Field Guide to Common Wattpad Characters

The Heroine's BFF

Loyal to the heroine, this versatile, female BFF often finds herself forgotten when the Heroine's love interest rolls into town.

Mortal Enemy: The Slutty Girl (to a lesser extent than the Heroine; she usually dislikes her because of how mean SG is to the Heroine)

Relationship status: Single or in a secure relationship; it's rare to find her in a bad relationship!

Interesting note: The BFF tends to play an important role in the beginning of stories, but as the story progresses, especially in love stories, she can disappear entirely. One minute she's arm-in-arm with the Heroine, and the next she's chopped liver.

Habitat: Wherever the heroine is. Unlike some characters, she does appear to have a life and often disappears for stretches to her own home or practices.

Rarely seen:  At the end of stories as anything other than a one-sentence mention.

Physical Attributes:

Either not nearly as attractive as the Heroine, or a lot more attractive (which the Heroine will gladly detail). She tends not to be "average."

The BFF has a lot more freedom than the Heroine in terms of a physical description. Writers do tend to forget about personalizing her however, and with her habit of disappearing halfway into the story, her appearance tends to be generic and forgettable. It's usually only mentioned once. Something like:

My best friend Emily has long brown hair and hazel eyes. She's very tall with curvy hips and the guys always flock to her. I'm usually just the speed bump on the road to get into her pants.

If her physical traits are mentioned beyond that, it's usually in a generic manner:

Lily looked fantastic in her satin ballgown with her hair piled into curls on the top of her head.

Default expression: Smiling, amused by something funny the Heroine said

Personality Traits:

Voice of reason; The female BFF tends to be the one to recognize a situation for what it is. She's usually the one who says things like "Come on, let's go." and "He's just being a jerk because he likes you."

Honest; she doesn't hold back her opinions when she's with the Heroine

Negative Nancy; in a love story, the BFF usually reminds the Heroine about everything that has gone wrong in the past, and everything that could go wrong in the future. She loves the Heroine and doesn't want to see her hurt.

Mother hen. Always looking out for her BFF.

She doesn't typically like or trust the Heroine's love interest when they first meet, if not outright discouraging the relationship.

Again, she has more wiggle room than most characters, but is under-utilized!

Weaknesses:

Relevance to the plot; when the Hero or other main characters come along, she tends to be boxed up and left until our Heroine needs a maid of honor, or the city is saved or whatever.

Tends to be competent, but less skilled than the heroine. When it really counts, the Heroine wins.

Never understands the Heroine's true love until the end of the story. At which point, she loses her reservations and everything's good.

Common background info:

When not with the heroine, she's immediately busy with life. Especially if "more important" characters come into play. Unfortunately, we rarely find out what she's busy with. She's just gone, girl.

Usually a happy, if nonexistent, family.

Since we are not following the BFF, her background doesn't usually matter, but a little development is nicer than just (Well, she has a life and she's not important here), which is exactly how she disappears later on.