How to Make a Character Relationship Chart for Your Novel (Template and Tools)

A character relationship chart shows your characters as points and the relationships between them as lines, so one page shows who is tied to whom and how. In a novel with a growing cast, it's what you check before a scene to remember where two characters stand with each other right now.

A relationship chart builds up while you write, as new characters arrive and relationships shift, so it's rarely finished in one sitting. This guide covers the order for drawing it the first time and how to record relationships that change. The example is They Say I'm a Dark Mage, but All I'm Good At Is Digging Dirt, the web novel from TypeTak's Write a Web Novel, Step by Step course.

At a glance

1. Write the relationship's name on each line. A bare line doesn't tell you what the two are to each other
2. Use a single arrow when only one side holds the relationship, and write both names when each side calls it something different
3. When a relationship changes, keep the old one and note when the change started
4. Relationship chart tools split into ones made for drawing a good-looking chart and ones made for building up your lore

Three things every relationship chart needs

Each tool has its own way of making a chart look good, but the information you need for writing a novel comes down to the same three things.

How to make a character relationship chart, step by step

1. Put the central character in the middle. Usually that's your lead. If the story follows two characters, place them side by side.
2. Place the characters directly tied to the lead around them. If you've filled in the relationships field from Character Profile Template for Writers, start with the names you wrote there.
3. Write a relationship name on every line. Keep it short but useful in a scene: “friend who knows his secret” tells you more than “friend.”
4. Mark direction. Use an arrow for a relationship that holds from one side only. There's more on this below.
5. Group characters. Draw a border around a school, a faction, or a family, and the overall shape stays readable as the cast grows.
6. Look at the lines between side characters. If every line runs through the lead, your supporting cast may have no story of their own. A character with no lines at all is often one whose job in the story hasn't been decided yet.

You don't need everyone on the chart from the start. Begin with the lead and about five major characters, and add new ones as they show up in the manuscript.

Direction: one-way relationships and relationships with a different name on each side

Two kinds of relationship don't fit on a plain line.

Relationships that hold from one side only. Unrequited love, a secret only one character knows, a fear only one of them feels: the other person doesn't know, or doesn't feel the same. Draw these as a single arrow. In They Say I'm a Dark Mage, but All I'm Good At Is Digging Dirt, the noble applicant Lucian Carven believes Clay Rowen is a real dark mage and is afraid of him. Clay feels nothing of the kind, so “afraid of” is one arrow from Lucian to Clay.

Relationships with a different name on each side. Older and younger brother, professor and student: both sides hold the relationship, but its name depends on whose side you're on. Write each name at its own end of the line. To Seraphine Mordell, Clay is a “student.” To Clay, Seraphine is his “dark magic professor.”

Once you keep these two apart, the lines tell you what your point-of-view character knows and doesn't know when you sit down to write a scene.

When a relationship changes: copy the chart, or give the relationship a period

Over a long story, enemies become allies and friends betray each other. There are two main ways to record that a relationship changed.

You can combine the two. Give every relationship its period, and save a copy of the chart each time a major stage of the story ends.

Here's what it looks like with periods on Clay's relationships. The story moves through three arcs: Early misunderstanding and admission, Settling in and rising status, and Traces of real dark magic.

The cells that say “Same” carry information too: Mia's attitude holds steady while the other relationships shift.

Relationship chart template you can copy (no tool needed)

You don't need a drawing tool to start a relationship chart. A table works, with one row per line. When you later turn it into a drawing or move it into a lore tool, the table is your source material.

Character A | Relationship | Direction | Character B | From chapter | Until chapter
 |  |  |  |  | 
 |  |  |  |  | 
 |  |  |  |  | 

[How to mark direction]
→ : holds from A's side only (unrequited love, a secret only one knows)
↔ : holds both ways, same name (friends, rivals)
⇄ : holds both ways, different names. Write both in Relationship, like “older brother / younger brother”

Leave “Until chapter” blank for a relationship that's still going. When a relationship changes, don't edit the row. Fill in “Until chapter” on the old row and add a new one below it.

Choosing a relationship chart maker

Search for “relationship chart maker” and you'll find several kinds of tools, each good at something different. Decide what you'll use the chart for first, and the choice gets easier. (Based on each tool's own page as of October 15, 2026.)

Storyflow lays out a relationship board from a description of your cast and labels each connector (ally, rival, mentor, secret, debt). It's paid only during early access, with plans from $9.99 a month.

If you plan to share the chart, there's one more thing to sort out. Leave twist relationships (a hidden mastermind, a character in disguise) off the public chart, and keep them on a separate working chart.

Drafting a relationship chart with AI

More tools now let you paste in a synopsis or lore notes and have an AI read the characters and relationships and draft a chart. It's faster than starting from a blank canvas, but treat what comes out as a draft.

• It works best on descriptive text. Text that states relationships in sentences, like “A is B's childhood friend,” reads well. Some tools say themselves that accuracy drops on dialogue-only text or text full of pronouns.
• The relationship names need work. Swap broad labels the AI picks, like “friend” or “colleague,” for words you can use in a scene.
• Decide where the result lives. If it only exists as a drawing, you'll have to generate it again every time the manuscript changes. If you keep it in your lore as relationship values, the next chapter only needs the parts that changed.

Making a relationship chart in TypeTak

TypeTak is an AI writing editor where you write alongside an agent. Your lore lives in your World, your own lore dictionary that doubles as a graph. The relationship chart is drawn from your lore, so there's nothing separate to draw.

• A relationship you write down becomes a line. Put another character in a relation property such as “Rival,” and that name shows up in the table on the character's page, while the graph draws a line between the two labeled with the relationship's name.
• Paired relationships go in on one side. For pairs like professor and student, pick the matching property under Reverse sync in the relation property, and a value you write on one side fills in the other side too.
• Changed relationships keep their periods. Relationship values can take a start and end too, set with a manuscript page or a board card. You don't have to delete the relationship from earlier chapters.
• Relationships from your manuscript go into the World. Press Organize World, and the agent organizes the relationships you settled in your manuscript or in chat into your World.

Before it drafts or answers, the agent finds and reads the lore it needs in your World. Ask “How would Lucian treat Clay in this scene?” and it answers from the relationships in your World. Why the character page has a relationship graph is in the devlog post What Does a Story Bible You Actually Want to Open Look Like?.

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