I don't have much experience with writing a novel so this is where I need some opinions. These are very basic outlines. So for two years I've been building this character “Emma” and I feel really 'close' to the character now. But I also created a side character who is the polar opposite to Emma. “Kate” was created to be an impact /mentor character for Emma in a section of the book. But I'm wondering if Kate could be the better main character and I'd only have to change the beginning of the story and a few things along the way for it to work. The reason I think Kate might be better is that I feel she has more to lose, is more interesting and has more reason to fight back. But I feel Emma's story is more unique and feels less 'copied' from our history, although I intend to work on Kate's story and make it more my own. What do you think? Which character has more potential as the main? Setting - The setting is on an alternative earth but one less developed (imagine what earth would look like if no one had ever cultivated it). One race is supreme on this planet until humans arrive to escape their dying earth. As this race are an aquatic ape that have flourished underwater but not so much on land, the humans are far smarter and more advanced but much fewer in number. The underwater apes hide and plan their attack. A war is waged and won by the apes, but they don't just want to destroy the invaders they want to learn from them. Soon humans find themselves as slaves in a merciless world where no innocent is spared. Kate barely remembers her serene life before the Ghetto, but even then, there was the constant sound of the wall being built around their small town, then one night the gates where locked for ever. But she clearly remembers the night her town was raided and her parents arrested and never seen again, something that prompted her two older brothers to flee the ghetto and join the resistance. With her older sister, Deena, sick from child birth, it falls to Kate to run the family; and when rumours start that their home is to be destroyed and everyone sent to forced labour, Kate decides to take her family and run. They are caught and marched to the nearby labour camp. At first things don't seem too bad. There is a small hospital, a children's centre and plenty of food. Desperate to save her frail sister and her child, Kate requests they are taken to the hospital and lies about her younger sisters age, so she can go into light work in the children's center. Soon rumours in the camp start to spread and Kate learns a horrifying truth: there is no hospice; there is no center for the children. There's only one solution to deal with those that can't work: death. The horror that she sent her sisters and nephew to their deaths, Kate becomes determined to escape along with as many inmates as possible. The escape works and on the outside, Kate joins with a resistance group who have a unique idea of how to escape the planet using an ancient magic. Emma lives with a supreme race of beings (the ingel) but being human severely limits her in their community. The forest they live in is protected by a spell that keeps the outside world out. A mysterious disease has broken out through the forest, seemingly only affecting anything with natural magic – object or being. As magic seems to be losing its power Emma's beloved foster mother falls sick with the fatal disease. When her suffering mother begs her to end her life Emma is thrown into a conflict Her mother once worked for the Ingel army as a magical practitioner. She was asked to find the cure to a potion made that could kill an immortal. But in order to make the potion she'd have to break rules. Humans are not allowed to use magic in the Ingel community because of the bad affect it has on them, also in their religion only the Gods can decide to save a life. Emma makes a choice to help her mother. Emma takes locks of her mother's hair that contain memories regarding the ingredient for this potion, access her mother’s memories to make the potion and pays the price of magic losing her most precious memory of her mother. She is caught and 'shunned' by her community. But when the King realizes Emma is immune to the disease, harbouring no innate magic, he offers her a mission: to go beyond the forest and discover what is happening to the magic. Realizing this could be her one chance to be accepted in to this community, Emma takes the mission and ventures out into the world, only to discover it is a cruel and merciless world where humans are being worked and exterminated. Emma must learn the navigate this cut-throat world in order to find the answers. Obviously both need work but I would really appreciate some opinions thank you
I see you are conflicted of which should your MC. How about both? Since you feel Kate have more to lose, rather Emma having an interesting story: make both your MCs. Make both shine and show their traits, make both meet together and let us see how they interact with each other. What you can as well apart is to write a scene where both will interact with each other, it doesn't necessarily mean you will use it on your story. For example, let's say they are both on the bar drinking. This exercise is just for you to realize something that perhaps is missing? A backstory detail? A characteristic trait? A voice?
I thought that in bed at night. I could alternate my opening between the two characters, have them meet (or maybe not as friends but as enemies/have opposing goals) I would like to put Kate on a negative story arc and Emma on a positive one. I like that they have contrasting lives and personalities. Maybe Kate could dislike the Ingel so Emma hides it from her that she lived with them. Like I said it's still an early WIP. Thank you so much for commenting x
I'm not going to read that whole thing because it's going to literally tell me nothing. I had that same problem as you. Two characters, no idea which one I should make the main character. So I let the audience decide. I wrote out a few short chapters, put them on a critique board and let audience see who they like. But I wasn't done there. Audience opinion is helpful, but it's not the end all. I also sat down with the two characters after getting everyone's opinion, and thought, "Okay, this is the character everyone likes most, but can I make her change throughout the book?" That's the big one. Which character undergoes the most potential for change. Which character has to struggle the most. Which character has something to learn or understand? This is why I don't like referring to my characters as "my children." I feel that's a great disservice to the characters themselves, because children are individuals I want to protect. Characters, I'm intentionally not protecting them and I don't want to.
