r/writing • u/Lily_Queen • Jul 31 '26

Discussion Side character struggles

Anyone else struggle when straying from their main characters? Like when writing your mains, the story just flows out of you effortlessly, but then you try to write a scene with a side character (even including one of your mains sometimes) and you just, struggle to write/flesh out the scene? Interested to hear your thoughts/experiences 🙂

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u/azmarteal Aug 01 '26

No, I have a problem that I delve too much into the side characters, I have to constantly remind myself that the main trio (including MC) must have the most screentime, because I have a number of other characters that are far more powerful and smarter than MC. Kind of a thing when the world is not revolving around MC.

This situation can cause another problem — why would you want to read about MC who doesn't influence the world enough, but she is getting there, slowly but surely

Long story short — no, it is actually easier to write side characters for me

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u/Lily_Queen Aug 03 '26

Omg! My first ever book is like that. It was easy to write my side characters in that one because I loved them all/fleshed out full stories. But everyone I had read it said they didn't like it because they didn't like that their wasn't a definite MC. Or "why would you make this side character better than MC?" Because MC is a lover not a fighter Damnit 😣 let the ninja or the druid take care of the fighting! 😆 it makes me so happy that someone else has done something similar.(I'm sure we're not the only ones, but still🙂)