4 Things Writers Should Know About Twins

I’ve always loved a good icebreaker because I’m obsessed with my fun fact: I’m a quadruplet married to a twin. I met my husband Zack in kindergarten, where in addition to me and my quadruplet sisters, and Zack and his identical brother, there were three other sets of twins in our 100-person grade. When we graduated high school, the yearbook dedicated an entire spread to the 12 of us “multiples.” We were a newsworthy statistical anomaly, as well as a springboard for what would become my favorite conversation topic: twins.

(Becky Chalsen: On Adding Personal Touches In Fiction)

Ever since, I love to analyze how twinhood impacts a person. When I sat down to write my debut novel Kismet, I knew I wanted to write a story featuring twins, exploring and honoring the beautiful intricacies born out of living lockstep with another human. Here are some traits I’ve observed in my experience for other writers looking to do the same.

1. Venn Diagram of Identity

Writing twins is an organic way to illustrate polarities between characters. There’s no riper environment for juxtaposition than two siblings raised in the same household, experiencing life’s chapters at the same time, to different effect. In Kismet, I wanted my twins to embody this dichotomy. Amy is type-A, high-strung, a planner, while her twin sister Jo is freer, more trusting yet more vulnerable, too. They have different fashion senses and careers and hair color, but they find common ground in a shared moral compass.

To me, twins represent a Venn diagram of identity. We have a shared collective history—memories, inside jokes, favorite television shows, hatred of a certain cheese, etc.—that inherently binds us, but also an intrinsic pull towards individuality. Being a twin always made me want to find ways to stand out, but even the most similar of twins will still find subtle ways to maintain distinction, like brothers taking band class but learning different instruments, for instance, or sisters working in the same industry but in slightly varied roles. Even in appearance, my husband and his twin have purposefully styled their hair differently since 10th grade. (And when one shaved his beard after college, the other immediately started growing his out.)

On a practical level, because twins grow up at each other’s side, there’s both similarities and differences when it comes to skill. There’s the shared knowledge, like twins reciting the same movie or baseball trivia, or a shared lack of knowledge; it’s harder to travel with twins, or to teach them more challenging activities, like riding a bike or skiing (both of which my sisters and I learned later than our peers). Sometimes, twinhood can cause an uneven balance in skills: If one is a talented driver, for example, there is less of an overt need for the other to be comfortable behind the wheel.

Twins fill in the spaces around each other, growing together, but also growing in different directions at the same time.

2. Less Competition, More Compromise

Even though twinhood seems like a natural space for measurement, the twins I know rarely compete with each other. I never had a sense of wanting to perform higher than my sisters on tests or score more points than they did in a basketball game. Actually, basketball is probably the perfect metaphor here since my sisters and I were on the same roster. A basket by one of us was beneficial to all: Celebration was to be shared by the whole team.

When it comes to twins, the “competition” is more of a general struggle for attention. It’s fighting to tell a story quickly at dinner, before someone can cut you off, or rushing to be the first to spy a jacket at the mall before another sister sees it and calls dibs (none of the twins I know enjoy intentionally matching). But when it comes to accolades or achievements, success or scores, twinhood is more celebratory than it is cutthroat.

Instead, I’ve noticed that most twins are exceptionally prone to compromise. Growing up sharing toys, clothes, meals, and attention makes it easier to do so as adults. Twins have a natural ability to get along with another person encroaching their habitat. Whether it’s causation or correlation, I’ve also known many twins who are prone to long-term romantic relationships. Dating or otherwise, twins have a knack for sharing space.

In Kismet, I wanted to showcase the intricacies of how Amy and Jo are sisters first—supporters first—and competition with each other is far from a default setting.

3. Twin Telepathy-Ish

In my experience, while “twin telepathy” isn’t science, it’s not entirely far-fetched. As babies, twins are known to have their own language: My sisters and I would communicate in grunts and hand-gestures at a young age. Were we reading each other’s minds? Probably not. But were we so in tune with the others’ needs and wants and interests that we could deduce faster than an onlooker could? 100%.

When my sisters and I are together, we still finish each other’s sentences, often speaking at a pace that outsiders can’t decipher. We understand exactly what one sister is trying to say, even if they are using the wrong words. Physically, I’ve been shocked to see how many times one of us will be hurt, and another sister will report a similar injury a week later, like a sprained knee, or an inflamed lymph node, or migraines at the same time.

While twins aren’t mind-readers, they do share a language, or at least a predisposition for understanding each other. To novelists wondering if twin hive mind feels more fiction than fact, I say: lean in. The twins I know believe it, too.

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4. Relationship Rollercoaster

Double the trouble, double the fun? In my experience: yes. Twinhood is controlled chaos, it’s like riding a rollercoaster with the same person knocking her knees and shoulders into your body every single day. It’s color-coded clothes and shared sleeping arrangements (we had two bunkbeds in one room), dealing with multiple hormones and heartbreak and SAT prep at once.

And until the end of high school, I absolutely hated it. I hated sharing attention, never being alone. I hated having sisters who would call me on my bullshit, tell me when I was being wrong or rude or simply chewing too loudly. I know a lot of twins feel this way, too.

But with age, I’ve realized that being a multiple, having a best friend tailor-made since womb, is mostly something magical. It’s having someone who can wordlessly speak your language, who has grown up with you step-by-step and promises to walk by you forever. In Kismet, Amy tells Jo that being a twin is like “growing up with a photo album.” It’s having a memory keeper, a scrapbook, for better or for worse.

And because of all these nuances, it’s a relationship in literature that I’ll never grow tired of reading.

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