More guidelines for creating your first work:
Topic:
Bandwagoning popular topics can attract a portion of readers in the short term, but do not be obsessed with keeping up with the times. Write what you are familiar with or a topic that you are interested in knowing more about. It will make it easier for you to write the story.
The attractiveness of content:
While considering the type of content that will attract people, consider this question: What do most people like? If your content can easily resonate with most people, the story will naturally be equipped with the chance of becoming popular.
For example, most people wish to become strong, rich, or good-looking. Why? Because after meeting the hierarchy of needs, people wish to be respected, acknowledged, and loved. If you can satisfy your readers' psychological wants, then the masses will like your story (This is why face-smacking is so popular. Face-smacking makes readers feel that sense of respect and acknowledgment)
World Setting:
A world setting determines if the story can be extended. When designing a world setting, you can take into account the protagonist's experiences to extend the environment and background. Using 'My Youth Began With Him' as an example, this story's framework is formed by 3 major parts. Campus (past), Hospital (present), and Business (late-story). These three parts correspond to the protagonist's youth (student), early adult life (nurse) and the later parts of the story (female CEO). This is a classic development of the world setting based on the protagonist's growth. After designing your protagonist's trajectory, flesh out the key characters in each stage of the framework.
Character Settings
Protagonist: A protagonist's setting is the most important thing in the work. If the protagonist is a point, then his experiences are the lines. With the other side characters and environment, it forms a story with dimension. Note, the point which is the protagonist does not only move throughout the story. He also can change. A multidimensional protagonist will grow. (Think about all the youths and their growth in Webnovel novels)
Some authors will write multiple protagonists. For new writers, this is not a good choice. Many-protagonist plots require multiple changes in points of view, easily confusing the reader. The difference between novels and movies is that text is not as straightforward as a visual medium. Therefore, movies and dramas can have many protagonists, but it is not suited for novels unless you are very experienced and skilled.
Side characters: Side characters can be written as faceless characters or as rich characters. Rich side characters can make part of the story's plot more complete and interesting, but to create a good side character is very demanding on an author's abilities. There's no need to force it.
Other characters: The creation of other characters share the same principle as the side characters. Connecting them to parts of the world setting will make the overall effect better.
