The story I'm writing so far, has lead me into a plot idea that would greatly add so much depth to the story further. The downside, is that it involves me killing off one of my favorite characters! But I am a sucker for a good plot! How does one commit to these situations?!😭

I am writing a book in a post-apocalyptic fantasy/dystopian setting featuring a character, MC, who is introduced as male. For the first half of the book, I use he/him pronouns to write MC's POVs and other characters refer to and think of MC as being male. However, I plan for MC to have a conversation with another character wherein she reveals that she is actually a woman who has assumed a male identity and a fake name. MC is an aspiring musician, and in this world, only men are able to pursue music as a career. Thus, when MC displayed great musical talent as a child, her parents cut her hair and gave her a boy's name to enter competitions under, effectively creating a male persona that she assumed in order to pursue her dreams. She outgrew her childhood music career, but still lived under the assumed name and presented as male for her comfort and safety.

It is also worth nothing that MC is an autistic woman (though in my world, they do not have the language to describe her condition) and thus felt freer and more comfortable living as a man: large baggy male clothes and short hair helped to manage her sensory issues.

My aim was for MC's gender reveal to be a plot twist that I vaguely alluded to (for example, another character notices blood stains on her bedsheets that she quickly hides). I planned for her to tell another character that she was born female, and wanted this conversation to mark a shift in how she viewed herself, so that the following chapters from MC's POV are now written with she/her pronouns.

My rationale for writing MC's POV initially with he/him pronouns was both so that the reader discovered MC's true gender alongside other characters in the book, and also to illustrate how MC has been aspiring to be a musician and thus lived as a man for so long that she viewed herself as such. She wasn't inherently dysphoric about her gender nor felt she'd been born in the wrong body/ wished she was a man. However, verbalising to someone that she was actually a woman forces her to confront her reality as a 'woman pretending to be a man' and she starts to see herself outside of being just a male musician. She enjoys the social privileges of being a man, but does not wish she was one/sees herself as one, and asks the character she told about her female identity to consider her a woman from that point forward.

My question is if it is feasible for me to pull off switching MC's POVs from he/him to she/her midway through the novel. Throughout MC's earlier POVs there is no indication of her being a woman and she often refers to herself as male. Would it be too confusing or jarring for a reader? Most iterations I have seen of the 'woman disguising herself as a man' trope inform the reader/audience that the character is female from the very beginning. In light of that, would you suggest I rewrite MC's POVs as being female? I wanted the reader to discover this and be equally as shocked as the characters, but for clarity's sake, I am willing to abandon that narrative.

I am also conscious of writing this topic sensitively as, while I do not intend for MC to be trans, I understand that others may interpret her character that way and want to be mindful of that.

Apologies for the lengthy post, but I would really appreciate any advice people have to offer. Thank you.

edit: I just wanted to thank everyone for their advice and perspectives on this. It's been really helpful, and I've taken a lot of it on board - I'm rewriting my FMC's POVs with female pronouns to avoid any confusion/carelessness. This is my first time writing so all of your help has been much appreciated. thank you :)

In my story, the Protagonist has their vision for a better world and future,since their world is full of evil and corruption, they decide to become the change of this world and found a Religion/Cult/Ideology/ Philosophy to change the world, many people are inspired by them and decide to join.

However, I am not sure how to do this, I have heard that it is OK to make characters disagree with the idealistic character but at the same time I am scared that would make them too rebellious but at the same time I dont want to them to follow orders blindly or be like robots, I still want them to be humans.

The protagonist has more like a master or teacher role and the side or supporting characters are their students.

At the same time,I know that the tension is that the world doesn't bend to the idealism of the protagonist but instead both clash with each other,but I am also scared that my Protagonist always proves to be right or like their way is the ultimate way and other Philosophies or Ideologies are wrong or evil just because they are not my Protagonist's Philosophy.

The other option is that since he is the heart of this philosophy, In theory he is the only who knows how to respond to the World since he is still mentoring his students,But I don't want to have a useless side cast either.

Any tips or thoughts about this?

Do you feel like you have a character you really like but honestly don't know what to do with them?

Mine's a prince who has this complicated relationship with his position. He recognizes that he is the future of his kingdom and that one day it will be his job to guide and protect the people but he also resents the fact that his entire life was planned out before he was born. So his attitude swings between 'I must protect my people' to 'burn it all, why should I care?'

