamics. Here are their relations:

• Jericho is familiar with everyone before Ellis arrives at the orphan asylum. 
• Jericho only gets more familiar with Danail throughout the story.
• Maie and Jericho seem to have a history together as they get along surprisingly well when it comes to more complex plans.
• Edyth and Danail treat each other like close friends. Danail sees Edy as a little sister
• At the same time, Maie also sees Edythe as her little sister and wants to take care of her.
• Danail and Maie have the most conflicts and disagreements over the course of the plot. Mainly because Maie is almost like a mother figure of the group, and she's ready to lie, manipulate and do anything to gain some benefits, while Danail is willing to stand up for the truth, even if it doesn't benefit him
• Edythe and Jericho grow closer, and the bond grows throughout the plot, sharing the same interests.

The main character, Ellis, does some favours and interacts with each of them the most over the course of the story. His relationship with each of them is particular, and it has a specific effect on the plot and on the character of Ellis.

From all of this, you can see how complex the dynamics can get. Furthermore, it gets more complex handling a group of larger people when there are more than three people on the screen, all interacting at the same time.

So, take your time and make sure the bonds between your characters work well.

by: Nili DooL