• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About
    • About WHW
    • Press Kit
    • Resident Writing Coaches
    • Contact Us
    • Podcasts & Interviews
    • Master Storytelling Newsletter
    • Guest Post Guidelines
    • Privacy Policy
    • Charities & Support
  • Bookstore
    • Bookstore
    • Foreign Editions
    • Book Reviews
    • Free Thesaurus Sampler
  • Blog
  • Software
  • Workshops
  • Resources
    • List of Resources
    • Recommended Writing Books
    • WHW Descriptive Thesaurus Collection
    • Free Tools & Worksheets
    • Free Show-Dont-Tell Pro Pack
  • WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®
WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®

WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®

Helping writers become bestselling authors

Relationship Thesaurus Entry: Neighbors

Published: November 14, 2020 by ANGELA ACKERMAN

Successful stories are driven by authentic and interesting characters, so it’s important to craft them carefully. But characters don’t usually exist in a vacuum; throughout the course of your story, they’ll live, work, play, and fight with other cast members. Some of those relationships are positive and supportive, pushing the protagonist to positive growth and helping them achieve their goals. Other relationships do exactly the opposite, derailing your character’s confidence and self-worth or they cause friction and conflict that leads to fallout and disruption. Many relationships hover somewhere in the middle. A balanced story will require a mix of these dynamics.

The purpose of this thesaurus is to encourage you to explore the kinds of relationships that might be good for your story and figure out what each might look like. Think about what a character needs (good and bad), and build a network of connections for him or her that will challenge them, showcase their innermost qualities, and bind readers to their relationship trials and triumphs.

The following is just a sample of the content available for this relationship. To see it in its entirety (along with 45+ additional relationship entries), check out our Description Thesaurus Collection at One Stop For Writers.

Neighbors

Description: Neighbors, by definition, live close to each other. For the protagonist, this could be the person living in the house across the street from them, on the farm that borders their property, or on the other side of an apartment wall. In today’s world, people are often busy and may see their neighbors less than usual, but the opportunities for both support and strife make it a relationship worth exploring.

Relationship Dynamics:
Each relationship is different, depending on the people involved, their history together, their individual personalities, and a host of factors. Below are a wide range of dynamics that can accompany this relationship. Use the ideas that suit your story and work best for your characters to bring about and/or resolve the necessary conflict.

Respecting physical and emotional boundaries
Looking out for each other
Being considerate when it comes to noise, parking, etc.
Making certain decisions with the community (instead of only themselves) in mind
Acting thoughtlessly—i.e., throwing loud parties that run into the wee hours

Clashing Personality Trait Combinations:
Timid and confrontational, cooperative and uncooperative, courteous and disrespectful, curious and evasive, meticulous and sloppy, private and nosy, responsible and selfish

Negative Outcomes of Friction
Small, unresolved conflicts leading to larger ones
Purposely doing things the other will find annoying
The relationship becoming distant and superficial

Ways This Relationship May Lead to Positive Change
A helpful neighbor (i.e., one who occasionally watches the character’s son for free) can encourage the character to get outside of himself and serve others
A social-minded neighbor who’s always organizing this or that charity drive can help an isolated character find a much-needed community

Themes and Symbols That Can Be Explored through This Relationship
A Fall from Grace, Alienation, Beginnings, Betrayal, Borders, Coming of Age, Crossroads, Danger, Endings, Friendship, Hope, Instability, Isolation, Loss, Love, Obstacles, Rebellion, Sacrifice, Stagnation, Teamwork, Unity

Other Relationship Thesaurus entries can be found here.

Need More Descriptive Help?

The content you’ve just read is a sample of one entry found in our Relationship Thesaurus at One Stop for Writers. To access the complete entry and the other collections in this powerful show-don’t-tell Thesaurus Database (18 unique thesauri and growing!), give our free trial a spin.

ANGELA ACKERMAN
ANGELA ACKERMAN

Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Primary Sidebar


Welcome!

Writing is hard. Angela & Becca make it easier. Get ready to level up your fiction with game-changing tools, resources, and advice.

Subscribe to the Blog

Check your inbox to confirm! If gremlins tried to eat it, you might have to check your spam folder.

Find it Fast

Read by Category

Grab Our Button

Writers Helping Writers

Software that Will Change the Writing Game

One Stop for Writers

Join our Writers Helping Writers Newsletter

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of this content to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The legal copyright holder, Writers Helping Writers®, reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models. WRITERS HELPING WRITERS® · Copyright © 2025 · WEBSITE DESIGN BY LAUGH EAT LEARN

 

Loading Comments...