Friendships

You know what we all need more of? Friendship. Having a great group of friends is one of the most precious experiences a person could have, and a rich ground of material for storytelling. I think books like Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling) and Percy Jackson (Rick Riordan) have made us all familiar with the classic “Core Trio” format of friendship, but there are a ton of ways to write friendship that can be just as interesting and unique beyond this. Here are a few examples of types of friendships Kristin and I would like to see more in stories. Warning: there are spoilers ahead.

Platonic Friendship

            Platonic friendship was one of the first things to come up when Kristin and I were discussing what we’d like to see more of. I feel like typically even if you have characters who start out as friends, they all end up coupled off and romantically involved at some point or another. This happens so much that I actually find it really refreshing when you see friends that just stay friends.

            One of the best examples I know of platonic friendship (If you’ve been reading along, you’re totally not going to be shocked by this) is Rick Riordan’s Magnus Chase series. Magnus and Sam get paired up with each other pretty quickly within the story, and I think there’s a tendency with readers to automatically go “Oh, this is obviously the main girl. She’s going to be the love interest.” I do this a lot myself. I mean, usually it’s pretty easy to identify the major players in a story, and you naturally start filtering them into roles by expectation. But what Magnus Chase does really well, I think, is it creates a situation where Sam and Magnus are never interested in each other romantically, despite being the main characters you’d naturally assume would be. Sam, as you find out, is already in love with someone and perfectly happy, and Magnus finds himself interested in a character that enters in the second book. The first book literally just has these two as friends and teammates and they evolve into a more sibling-like dynamic that I think feels more satisfying than if they’d been a couple.

            Without romantic tension between them, I think this gives both the opportunity to talk freely about topics that might be more contentious if they were a couple. One of the dynamics I really liked is that though Magnus and Sam hold different religious beliefs, they feel comfortable enough to talk about their thoughts and completely respect each other despite their differences.

            Weirdly enough, there have been some really good examples of platonic friendships in series I’ve read recently. Andrew Keenan-Bolger and Kate Wetherhead’s friendship-centric Middle Grade series, Jack & Louisa, doesn’t really get into romantic aspects until the final book as the characters are fairly young, but this pair of thespians are a great example of the highs and lows of being friends. Beyond the typical experiences of kids like school or extracurricular activities, Jack and Louisa are performers, so some of their story entails ambition and getting caught up in attention and maybe not always seeing the feelings of your friends because of that. Even though the characters are young, I really liked that Keenan-Bolger and Wetherhead didn’t stray away from tough topics that affected Jack and Louisa’s relationship- for instance, the development of their first crushes mostly focused on in the third book.

This gets a bit into a point Kristin made while we were discussing that I suspect she’ll touch on in a later blog, but as we mentioned previously, a lot of Middle Grade series tend to deal more with subjects like identity, family, and friendship, and she said it was kind of sad that you don’t see these topics as much in books aimed at older audiences. She made the excellent point that building and maintaining friendships as an adult is a considerably harder task and you have to really fight for them. You’d think since this is the case in real life, more books for adult audiences would center around friendship, but I don’t immediately know of an example.

            Moving up a level to YA, Kristin and I could think of two series we thought had good platonic relationships. Coincidentally, I also just reread Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, which presents this complicatedly fabulous relationship between Katniss and Finnick. (We’re all still crying over Finnick, right?)

            Now that I think about it, Finnick and Katniss is set up a little like the Magnus/Sam example I used above, so I wonder if that’s a typical aspect of this trope. Finnick and Katniss are never romantically interested in each other, beyond Katniss gawking at him because he’s pretty. Still, Finnick was in love with someone else long before he met Katniss, and Katniss…well, Katniss has no idea what her feelings are by the time Finnick enters in Catching Fire, but they’re certainly not directed at him beyond physical attraction. In fact, Finnick and Katniss actually start off as adversaries before allies as they’re pitted against each other in B2, and Katniss takes an extremely long time to trust him in the Arena even though Finnick claims to have been recruited as her ally, which she finally starts to do after he saves Peeta’s life. Still, through most of Catching Fire, Katniss is ready to take Finnick out without hesitation until she starts figuring out the games Haymitch is playing within the Games to ensure her safety.

