: Re: How can I get 2 characters to bond while standing alternate watches? Setting is standard space opera. I am writing a story in which 2 characters are crewing a spaceship. The characters are:

@Mendez196

Your schedule doesn't make sense IRL. People WILL find ways to interact and keep each other company; we are social animals. They will talk, even if their conversations are by radio. They will share entertainment. They will do their work in each other's presence, on the bridge. People like company; even if one doesn't, the other one does.

IRL, people often sleep together after three or four dates. How much communication time does that constitute? Maybe four hours per date, maybe another hour or two of talk (or text). So maybe 24 waking hours, before they feel they know the other person enough to get naked with them. Admittedly, that is all overtly romantic time, so the schedule is compressed somewhat, and would have been cut short if attraction is not present.

Nevertheless, presuming each of your characters sleeps eight hours while the other is awake, they still share eight hours a day when both are awake, and they will develop some social interaction. Both seeking human company and bonding is likely in this circumstance, and 15 days (probably 60 to 90 hours together) is more than enough time to do that.

Relax your schedule and duties, you can automate more of the ship. Somebody can be on the bridge without actually needing hands on steering wheel or a foot on the gas; they can in fact be doing other things on the bridge. Including having a conversation about life, the universe and everything through their communicators.

If you have one knowledgeable character (the crewman) and one cloistered character (the woman), make her interested in his adventures and misadventures. That's plausible. Make him funny, at least to her. Find a way to make them both interested in each other as people. Give them something in common to bond over; similar tastes in music, or a game, or a hobby. Give them reasons to talk and play together (not necessarily sexually, but innocently -- They both like the same card game, or they are evenly matched in chess, or whatever). Make it fair, he has reasons to be impressed with her and interested in her (that don't involve her looks or figure), and vice versa.

Successful couples usually have some common interest that brought them together, AND each will be good at something that the other is not; so they are complementary (that is not "complimentary"), they have more expertise as a team than being apart. Both are important if you are creating a bond; they like being together, and they get through life better together.

If you have skills that I lack, and I have skills that you lack, together our skill set is more comprehensive and effective, so we are more competent together.

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