On Character Chemistry

For reasons that are not clear to me, I randomly got annoyed again at that episode of Extra Credits titled something like “Why are there so few sci-fi games?” because there are oodles and oodles of science-fiction games, especially in the mainstream (Halo, Mass Effect, Wolfenstein, Metroid, Metal Gear Solid, Gears of War, Dead Space, Fallout, Assassin’s Creed, and Portal to name a few) but the Extra Credits writers kind of brush those away with “Well, they’re not real sci-fi so they don’t count.” And that’s… really silly. 

Anyhow let’s talk about writing romance in your stories.

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On Character Chemistry

Something that I think can be obvious for people who have tried writing romantic arcs in fiction but maybe no one else seems to get: writing romance is hard, man.

I recently read the first couple of books in the Newbury and Hobbes series, which is a group of books set in an alternate steampunk Victorian London. Our two title characters are Maurice Newbury and Veronica Hobbes; the former is an agent of the Queen of England who investigates special cases and the latter is his assistant. There’s also a copious amount of shiptease between them, which is kind of a shame because they don’t actually have any chemistry.

It’s hard to define what is or isn’t chemistry. But to put simply, it’s a bit like this: how believable it is that these two people are genuinely attracted to each other. Stereotypically, a lot of action movies don’t really care about this: you have two leads of opposite genders, and at the end they get together because that’s how these things go. But I’d like to think it’s been dialed back a bit in recent years, with more movie makers being aware that they’ve got to sell the idea that these two characters want to make out and more critics being critical of when they can’t buy it.

And I think if we’re being fair, not all works of fiction really need that much chemistry between the two leads. Yeah, it’s preferable if you’re going to have a romantic arc that it’s clear these two characters like each other, but there’s a lot of fiction in which romance isn’t the point, so I kind of get that for many writers it takes the bench while the main part of the story takes center stage.

Let’s take Terry Pratchett for instance. Sir Terry Pratchett was not a romance author; he did satirical fantasy novels (and also a lot of other stuff, but we’re focusing on Discworld right now). There are romantic relationships in his books, but they’re not the main focus of most of them, and many of them aren’t particularly that deep or well-developed. Thief of Time ends with the implication that Lobsang and Susan get together despite that relationship kind of not really being that strong. Three of the Tiffany Aching books tease a relationship between Tiffany and Roland only to drop it abruptly in I Shall Wear Midnight to be replaced by Preston.

And this doesn’t mean Pratchett’s a bad author, because he’s not. I’d dare say that he’s probably the cleverest writer of the English language in the last few decades. But he’s not really that good at writing romance, which is good because he never wanted to be. My point is this: don’t feel too bad if you don’t nail this, especially if that’s not your intent or purpose.

What makes this different than Newbury and Hobbes though, is that the entire steampunk series is built around and named after these two characters, and their relationship. So the little bits of ship tease strike me as very odd, because if it weren’t for these hamfisted moments I’d never really get the idea that these two chuckleheads like each other as anything other than close colleagues. There are moments when people talking to Hobbes say things like “Oh Sir Newbury? He’s handsome, isn’t he?” and she blushes and is all like, “It’s not like that.” And when Hobbes gets captured and the villain rubs it in Newbury’s face, he goes ballistic and is all like “UNHAND HER YOU FIEND!” and when he saves her she’s barely conscious and he’s holding her close and is all like “I can’t bare to lose you!” 

And I just… don’t get it? What do you guys like about each other? They don’t have common interests outside of their jobs: Newbury’s super into the occult and he’s an opium addict, neither of which Hobbes has been seen to be supportive of. Hobbes’s own personal life subplot is more concerned about her sister in an asylum. They don’t really hang out that much in their off time. So why? Why do these two supposedly falling in love?

[shrugs] I dunno. But they are, I guess. And so at the end of the second book, when Newbury finds out something and he’s like, “GASP! Maybe she doesn’t love me!” (and some other stuff) I don’t really care. 

You cannot just point to the characters and say “These two are falling in love.” Writers need to do more than that. There needs to be a reason to think that these two people are bonding, that they like spending time together and enjoy talking to each other about things other than work. This is one of the reasons, I think, back when Twilight was big, that “Team Jacob” got so much traction with the fandom: Bella and Jacob actually seem to like hanging out together! Whereas with Edward they just kind of moped and talked about how much they were in love, and that’s a lot of telling instead of showing.

...I know too much about Twilight.

This is the distinction, I think: If the point of your story isn’t the relationship, or if it isn’t a huge focus of the story, then fine! It’s preferable that your characters have chemistry and good buildup to their relationship. But it’s not absolutely essential, because that’s not what the story is about. But if you’re banking your story on two characters’ relationship with each other, and go so far as to name the series after them because of it, weeeeeeell… you kind of need that chemistry.

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