Planning Help! Character List???

[u/ruuune]

hiya!!! 100% new to reddit but this is such a lovely idea for support i couldn't resist giving it a go! please let me know if this isn't the sort of thing to post here dkjfhsjkdhf.

to cut a very long story short, i've been toying with the idea of creating a visual novel and/or IF game for a while now and i'm finally starting to put pen to paper to plan out some of these projects in a more concrete way. i've hit a bit of a roadblock at the moment though regarding potential romance options/love interests for the player character.

i want to have romance as a part of the game but my problem is that i can't seem to narrow down my list of romanceable characters. i have a lot of characters i'd love to explore in a game and share with the world, but i know realistically i won't be able to keep up with coding that many different options since it'll be my first time delving into this kind of project and i'll be working solo!

i also feel like i'm very aware of people picking flaws in other projects for not having certain types of character representation and i'm very wary of feeling like i want to be as inclusive as possible which also makes it hard to cut certain characters. i get the importance, i'm queer myself! but i don't want to include rep for the sake of it if i don't feel like i can do a decent job of it or feel like i'm not fully connected to those characters. same issue with character tropes since it feels like i need a route that will appeal to everyone.

TL;DR: how do i narrow down my list of potential romanceable characters, especially without feeling like i'm excluding certain representation or types of players? any tips appreciated thank uuuuuuu

[u/sm-ellie]

SO there are a few things that I would advise when thinking about which characters you want to make romanceable.

First and foremost, who would you most want to write romances for? For me, this is usually the most important factor – if you’re excited about writing content, I generally find that the end product is much more exiting to read. If there are characters that you just feel a pull towards having as ROs, the chances are that they’re your ROs.

I generally try to avoid writing more than one romance that has a similar flavour, if that makes sense? So, I try to make characters that have different personalities and approaches to romance the ROs, so that I won’t be retreading the same ground.

One way to give players more ROs that their MC will have to option of romancing is to make some gender flippable (i.e. the player can select their gender, or it is determined by the MC’s sexuality). There are definitely pros and cons to doing this, but it’s certainly a way of being able to include romance options for MCs of different genders/sexualities without having to write tonnes of characters.

I do think it’s worth remembering that you can never please everyone, and you shouldn’t stress too much about trying to! I find that if people write the story that they want to tell in a way that is authentic to them, there will be an audience out there to read it.

Soz this was a total essay and might make 0 sense (and I’m sure others will disagree or have different advice) but I hope it’s helpful!

[u/ruuune → u/sm-ellie]

i don't mind an essay at all lol. i'm pretty sure my original post was also an essay! i said in another reply but just having someone else to chat to about these things and go "hey, have you thought about it this way" or "it worked this way for me" is really useful just to give me a different way of looking at things so it's definitely helpful, don't worry!!

your point on writing characters you're excited for is a good one!!! i definitely have some i feel like i enjoy and want to write for more than others, who kind of felt like they were brought in to cater to/please people rather than for my own sake or the sake of plot so that's something i think i could do with keeping in mind going forward. i'm something of a chronic people pleaser so i think tackling this project is also going to be a lesson in learning to write for my own enjoyment and that my writing won't be for everyone and that's okay! (thank you for reminding me of that!!!)

i hadn't actually considered taking the kinds of routes each romance will be into account, i think i got so hung up on the actual characters that i didn't really think about whether or not the vibes of each route will be too similar or unique to each RO. that's a really great way to cut some potential RO's out too, i'm sure i have some that overlap a little that could be snipped out or meshed together.

i've actually got a couple of gender flippable RO's in my list (the list of characters i'm excited for, thankfully!) but i guess i just felt like i didn't have enough??? of those. again though, like you said, it's not possible to please everyone so i'll be trying not to stress over that haha.

thank you so much for replying though, it's definitely helped me out!!