Your characters’ relationships to one another should be evident in dialogue and action.  You should show what they mean to one another in how they are with one another.  You don’t necessarily need to call it out and say ‘he’s my boyfriend’ but even if you do, it should be evident in how they relate to one another.  Two strangers interact differently than a married couple.  An unhappily married couple behaves differently than newlyweds.  An unhappily married couple pretending to be happy acts differently than a happily married one.

When your characters are underdeveloped, it shows not only in who they are, but in how they interact with others.  You have to make their relationships believable.  In a show like Entourage, we don’t need to hear these four guys recount endless stories of their youth to know they’re solid childhood friends.  It comes out naturally in how they treat each other – like siblings.  Their stories come out in relation to what’s happening at that time, not at random simply to explain their friendship.

No matter what kind of relationship two characters have with one another, there’s a clear status, where one character is at a higher status than the other and it’s not necessarily down to the role they play.

A boss could act like a junior employee and his subordinate could actually be in charge, but the roles they play must be evident at some point.  They’ll likely have a few moments where they play the traditional roles or at least try to.   Status comes from a variety of sources: confidence, hierarchy, economic status, education, ego, social status, attractiveness, etc.  Every relationship is different.  Someone may be of a higher status in one relationship and a lower status in another.

Grease is all about peer pressure, which affects status.  Sandy is trying to fit in, but at the same time she wants to win back her man.  He too wants to stay in the T-birds, but he wants Sandy to like him.  They’re both torn between who they are, who others want them to be and who they think the object of their affection wants them to be.  In the beginning we see who they both really are when no one else is around and they don’t completely let go of it throughout the rest of the film.  Their internal conflict is evident when no one is looking.  Whenever Danny is away from the T-birds, he’s serious and his ‘coolness’ fades.

The scene in Grease where Sandy and Danny are quietly fighting in the diner, Danny wriggles his fingers at Sandy’s date, Tom, and while she lowers his hand embarrassed, she giggles.  In that simple moment, their relationships are clear: Sandy is on a date with this guy she doesn’t really care about, Danny is jealous, but thinks himself superior to this guy and Sandy agrees so she eventually ditches Tom for Danny with whom she clearly has a past.

There are subtleties to relationships that go beyond status such as how long the two people have known one another, what kind of relationship they have with one another.  If you look at It’s A Wonderful Life, Mr. Gower and George Bailey in the pharmacy, their relationship is like grandfather and grandson.  When George tries to stop Mr. Gower from poisoning a client, George is still conflicted in telling Mr. Gower about his mistake because he is the boss.  But when George does tell him, Gower smacks George’s ear, which is something a father would do, and when Gower is so devastated by what he did, he hugs the boy and George is sympathetic because he knows Gower just lost his son.  This is definitely more than a simple boss-employee relationship.

The above scene not only says a lot about the relationship but the characters themselves in how they relate to one another.  George Bailey is someone who truly cares about people and often at his own expense.  In Grease, Danny is obviously trying to be cool for Sandy by mocking Tom and Sandy wants Danny to think she’s cool by going along with it even though she’s not really like that.

Relationships with other people may change a character’s behaviour, but not who they are.

People are complicated, but there is always something at their core that drives them, which stays constant throughout your script to avoid having an inconsistent character.  A character’s behaviour may change when they’re with other people such as when they’re trying to impress others or they’re playing a role, but it should be clear that it’s not really who they are.  To do this effectively, you have to establish who they are first and how they behave when they’re with the person who affects them and why.

Consider who your characters are to one another, what they mean to one another, how long they’ve known each other, and who they are as individuals.  There must be a reason for how they interact with one another in that particular moment.  Don’t spell it out for the audience, but rather, show it in how they act and talk.

But what do you do when you have a bunch of strangers to introduce?  Read tomorrow’s post.