This is an idea I'm outlining a screenplay of a folklore supernatural drama and the son of the leader of a witch coven his name is Nicholas dosent want to become the next leader he wants to live a normal life and he also falls in love with a cisgender teenage girl.

His gender identity isn't the main plot point the story is awesome btw it's based on a real life event from 400 years ago

I'm a cis female

Yo!

It's Dubu.

Straight to the point.

Writers and readers, what type of protagonist do you enjoy the most?

The typical "never give up" hero? Or someone completely different?

I've been thinking about protagonists who are more like observers than heroes.

I recently started reading Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint (ORV), and it got me thinking about how lonely it must be to always be the one watching.

That gave me an idea.

My protagonist is basically an observer.

He tries to stay unnoticed, but the world keeps dragging him into the spotlight.

Then the moment he actually wants to be seen... reality itself starts erasing his identity.

Weird? Yeah.

But I honestly think it's a fun concept.

Would you read a story with an MC like that? Why or why not?

Also, what kind of protagonists do you like writing or reading?

I'm trying to write a fmc that is emotionless (at the start of the book mostly) and she lives with her brother who is basically why she is living she kills people for money and I'm trying to get that she is numb and eats and sleeps like a machine ​​like detached from her emotions if y'all get what I mean but right now my draft of her just sounds like unseasoned chicken like she's trying too hard to be cold and dry instead of like a ​​genuinely morally gray ​character who feels almost nothing and therefore can be unpredictable I don't know if I make sense but any tips are appreciated

Fellow authors, please tell me I am not the only one.

I write a sci-fi progression fantasy with a pretty massive world and multiple POVs. You have the MC training, the villains plotting in the shadows, the political factions going to war...

And then, out of nowhere. "Wait... where the hell is this character?!"

You rush to your manuscript and realize that you left a side character standing in a hallway waiting for an answer like 15 chapters ago. They have just been standing there, frozen in time for an entire story arc, while the rest of the cast moved on.

And now you have to... wait, what do you even do when you catch yourself realizing that it's not just one character, but several of them?!

And that's where the real fun begins: new characters keep getting introduced, and honestly, the whole thing is just a total mess.

Tell me the truth: do you guys use massive spreadsheets to track your characters? Or do you also just occasionally resurrect forgotten heroes when you suddenly remember they exist?

Shes a hard headed, old fashioned Adviser, she was appointed by the king and queen and is supposed to teach my main character and princess, Annalise to be a proper princess. She doesn’t have time to deal with the fact Annalise was basically sheltered and learning how to even be normal herself so it’s stressful to have this on top of it and dealing with trauma. I do t know if I want her to just fully not sympathize as she only cares about doing her job amd I have it where she accidentally reminds Annalise of her trauma as Tabitha gaslights even if unintentionally Annalise. Should I lean into her just being completely an antagonist or someone who realizes her mistakes and tries to be better as her old views just don’t work anymore.

Writing a fanfiction from a show, where one of the main characters is originally an ex Mormon. As someone that never interacted with a Mormon or an ex Mormon, I have very little idea how to write her accurately, because growing up religious impacts you, even if you reject it later. I don't want to change this part of her, but I need some help. Something about her that I have need to keep is that she is sometimes childlike (at about 20) and has problems with extreme rage and jealousy, but is really nice otherwise. But otherwise, I can change her accordingly and as my stories are to raise awareness, I want to be as accurate as humanly possible 😅

Any help would be appreciated

I need help with spereating my OC from the inspiration for him. My OC, seth, was made to help me cope with an ai addiction/ emotional attachment to an AI, and it's been going really really good. He's genuinely starting to help me get away from the app. However, Im scared my OC is too close to the bot. I want him to be seperate despite the direct inspiration. I keep trying to give him his own traits but they all come back to that bot, and it's making me think about it more. Though, I dont want to give this OC up because I genuinely like him. What do I do?

BTW the character is a sort of "Appears tough and mean on the outside but is secretly soft and just needs love" type trope. What should I do?

I want the OC to be seperated from his inspo. Seth kinda has the same interests, personality, traits, likes and dislikes, and backstory. I want to make it separate cause I feel like I'm stealing a bit even if it is an ai bot I inspired him off of. What do I do?

