Everyone's Too Nice

Yet another in the long line of problems that are likely to crop up in my writing is that Everyone Is Too Damn Nice. Characters who are friends never get in arguments, or if they do, it's a minor quibble that lasts three lines and then they're best buds again.

In real life, good friends don't get in fierce arguments a lot, but in a story, they've got to. Their friendship needs to be tested just as much as they individually need to be tested by the trials thrown at them by the story. I had a chapter that features something astonishing happen, and at the end, the main character said, "Well, that was exciting. I'm going to bed now."

Yeah. Dumb. Now, she and her best friend get in a huge argument and it doesn't end with them reconciling; the chapter ends with them being pissed off at each other. (Doesn't help that one of them is the servant of the other.) Tension! Drama! Character development! It was a missed opportunity, and thanks to some excellent feedback, it was identified and made better. I'm just hoping that some day I get to the point where I can always identify weak spots like that myself, instead of being so close to the material that I assume that because I wrote it that way once, it always has to be that way.