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Showing posts from May 19, 2008

Why Are The Characters Friends?

Lately, I've been reading a lot of books where the main character and her best friend don't get along. This is confusing to me. Why is the main character friends with someone she dislikes, or is afraid of, or actually hates? I get that it happens--I've seen Mean Girls . I've read Queen Bees and Wannabes . Heck, I'm old enough to have been the prime audience for Heathers . But in order for this fractured best friend relationship to be convincing, it has to be set up. In both Heathers and Mean Girls , there's a reason why the protagonist is friends with a bunch of b*tches--she chose to be. She knows that they're jerks. In fact, she can feel herself becoming a jerk right along with them. It's part of the character arc, the point of the story, that being friends with these girls is not who she really is. But the relationships I've been seeing lately don't make that kind of sense. The protagonist doesn't have a reason to be friends with