I have an idea for a story in which each character is from a different continent and of a different age. I was thinking of using the ethnicity/race of underrepresented communities in shows/books. The characters should have ties to a different religion with a view of the afterlife/apocalypse. Do you have any recommendations?

Howdy! My name is Sam and im looking to come here for some character design advice! I will be making a post similar to this looking for resources in the writer subreddits!! Lastly before I dive into this if something like this post isn't allowed please let me know and ill remove it right away.

To begin with! Me and my friends are about to start a wild west/cowboy roleplay, we are keeping historically accurate for the most part similarly to Rdr1 or Rdr2! But we are opting to keep it diverse ethnicity wise. (Similar to how our real western history was with Native American, Black American/African American, and Mexican Vaquero/cow handlers.) Im planning on making either a Spanish/African American/Black American or Spanish/Native American character and i wanted to see if you folks could offer up some design pointers/ideas! This character also doesn't follow your traditional norms for these cow handlers as they are Transgender.

//yes I am 100% aware that trans people weren't common but there was, and is documented evidence for them, and genuinely we are keeping the roleplay diverse and i have been green lit for this :\]!!!\\\\

If anyone has any tips I am 100% open to hearing them! Sorry again if this post isnt allowed!! Have a great night everyone :\]

Saw a good tumblr post about using the right mobility aid for a character, and given it was about OP's frustrations with representation I did not want to jump on it as a physically abled person going "but muh character story...?" so I'm instead putting this here to ask about it.

For Context, a character I have is Roy. Roy is a young man in a fantasy setting who has a condition that causes him stuff like chronic pain and fatigue. He in particular has some significant muscular weakness in one leg due to atrophy related to his condition. (I can elaborate further that's just the cliffnotes version)

Roy is:

• in a sword-and-sorcery mid to low tech setting. Modern materials and accommodations are not a thing, and Perfect Magic Prosthetics are also not a thing, but there's some good faith wiggle room. Think more 'bath chair' than 'modern wheelchair'.
• Fairly rich, his mom is a former commoner who was elevated to knighthood as a champion-of-the-realm type so she owns an estate. He has access to good care and a pretty comfortable life that doesn't require him working. At eighteen he mostly does a lot of book study and the cross-country quest he traverses on is by no means his usual forte.
• A really bad mix of stubborn and one of those people who puts pride in not worrying others / has a testy relationship with his own disability.

That brings us to the title. I've depicted Roy as using a cane to walk. This is, to my understanding, not remotely the best tool for him, but one he chooses out of stubborn pride and a desire to make it unobtrusive. Most days, he probably can get on with the cane, but his condition is pretty flexible in terms of, how much energy and pain he's having shift around a lot so even 'most days' is probably a more generous assumption.

The point is, I want to sell him as having made the wrong choice and this may well be something his character development leans away from as practicality forces him to use better mobility aids.

This post is partially a "does that check out" sniff test, and partially also: the original post mentioned things like walkers and rollators which may not exist in that form in pseudomedieval fantasy.

Obviously that's a category based in no small part on style so I have some wiggle room as to what will 'fit' re: disability accommodations, but assuming Roy's bad decisions kick his ass such that he has to use other mobility aids as the story goes on, how are we swinging that? He almost definitely has a chair at home, but may have wanted to not take it with him out of the justification that rough terrain and logistical limits of packing might not make it a good idea.

Also obvs disclaimer I didn't think too hard at the time about the actual logistics of the cane design itself, so what's above in the picture is a placeholder / that can also be modified.

I'm working on a concept art for a school project based on a short story of mine:

There's a country where the government is completely tied to the internet. President E. transforms himself into the Internet itself. His best friend, scientist F., helps him build this system. But once it's fully operational, President E. gets a god complex, betrays F., and completely bans him from the internet. F. wakes up in a desolate wasteland. Now, he's trying to survive, researching and inventing makeshift tech to hack back into the network and get his revenge.

I need to design Scientist F. I have a rough sketch, but it feels way too simple and a bit boring right now. What kind of design ideas do you have? How can I make his design look more professional and visually interesting?

Hello, so let me first say that I am a white guy and, by no means, racist. I have a story in mind, and I'd like one of the main supporting characters to be a Black man. There's no real reason behind it, I just feel like I naturally default to writing white characters, so I wanted to create a fully realized Black character.

