If you’re relatively up to date with the YA fantasy novel/TV show world, you’re probably familiar with the hit series Shadow and Bone. If you’re not, then hopefully you’ll stick around anyway for my tips on crafting compelling relationships in fiction!
Leigh Bardugo’s smashing success story
For those who might not know, Shadow and Bone is the first book of the trilogy with the same name, and it sets in motion the adjacent books within Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse mythology. The books have become wildly popular, with Bardugo recently landing a jaw-dropping eight-figure deal with Macmillan to write whatever she feels like for the next twelve books. The first two seasons of Shadow and Bone on Netflix have been huge hits, interweaving the Shadow and Bone books with storylines from Bardugo’s other Grishaverse books.
There’s some good stuff in the Grishaverse books, particularly the worldbuilding and magic system. I read the trilogy over the course of a week, and while I can’t say it was excellent literature, it was fun.
However, both the books and the TV show have a withering fatal flaw—the relationship between Alina, the main character, and Mal, the childhood best friend she’s always been in love with.
What’s wrong with the relationship?
At no point in the story did I find Alina’s relationship with Mal compelling, but as I reflected over time (and recently, when I watched the second season of the show and was bored stiff whenever they were onscreen together), I realized what was so lacking between them.
Mal is not a real person.
No, I don’t mean in a cool storytelling way, where actually he’s a ghost or a robot or a demon. Mal is not a real person because there is nothing about him that extends beyond his relationship with Alina. He exists only to love Alina and cause her heartache. He follows and protects her (whether she wants it or not), and he is jealous and possessive of her to an infuriating degree.
Even in the end, when Mal’s destiny is revealed, he still never has a reason to exist beyond being there for Alina. And this makes him boring.
Because Mal is not a fully realized person beyond his relationship with the protagonist, the couple also has dreadful chemistry. Alina has better chemistry with every other character in the story than she does with Mal. She has great chemistry with the Darkling, the main villain of the story. She has fabulous chemistry with Nikolai, the very well developed bastard prince who has to choose between a carefree life privateering in his airship or stepping up to do what’s best for the country. The pair has such good chemistry that I hoped against hope that Bardugo would let Mal perish heroically and have Alina wind up with Nikolai. But no. Alina has to be with Mal, for Plot Reasons.
The TV show diverges from the ending of the trilogy by separating Mal and Alina at the end of season two, which I would be in favour of if it wasn’t just clearly setting them up for drama and heartache across however many seasons Netflix can eek out.
Personally, I’m probably done. Mal and Alina for years to come is more than I can sit through.
What makes a compelling relationship?
Mal and Alina failed to convince me that their love was one worth rooting for. It’s probably not a good sign if the reader spends the story hoping that the main character will wind up with someone else.
So how do we avoid this in our own writing? How do we ensure that our characters and relationships are exciting and compelling and leave the readers wanting more?
My first guideline is a pretty simple one:
Your characters must continue to exist outside of the relationship.
If the only reason a character exists in the world is to be in a relationship with the other person, they are not a fully realized character. It will be hard for the reader to feel invested in their story, because they only exist as an extension of the other person.
When our characters only exist for the person they love, we wind up with codependent relationships, which is not what we want (unless it’s what you’re going for, but if you’re writing romance or YA fantasy, my guess is that it’s not).
What makes Nikolai so much more interesting than Mal in Shadow and Bone is that even though he has feelings for Alina, he exists as a full person outside of her. Their relationship (romantic or not) helps him become a better version of himself, but there is more to him than the hope that Alina will choose him. This allows them to have interesting arguments, fun banter, and an exciting story arc as we wonder how their relationship will evolve.
This leads me to my next guideline:
The relationship should help your characters grow as people.
Whether you’re writing romance, fantasy, or something else entirely, a compelling relationship is one that helps your characters grow and change.
(This, like my first guideline, is also true of real life. Relationships should help us grow; if they don’t, we stagnate, a morose prospect if you’re envisioning spending the next five or ten or fifty years with someone.)
Ask yourself: Why is this relationship necessary for my character’s evolution? Whether the relationship is platonic or romantic, how does it change my character and develop their arc? What would my character’s arc look like if this relationship weren’t there?
Compelling relationships don’t have to be positive. Circling back to our Shadow and Bone example, Alina’s relationship with the Darkling is damaging and toxic, but it absolutely changes her as a person. (It changes him, too.) Her relationship with Nikolai helps both characters to step into leadership roles.
Her relationship with Mal only ever holds her back, and it does nothing at any point to help him evolve.
In Shadow and Bone, Alina could have had basically the exact same character arc if Mal had been removed from the story. She would have discovered she was Grisha, had a problematic but propelling relationship with the Darkling, met Nikolai and had a much more compelling relationship with a deserving partner, and found a way to save Ravka in the end on her own merit as a hero. (Sure, the plot would have to be adjusted a bit, but for the most part, it’s the same story.)
Writing compelling relationships can be hard.
If the two guidelines above seem in opposition to you, you’re not entirely wrong. A compelling relationship requires the protagonists to simultaneously exist as complete people outside the relationship and to grow and change as a result of their time together. The relationship must feel essential to the story, but it can’t be the only thing the characters live for.
Finding the balance between a relationship that is indispensable to the story and a relationship where the characters feel complete outside of each other can be tricky.
If you feel like your characters fall flat or their relationship isn’t challenging them to grow and change, Rookwood Editing is here to help. Get in touch today to make your characters’ relationships the best they can be.