#multiple main characters

[lioniheart]

Hey so I was writing a Fruity Six™ fic inspired by Tales of the City that I had planned to have well balanced POV chapters, focusing on all of my babes, and I got to 5 chapters, right. But then some stuff started annoying me and I took a break, reread it, and am now torn between rewriting it with a different start.

The original is a post season 4 AU, 1987, everybody lives, where Nance, Robs and Jon took a year before college to deal with the, yk, trauma of it all, and the babysitter's club gets very close, so halfway through the school year, Steve suggests a road trip, they visit San Fran and decide to stay there a bit longer, in this super cool house owned by Ms Madrigal (a trans woman with a great ability to clock everything, better than Murray's) and then deciding actually? We could just stay here. But I got kinda of mad at it cause it sounds too improbable and I don't want to separate them from the rest of the party and shit so I'm not sure abt it anymore.

The second plot bunny said to make it a no Upside Down AU with Nance, Jargyle and Eddie already living in Ms Madrigal's [who's dating Wayne and is Argyle's something (tbd)]. Then platonic Stobin escapes their hellish hometown (maybe Robin gets outed and Steve won't let her run away alone or smth) and end up in San Fran, where they find a home and family with these very queer lovely people.

If anyone reads this, what do you find more interesting? I like them both, but each direction has it's downsides and I'm very bad at decisions

original

second try

Voting ended onAug 4, 2023

[authors-haven]

I have a book with two pov characters. There's a few times where it makes the most sense plot-wise to have two chapters back-to-back narrated by the same character. I know the rule is traditionally to alternate narrators each chapter, so I'm worried that this may come off as strange.

Hi!

I don’t think it will come off as strange -- I do the same thing in my writing (seeing as in my current WIP I have six different characters whose POVs I go into at least once), and my beta reader has never complained, although my sequence of narrators never follows a pattern. If yours does, though, make sure you make it clear in some way who is talking if you plan to go out of order every now and then -- either make your narrative voices clearly distinctive between your different characters, or label the POVs with who’s speaking.

I hope this helps! If you need anything else, please feel free to ask. - @authors-haven

[writeastorywhere]

Do you have any tips for writing a book with two main characters, the both of which tend to be in the same scene a lot?

Ok so I’ve written a book with like four main characters, so here are some things I did: 

-keep track of who’s doing what at one time, especially if your mains split up-If all of your mains are in the same scene, your narration can switch between different people’s thoughts in a third person limited style OR you can just describe what everybody’s thinking, but that’s your choice. I did the first one because it was easier, and took turns describing how people were feeling. -Be aware that whoever you start the novel with first is going to be considered the ‘true’ main character, unless you intro both at once. -If you’re a planning kind of person, or even if you’re not, try and imagine what the dynamic between the two mains would be before you start writing. Maybe set a few rules, so that you can define what kind of relationship they have. It’ll also be easier to write scenes where they’re together.

I’m sure there’s more stuff I could think up if I tried, but I don’t want to make some hella long list about how to write your novel, so these are some of the tips off the top of my head. If they don’t work for you, don’t use them, but if they do work for you then I’ll be glad I helped. 

[manicpixiedreamboots]

Hello, I'm writing this story/series about these people that have special powers. They try to hide who they are to the world but there's always those few that want to use there powers for selfish things (even though this power does not allow the user to use it for selfishness). (1 of 2)

exodarkangel said to manicpixiedreamboots: My issue is that in that the first two books are about one character and learns that she has this power and decided what to do with it and the book after that is a different character with the similar power that doesn't want it and is in the middle of a war. Would it be fine to have the series with different main characters in the different books. (2 of 2)

Hey @exodarkangel

If you want your books to have different main characters in your subsequent books, that’s totally up to you and completely doable!  It almost sounds like your story is following a specific power rather than a specific character. 

Keep in mind that the third book, if it is the only one with a different main character, will feel a little bit disjointed and be set apart by it’s uniqueness. You might lose a bit of flow in your over arcing story line. 

Write your stories with the main characters that feel natural to you when you write them. If it isn’t feeling like it works, then try something new.  Maybe your main character from the first two books could timeshare the leading role in the third. Maybe the main character from the third books could be introduced as early as book one so that your readers are familiar with them. 

Remember that it is completely fine to write your stories however you feel comfortable doing so. This is your universe, you can express it through whomever’s perspective you like! Keep it up, you’ve got this! 

[writeastorywhere]

Writing Tip for Multiple Main Characters

It can be hard to remember where you left off with one character when you’ve got a bunch of different perspectives you’re writing from. Solution? Keep a log of sorts! Write a one-two line summary of where you left off with certain characters so that you don’t have to go scrolling up for pages to reread something. 

[thewritershelpers]

Hey guys, I'm currently working on a novel with three protagonists. Do you think that it is necessary for them to meet up at some point? My current outline has them all staying separate from each other but reacting to the same central event. I feel it might strange for them all to have different central conflicts, as their stories might seem disjointed or unconnected. Do you think that it is necessary for them to interact, or no?

No I don't think it is. 

My first thought when you said this was the film 'love actually' which had several main characters with different stories. However, their stories did entwine in some ways as the characters all knew each other. 

But, I do honestly think it would work. What I think is important though is to make these characters unique and different from each other, this will make the story more interesting I feel because the characters will react in different ways to the same situations.

Check out our character tag

Our POV tag may also help.

Hope this helps, good luck!

-S

[starkassembled]

woot. beat GTA V.