Character relationships

Connections, changing expectations and the consequences between people.

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• There are too many character relationships to hold in your head

  The network is hard to hold in memory, rather than one pair's current state being unclear.

• You're not sure where a relationship has reached

  The relationship's present state is uncertain; lack of development over an interval is a different concern.

• A relationship changes before it feels earned

  A particular transition lacks visible support, rather than a relationship staying unchanged for too long.

• A relationship stops moving for too long

  The development across several encounters is flat relative to intention; a slow relationship is not automatically a fault.

• Your characters see the same relationship differently

  The two sides hold different interpretations; do not flatten that into one supposedly correct state.

• One event has changed too many relationships to track easily

  A specific social turning point has network effects, rather than every kind of revision dependency being the issue.