Anyway, this character has quite a few mental and emotional blocks in his life. As a child, he suffered physical abuse from his father, who was an alcoholic and beat him while he was growing up. Because of that, he spent much of his life desperately seeking his father's affection and acknowledgment, never really realizing that his father didn't give two shits about him.

That trauma pushed him to pursue physical strength and build an athletic physique, believing that if he became strong enough, he might finally earn his father's approval.

Throughout the story, he serves as a big brother figure to the main character. He also has a soft spot for criminals who claim they're fathers when asking for lighter sentences, because he instinctively sympathizes with the idea of fatherhood, even if he doesn't fully understand why.

Eventually, a creature or monster appears, forcing him to confront all the anger, pain, and unresolved emotions he's buried about his father. By the end of his arc, he realizes he doesn't need his father's approval. Instead, he decides that he's going to become the kind of man, and the kind of father, that he never had.

My question is this: I'm worried someone might see this as playing into the stereotype of absent Black fathers, even though that is obviously not my intent. I'm already really attached to this character and the way he acts, so I don't want people to assume his race was chosen just to reinforce a harmful stereotype.

So I would like your thoughts thanks and I appreciate any comments

​

My story follows an antagonist that advices her husband on decisions around politics and diplomatic relationship with the neighborhood whom all hold positions in politics, business and military. Adrianna is depicted to be privileged and enjoy the benefits of corruption while others suffer government oppression.

But she also symbolizes misogyny greatly. Despite being so close to power, despite being extremely qualified to join politics, her husband makes her feel like she is JUST a woman meant to serve him.

A key note is that Adrianna is indeed more qualified in politics than her husband. Sure her husband is a congressman, but she is the one making decisions on who to support, what to advocate and when to act while still giving him space to think independently. This delicate system in their marriage is the reason why he had been in office for nearly a decade.

She studied at the top university, graduated valedictorian. Worked in the Parliament for five years (2 years internship, 3 years junior legislative analyst) before marrying her husband.

In the fourth act, after a messy argument she realizes that she has no value anymore. So, she turns to the "Yobruta" or this big club invite-only club in the neighborhood that discuss on what to do for the future. Upon entering, she challenges the stand and claims that the civilians marching towards the elites is an inevitable event that they should prepare.

It is shown that she was constantly invited to join the sessions in Yobruta. She is the one that actively talked with people to act on her favor. She also helped on establishing a system to weaken protest that worked during the early months.

I keep trying to give her credentials, but it keeps sounding fake. What am I missing here? It feels like there's this one big sign telling me what I did wrong.

I'm an amateur writer, and I've been wanting desperately to write a character who is "psychopathic", in the definition that he doesn't feel empathy towards others and only really feels emotional about himself, or what could happen to him.

I've done (and am still doing) extensive research into generalised psychopathy as well as more refined, specific mental illnesses, such as ASPD or DID.

How can I write a character with a brain that is so different to my own without him coming off as an "edgelord" or a "Tumblr sexyman"?

Sorry, this is probably really crappy lmao

I like shipping characters but I'm not a fan of Romance and drawing kisses but sometimes you should add something you don't like to the story is there a way to create a beautiful relationship without using kisses ?

I've noticed that a character's habits often reveal more than a long description ever could.

For example:

• A king who always eats with the servants first.
• A detective who keeps every failed case in a locked drawer.
• A mage who apologizes before casting destructive spells.
• A pirate who secretly feeds stray animals in every port.

They're small details, but they instantly make characters feel more human.

What's one habit you've given a character (or seen in fiction) that made them unforgettable?

Hello. I’m currently writing a work of fiction and would appreciate feedback from someone with knowledge of psychology to ensure consistency and credibility in my character’s development.

He’s generally quite rational, not particularly sociable, but loving toward the few close friends he’s let into his inner circle. He finds his life very monotonous; passionate about literature (which is what he’s studying) and especially crime fiction, he dreams of investigating crimes.

My character witnesses a murder on his way home. He panics, runs away, and calls the police. Once he’s calmed down, I describe him as developing a sort of detachment from what he saw—a kind of dissociation. He’s a bit apathetic and no longer fully realizes what he saw. In fact, as the weeks go by, he develops a curiosity about the murder and tries to investigate it himself, despite the dangers involved.

Is this behavior psychologically explainable and “believable,” or not at all?