            From enemies to allies to horribly broken people by the events of Mockingjay, Katniss and Finnick develop an extremely interesting understanding of each other that is sometimes hilarious, dangerous, and utterly human. Finnick and Katniss literally help keep each other sane and fighting as their lives crumble around them in District 13. They are willing to fight and die for each other as they seek revenge on the Capitol.

            Another series that presents an interesting platonic relationship is the Starbound trilogy by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner. In this series, each book kind of builds off the last by adding new characters on top of the ones from the previous leg of the story. For example, the first book, These Broken Stars, follows a shipwrecked Lilac and Tarver as they struggle for survival on a seemingly deserted planet. Meanwhile, B2 (This Shattered World, which is set about a year after B1) follows a second couple, Jubilee and Flynn, on a separate planet, which is transitioned by the fact that Jubilee and Tarver served together in the military and sets up a later cameo by Tarver himself. Though the two are clearly friends, Tarver and Jubilee’s relationship is rooted more in profession. In fact, Tarver refers to Jubilee in such a professional way that Lilac doesn’t even realize his former soldier “Lee” is a woman.

Female Friendships

            I’m going to segway while still talking about Starbound because this brings me to another form of friendship Kristin and I want to see more of. By the events of B3 (Their Fractured Light), it is highly implied that Lilac and Jubilee have become good friends in the time gap between B2 and B3, but this is something we both agreed we really wished there had been more of in B3. Don’t get me wrong, Kristin and I both really loved the Starbound trilogy, and I suspect the reason we didn’t get a lot of a Lilac/Jubilee friendship is because there literally was not time for it. Their Fractured Light covers a lot of ground story-wise and crap hits the fan real fast, so I understand that the two really did not have time to interact much within the events of B3, but I think they would have had an EPIC friendship that would have been really fun to see more of.

            Continuing more with female friendships, the reason it came up is because we were discussing how a lot of time, strong female characters tend to get pitted against each other or start out at odds within stories. Sometimes this gets turned around, but female relationships can sometimes be hostile.

            For example, in female friendships, my mind immediately jumps to Katara and Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Though both are on Team Avatar and agree on the major goal of defeating the Fire Nation, Katara and Toph had a bit of a rocky relationship at the start filled with teasing and different ways to go about helping Aang in his journey. Similar to the platonic friendship setup mentioned above, Katara and Toph are never romantic rivals for someone, but their differences stem a lot from personality and teaching style, maybe especially since Aang is moving from one teacher to another. Eventually, the two begin to see each other as they are and become life-long friends. While we’re on Avatar, Toph and Aang are another great example of a platonic friendship.

            Friendships between girls might be hard to write in some senses because girls tend to get outnumbered in a lot of stories. Think about your favorite main trios- almost always they’re two boys and one girl, right? If that’s the case too, are there usually other girls around to interact with that aren’t in some form of competition, either vying for some form of professional/popularity position or romantic relationship? I mean, take something huge like Harry Potter- beyond Hermione, I can only think of five or six other girls that are consistently around. That’s not meant to be a criticism, Harry is the protagonist and most of the time he’s around other guys, though Harry does have a very good platonic relationship with Hermione. Plus, I think when you’re talking Middle Grade/YA, there also might be a period where boys and girls don’t interact as much depending on their ages.

