My new story has two main characters how do i blance the two arcs

jokei

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My newest story sage of glass is planed to have two different main characters but with one slightly more important
Keep in mind that the each of the characters have their own story so far
 

Stratothrax

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Longer chapters for the more important character shorter for less important is a way I've seen it done that I quite liked.
Also something to keep in mind is likeability is a stumbling block with multi-character stories, the reader can be be very unhappy if they are forced to read about a character and their plotline they don't like over one they do and were really getting in to so a lot more work has to be put into ensuring all the threads can keep readers equally happy or they might just skip chapters or bail.
 

NotaNuffian

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I kinda of just focus on the one that I assigned as main Main Character while the rest is just filler Main Characters, the fillers are used to give proper timeskips or to expand the universe seeing how I don't like to explain stuff with the main main chara.
 

MemoDaBoi

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Also something to keep in mind is likeability is a stumbling block with multi-character stories, the reader can be be very unhappy if they are forced to read about a character and their plotline they don't like over one they do and were really getting in to so a lot more work has to be put into ensuring all the threads can keep readers equally happy or they might just skip chapters or bail.
This point is very important, as I've dropped the wandering inn, one of my all time favorite novels becuase I was constantly interrupted from reading the MC perspective and being forced to read the perspective of a second, somewhat important character
 

K5Rakitan

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Mine follows the female lead most of the time, but sometimes I follow the male leads. I just go in chronological order. There have been a few times where I wrote a chapter I needed to insert between other chapters, but since I type my story several chapters ahead, I've always been able to renumber the chapters before posting them.
 

yansusustories

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Personally, I try to have at least a few consecutive chapters from the same perspective so there aren't too many shifts between the arcs in short succession. If possible, I try to finish at least one mini arc in these chapters so the readers will feel that something is happening. E.g., need to meet a person, get somewhere, find some information: Finish that in one mini arc and then change to another character's arc.
Also, I make sure that all the arcs of the major characters (I have 3 couples, so six main characters) are connected with each other. I feel that this helps with people just skipping stuff because they know they'll need to read this part even if they don't like the character as much to understand what's going to happen in the other arc of the character they adore.
But as others have said: All the characters still need to be interesting even with connected storylines. They don't necessarily need to be likeable but interesting. E.g. one of the main characters in my story is kind of disliked by everyone but the readers are currently waiting for him to get his just desserts for his usual assholeishness. That means that despite not liking him, everyone still reads his arcs just to see him fail at his grand objective.
I would also add that none (or at least not too many) of the arcs should only be self-serving IMO. Like, character development is nice but it's better if the arcs also adds something to the overall plot. Like, in my story, if the guy nobody likes does indeed fail, it'll have big consequences for one of the other main characters that everybody loves and on the rest of the story (aka, he'd die which would leave one other character with a mighty guilty conscience and another one grieving and without one of his biggest supporters). In general, even if you 'only' go for character development in one arc, it should at least mean that a decision that comes up will be done in another way than it would have before which would in turn influence the rest of the story and hopefully the other arc.

TL;DR: I'd try to have both storylines contribute to the same overall plot by influencing each other and wouldn't switch from one storyline to the other too often.
 
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