Character Relationships

Knowing how your characters know one another is an important aspect of the writing process. Sometimes one character knows a secret about another character. Or they have a secret crush. There are all kinds of little behind the scenes tidbits to know about our characters. As I have been working on preparing for a rewrite of a rough draft I realized there were specific relationship tidbits I needed to keep track of.

Enter my Character Relationship Grid: 

	Character A	Character B	Character C	Character D
Character A
Character B			X
Character C		X
Character D

I go row by row. In the first row I write what Character A knows/feels about each of the other characters listed in separate columns above. Then I move on to Character B and so on. If a character doesn't know another character I simply put a big X in the box and move on. That happens occasionally.

The process has been eye opening. I have learned new things about some of my characters and have in turn begun to see layers within the story that I had previously not noticed.

How do you keep track of the information your characters know about one another?