 Let’s talk Percy Jackson since that’s another big series with a two boys, one girl core trio. Annabeth is mostly around Percy and Grover in the original series, but let’s talk about her in context to three other female characters. Most notably, Annabeth and Thalia maintain a very sisterly relationship to each other throughout the Riordan timeline, to the point where Percy is even a little jealous of their friendship once Thalia is revived. Secondly, you have Clarisse who Annabeth tends to be at odds with a lot in the beginning of the original series, which is mostly centered around the fact that Clarisse is a bully for the first few books. Interestingly though, once you get a little bit better understanding of Clarisse, she and Annabeth seem to be on better terms by the end of the first series. I like that the two went from not really liking each other to becoming better allies, if not sort of friends. Lastly, I think Annabeth has one of the most interesting interactions with Reyna in Heroes of Olympus. The way the two are set up at their first meeting, there really shouldn’t be much reason to get along: their two camps are hostile toward each other, the world is at stake, and Annabeth’s boyfriend probably embarrassed Reyna by putting a stop to any romantic interest she might have had for him. Still, Reyna and Annabeth seem to have some fundamental understanding of each other and are willing to help each other even when they’re supposed to be enemies.

Just thinking about the stories I know, it seems like a lot of times the main female character in a trio may not tend to have a lot of interaction with other females in general, even if they’re not rivals of any sort. Maybe one of the downsides to having a core trio is that those three characters tend to get locked in to only interacting with each other. Plus, genre might play a role as well. A lot of the stories I really love are fantasy, sci-fi, and adventure, which tend to be really male dominated. Stories in these genres tend to be marketed toward men unless romance is a core factor. Even if women in these categories get really great roles in the story, they tend to be relegated to strict parts: love interest, smart girl that’s kind of ditsy, intimidating warrior woman, villain, or damsel in distress. Beyond that, leading women in certain types of stories typically aren’t given many other women to interact with.

For example, one of my favorite movie trilogies of all time is the 90’s Mummy movies. You have Rick (tough guy who’s going to protect everybody), Evy (smart girl who’s kind of ditsy in the first movie), and Jonathan (Evy’s brother who’s there for comedic relief). Typical core trio: two guys and a girl; a pair of siblings; and a pair that’s definitely romantically interested in each other. Now, what I really love about this is that though she’s kind of out of her element and a damsel in distress in the first movie, Evy has this kick-butt glow-up in the second movie where she’s just as tough as Rick without compromising any romance, femininity, or intelligence. She’s still the smart one, but she’s just as capable of taking care of herself as the other main characters. Evy’s one of my favorite adventure movie leading ladies because she’s never useless, and I love that she gets more capable with each movie.

The Platonic, Unrelated Trio

            Just to clarify, I know the examples above are not particularly inclusive. Having a platonic friendship doesn’t necessarily mean strictly male/female, even though that’s what I used example-wise for simplicity’s sake. In the same sense we want to see more female/female just besties relationships, it’s always just as nice to see the same with male characters. I actually thought Percy and Grover had a really heartfelt friendship in Riordan’s last book, The Chalice of the Gods. Harry and Ron always seem to have a fight with each other at least once every Harry Potter book, but at the end of the day, they always find a way to be cool with each other again. Take Ethan and Link in Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s Beautiful Creatures series- they might not have always agreed with what the other was doing, but they always stood by each other solely by loyalty.

            I think what it might come down to in some senses is just trying new things when it comes to storytelling. Obviously, there is a formula that works because we see it in everything. Almost always we have two guys and a girl- one guy will end up romantically involved with said girl, while the other one is probably her brother or a close friend she’s not interested in for whatever reason.

            Just off the top of our heads, Kristin and I couldn’t think of a book series that didn’t follow that formula. Why not two girls and a guy? Why not a core trio that aren’t romantically involved or related at all? I mean, I feel like there’s some stories where you might just have a group of friends as the main characters just because they’re friends, but I’m having a hard time thinking of a specific example.

            Anyway, this was kind of just an interesting rabbit hole Kristin and I found ourselves discussing this week. Granted, our manuscript, The Visionary, doesn’t stray too far off from the typical writing tropes we’ve gone through in this blog, but after talking about what we’d like to see more of in fiction, we’re at least aware of ways we can maybe write differently and add in different kinds of friendships in the future.

            Let us know some other good examples of different kinds of friendships you’d like to see in writing or examples of characters in stories you love!

            Thanks for reading. Write on.

            -Kamryn