1. Duchess-Yukine-Suoh

    Duchess-Yukine-Suoh Girl #21 Contributor

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    Changing the MC

    Discussion in 'Character Development' started by Duchess-Yukine-Suoh, Mar 6, 2014.

    I'm writing (really,drawing) a series about a group of superheroes with magic powers. Originally, the MC was meant to be this one girl, but for some reason, I liked one of her sidekicks a lot more. So, I decided to make her the main character instead! Although it was a lot of work to change the story idea around, I'm more motivated now and I think the story will turn out better!

    Am I the only one who changes their MC?
     
  2. Bryan Romer

    Bryan Romer Contributor Contributor

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    Not really. My MC is the way I want him or her to be, so I can't see that ever happening. I may expand the MC's personality in a slightly different direction than originally intended, but that would be as far as it would go. Since the entire plot is the MC's story, it would mean abandoning the entire thing to change.
     
  3. FrankieWuh

    FrankieWuh Active Member

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    It depends on the story. If I'm writing an ensemble piece, it can do. My current MC has switched from being a 12 year old kid to see-sawing between the father, and a police sergeant as well. Maybe it's better to say you have more than one MC. Who's to say you only have to have one?
     
  4. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    I've been there too. One MC became a side character; that just worked better.

    You do whatever you think serves the story the best. Sometimes the story reveals how it really wants to be written only after you've written a lot of it.
     
  5. EdFromNY

    EdFromNY Hope to improve with age Supporter Contributor

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    I did, once. One of my projects was a novel about a group of middle-aged musicians who reunite 30 years after a bitter breakup. When I first started writing it, I made the drummer, who'd been the cause of the breakup, the main character. But as I wrote it, the lead guitarist, a woman, took on a much more dominant role. After finishing the first draft, I set it aside.

    When I went back and picked it up again, I decided that there was too much backstory and the ending was unsatisfying, so I ripped out almost all of the backstory. Suddenly, I was down to 40,000 words (in my defense, I had not intended it as such when I wrote it, but it just read that way in the final product). I put it aside to work on something else while I allowed new ideas to emerge. About two years ago, I took it up again but after three frustrating months I again put it aside. That's when I decided to take up my current project.

    The reason for all this stumbling about is that the band story did not begin as a garden-variety writing project. It started out as therapy, a way of coping with the fact that a promising band that I'd been involved with at a time in life when such things had long since been forgotten had suddenly gone on without me (I won't go into the sordid details, I will only say that the entire episode was decidedly cringe-worthy). So, I wrote without really caring where the story was going and no thought for it ever being published. It was only when I took it up the second time that I was thinking in those terms, mostly because I really liked the cast of characters I'd managed to assemble. And I still do. I will very likely pick it back up when I finish the first draft of my current project. With a little luck, that should be fairly soon.
     
  6. Lae

    Lae Contributor Contributor

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    Didn't know you were an artist.

    It'd be interesting to change the mc half way through, maybe kill off the protagonist and make the side kick the new protagonist. That's what I though when I looked at the title anyway
     
  7. Siena

    Siena Senior Member

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    No.

    I think it's quite common in the early drafting stages.
     
  8. Jak of Hearts

    Jak of Hearts Active Member

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    I did have a MC surrounded by a supporting cast, but as the draft drew on I realized the supporting characters were just as interesting if not more so. I ended up switching it from him being the MC to having five equally central characters. It was a bit of work but not too much.
     
  9. Andrae Smith

    Andrae Smith Bestselling Author|Editor|Writing Coach Contributor

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    Yeah, I did it too... But It was more of a passing of the torch because the original MC died...sorta... I he died and became a supporting character as a phantom (which sounds pointless, I know, but the whole story was a train wreck lol). I then had to decide who's story I was trying to tell and what would be important. If it was indeed the new MC, then a lot of things became unnecessary backstory. If it was the first MC, then I had to take the story in a different direction.

    Coincidentally, I realized this along with many more errors, and now that project is shelved--at least temporarily.
     

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