How to Write Non-Romantic Partners

Romance authors have learned in great detail how to craft romantic partners for their lead characters. But sometimes, a story calls for a different type of relationship. I’m talking about the best-friend, the sidekick, the buddy. How are those characters written in a way that portrays genuine closeness? In this blog, we’re going to explore how to write non-romantic partners.

What makes audiences believe that Xena and Gabrielle are more than just friends while Hercules and Iolaus are merely buddies? A couple of reasons: First, they wanted to. Second, the writers and producers of Xena recognized that demand and started to sprinkle in subtext for the characters that eluded to Xena and Gabrielle being more than just friends. While Hercules and Iolaus remained more like brothers.

Sometimes, it’s a fine line between characters loving each other like family or falling in love. But to realistically portray either they’re approached in a similar fashion by building the layers of their relationship. Just like in life, when you meet a new person you’re not immediately best friends. It takes time to build that level of trust. The same goes for writing characters in a novel.

A visual representation of this is the TV series 2 Broke Girls. Max and Caroline start out as roommates, become business partners, and evolve into a sisterhood. Their bond happens gradually over the length of the series backed by specific events that show them growing closer. Do you need to take that long to build the bond between characters in your book? Not unless you want to. That’s the beauty of storytelling. A shared experience, such as some type of past trauma, can start the friendship off fast. Then, over time, it will grow stronger or fall apart – whatever your story calls for.

A great place to look for inspiration is the buddy cop movies prevalent in the 1980s. Lethal Weapon does a great job of this as they pair two opposite types of characters together who, on paper, don’t share any commonalities but through heightened circumstances, they quickly become close as blood.

You can also start your stories with an inferred history such as JRR Tolkien did in Lord of the Rings. Samwise and Frodo start off with an implied rich history that grows deeper as they set off for Mordor together. One of the best instances I’ve seen of an implied deep history was in the series Castle.

Through dialogue alone the show succeeded in implying a rich history between the characters of Beckett and Esposito. Simply through the conversations they have, you get a sense that they’ve been through some shit together during their time on the police force. The way Beckett calls him Espo or Javi implies a close friendship. The way Esposito can speak openly about things with Beckett that border on crossing the line shows a level of trust.

The secret to writing non-romantic partners is developing a bond throughout the story the same as deepening friendships in real life. Shared interests, relatable backstories, vulnerability, and camaraderie.