1. Johnathon B Cook

    Johnathon B Cook New Member

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    I am sorta stuck with what to do with these two characters

    Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by Johnathon B Cook, Oct 26, 2021.

    I have two characters and they are close friends but one of them ( character B) is secretly against the other (character A). Character B masks his horrid inner core with assuring his 'deep bond' and saying he'd do anything for his friend, character A and yada yada. character B is part of some horrible group and the other doesn't know. But what I have been struggling with is giving character B a reason or excuse to hang around character A and pretending to be his friend. I am absolutely stuck. It would be silly and unrealistic if character B just hung about and didn't have a reason to be false friends with character A. What do you think I should do?
     
  2. Travalgar

    Travalgar Active Member

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    I would ask you this first: Why were your two characters close friends in the first place?

    I'm not implying that you might be oblivious to this, but in real life, people maintain close friendly relationships over a lot of seemingly trivial things. For instance, growing up together, having the same hobby, coming from the same neighborhood, holding a similar fringe worldview otherwise too dangerous to talk about openly, and many, many more.

    You struggled with giving character B a reason/excuse to hang around character A and pretending to be his friend. I would ask you, why would character B pretend? Why wouldn't B be genuinely friends with A?
     
  3. peachalulu

    peachalulu Member Reviewer Contributor

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    Some people stick to each other out of habit. Or good deeds - they were obligated too and can't shake the chore. Sometimes they're afraid to be alone - they haven't got anyone else so sometimes a bad friend is better than no friend. Sometimes the disliked friend has the occasional good idea so the so-so friend is hanging around for that one great offbeat party he takes him to.

    You need something or character B is going to look more of a nit-wit than character A. Character A's being himself - good or bad -but what does character B get out of the pretense? It's only noble to love the unlovable if there's a hope for change.
     
  4. Chromewriter

    Chromewriter Contributor Contributor

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    You could make up multiple reasons. This type of relationship is more common than you know.

    1. Friend A is a duff or some variation of that. It makes friend B feel better.

    2. Friend B has a dual personality. One where they are their "true self" and the other where they are their "cool self". Or at least that's what they believe.

    3. Friend B owes Friend A but has no way to repay or break off their relationship, so feels constantly inferior but unable to go against Friend A. E.g. Friend A was the only friend when Friend B was ugly, but he grew up to be more attractive or clever.

    5. Friend A is a narcissist and has had Friend B wrapped around his finger forever (kinda breaks the tropes you layed out but I find this more interesting). Friend B joins the antisocial gang and finds comradarie that he couldn't get with Friend A.

    6. Friend B drifts away from Friend A who isn't paying attention. A few wild motorbike rides here, few drunken parties there, but naive witless Friend A never makes connection or cares enough to save Friend B.

    7. Friend A is a rich scapegoat, who friend B milks for money and pretends to be friends. Instead he goes partying with his "real" friends.

    8. Friend B uses friend A for homework skills. /\ cheap variation from above...

    9. Friend B can't let go off A even as he hates him. He is the buddy who came around his house when no one else would after all...

    10. Friend A smokes too much weed. Friend B cannot deal with anymore, anything is better than hanging around friend A smoking ganja and playing video games. Better to sell drugs than that!

    11. Friend A is mutal friends with friend C who friend B secretly likes. If he ditches friend A he would look like a shit to friend C.

    Ok tired now. Hope this gave some ideas for you. :)
     
    evild4ve likes this.
  5. evild4ve

    evild4ve Critique is stranger than fiction Supporter Contributor

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    As Chromewriter rightly says, some people just do this out of narcissistic abusiveness. That was the sense I got from the OP, but people like that usually (thankfully) can't form groups or co-operate, and you need Character B (the antagonist?) to be in a horrible group.

    Pushing a narcissist into a group situation might be interesting. The group needs to destroy A to achieve world domination, and they easily manipulate B at first but be keeps going off-piste because he wants A as his long-term victim.

    Narcissists can be quite unsatisfying characters both to read and to write though - since they (at least seem to) biologically lack things that make characters interesting to readers.

    What if B was well-intentioned? And it all turns out horribly wrong for A because B is just a bit needy, or inconsiderate, or obsessed with some minor aspect of the situation. B thinks the horrible group are nice people, because (I don't know) they take care over their dry-cleaning and appreciate Wagner. The conflicts that arise for A scare B, and B goes to great lengths behind the scenes to paper over or conceal the extent of problems - not just out of fear of losing A but because B doesn't want to be faced with them.

    If you have made space in the text for basically a narcissist and feel he's missing some motivations, I'd suggest the problem's going to be that they if they had normal/comprehensible/satisfying motives they wouldn't do the bizarrely destructive things they do. But re-writing the character in some other, off-the-wall way might get a big return for the story's interest value for a relatively small wordcount.
     
  6. Kalisto

    Kalisto Senior Member

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    In real life, people do things for a multitude of reasons, but the most plausible is "gain." What does character B gain? Does he gain social status? Does he gain mentorship that he feels he can use? Has he been able to use and manipulate Character B?
     
  7. Joe_Hall

    Joe_Hall I drink Scotch and I write things

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    Friend A and B grow up together and everyone almost considers them brothers. A girl they know grows up to be an absolute beauty and falls for friend A, while friend B has a massive crush and an even larger grudge friend A is unaware of....
     
  8. Chromewriter

    Chromewriter Contributor Contributor

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    I think gain isn't quite right. It makes all relationships usery. What attachments are holding the two together seems more right to me. Sometimes it's not gainful for either party in those cases, sometimes it's a bit of a contradiction, but a contradiction that works for them.
     

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