You know what the difference is between good writing and bad writing?
Good writing is realistic. It all comes down to that. No matter how fantastic your world or plot, your characters must react to them realistically.
Let's take a particularly wide-spread and egregrious abuse of character interaction and development as an example: true love at first sight.
Now, I'm not going to argue that love at first sight doesn't exist, or anything like that - that's one argument I refuse to take sides on - but no matter how powerfully attractive you might find a person, you will not be married within a week of meeting them.
This is what really happens:
You look across the room, and your eye is suddenly caught by someone's face. Maybe a hand gesture or the way they laugh grabs you, and your gaze stays there. Suddenly, you can't move. You feel like you've been brained by a two-by-four, and you know you're wearing an expression dumber than that of a stoned hamster. So, after you've regained the power of locomotion and your brain is functioning more or less normally, what do you do?
No, you do not walk over to the object of your fascination and say, "You're the most beautiful creature in this room and I think I love you. Will you go out with me?"
No, instead you totter over and say, "Nice jacket," or, "So what do you think of the music here?" or, "How 'bout them Yankees?" or some similar inanity. Then you embark on a conversation, and perhaps, if you're lucky, by the end of the evening, exchange phone numbers or email addresses.
Why do things proceed in this mundane, bumbling manner rather than in the dramatic, romantic fashion guaranteed by an immediate declaration of love?
There are several very good reasons for this.
First of all, declaring your love to someone you've never seen before in your life will make them think you're some sort of sick freak. Or, if they're especially benevolent, that you just have really bad pick-up lines. Most people are intelligent enough to realize that this is not the impression one wants to give a potential love interest.
Secondly, no matter how wonderful they look, you still haven't actually talked to them. Maybe their personality is way out there. Maybe they have nothing in common with you. Maybe they hate you on sight. Maybe they're just an asshole. Do you really want to declare your love to someone who might just be enough of an asshole to hold you to it?
Thirdly, it takes a lot of guts to say you love someone. You're not gonna work them up within seconds of seeing a potential mate.
And lastly and most importantly, even if the attraction is mutual, you need more than that for it to really be love. You gotta be really, really, really good friends first. You gotta be comfortable being around each other all the time. You gotta know a lot about each other. Your silences have to be comfortable ones. If you have all that, yeah, then maybe it's love.
You're not going to know all that in a single glance, and if you write a story in which all that is bypassed, not only is it unbelievable, but it's laughably shallow.
