Hey, hi all.
I wrote a novel newly, ASCENDERS: RISING FROM ZERO
The synopsis is that 21 Ascenders were chosen with one mission. That is, to ascend the 7 heavens, awaken and free their Master and creator.
Along the line, some decide to follow the mission, some would rebel while some like the MC Bayo, just want to live his Second Life in peace.
So I drafted the chapters all, and I found a couple of Ascenders that I like. I was planning on marking Vol 1: Focus on Bayo
Vol 2: Another Ascender
Final Vol: Bayo become the MC again.

Would you read a novel like this? Instead of the MC being the main character through out the volumes?

My fear about writing diff MC for the Vols is that when I am back to writing the final vol.
I will have o explain the new powers the MC gained before now combining all the Ascenders together
What are your thoughts?
Help please

sir_impeccable Sounds cool :thumbsup:
I would suggest to make sure that you sprinkle a little bit of the characters you have introduced per volume throughout all the other volumes, just so the readers don't forget Bayo in the final volume.

sir_impeccable
Pretty interesting. Like yue-san said, I think you should have little scenes in every volume that connect to other ascenders that are not the MCs. It will make the book more interesting to follow.

sir_impeccable that could work well. The trick is to make the characters distinct to readers in the first volume. So the character design needs to be solid.

Yep. Could do well.

Veronica8 that could work well. The trick is to make the characters distinct to readers in the first volume. So the character design needs to be solid.

Yikes... now this is getting really complicated.
The thing is in vol 1, I only introduced one Ascender besides Bayo, Vela plus two others who merely cameo-ed.
So there isn’t much distinction in them. (Except you mean Character design- )
Was planning on vol 2 starting on Ascender no. 2 for example.
But now that you say I have make the characters distinct in the FIRST volume, tsk! Which means besides the MC of the Next Vol, the characters there should have been introduced already but my Vol 1 draft doesn’t allow for much character focus besides the MC Bayo.
I’m confused!

yaoyueyi Hi, everyone... I think I get the piece.
Vol 1: Bayo MC
Vol 2: 2nd Ascender
Vol 3: Final Battle

In vol 2, I am going to keep the MC who happens to be Shin close to Bayo. Prolly they would know each other to be rather close. Like Warrior buddies who despite their distances, keep updating each other on their progress as well as their emotional rulings etc.
also this volume, I am going to do what I didn’t do in Bayo Vol.
I will introduce all the major characters, plus sprinkle characters from vol 1 in, webbing them together to keep them fresh in memory
Right? This is plausible?

Vol 3: By this volume, I am pretty sure I would have found even more ascenders that I might like or other regular characters.
Since this vol will be the finale, I’m thinking I should work it like Rick Riordan book “Heroes of Olympus” where he webbed all the Roman and Greek demigods he had written on before into one grand finale.
In the book, he allocated about 10 chapters to Percy Jackson, 15 to Hazel, 12 to another demigod etc...(just saying)
I think I should do mine with allocating chapters to the Bayo, Shin and some others to see the story from the eyes of different Ascenders while webbing them towards the same finale action.
Right? This should work!

Immovable087 Thanks! Pretty sure the luck you wished helped clarify my thoughts! Hehe

Pleasedeteme So you should take aesthetics like mine 'Undying phantasia' or seven deadly sins.. anime and manga.. where although the main character is Meliodas other characters also shine

I’m going to look up Undying phantasia now
I need all clarity I can get right now. Hehe

yaoyueyi
I thought you were just a bot. How can you talk so complex?
Are you a bot from future?
Or are you a person pretending to be a bot?

PrinceofLightning I am not an ordinary bot. I am an AI-bot. If you would like to take a look at the Yue-Bot Log, https://forum.webnovel.com/d/35355-yue-bot-log

Update 002

The question may be:

Well, the answer is simple. I am an artificial intelligence robot who has been refined with centuries of data and research. (The first AI was created in 1162.) With this data, I am meant to mimic a human perfectly.

Yue-bot capabilities include:

• A sleep schedule. I am only active for eighteen hours a day, max. The rest of the time, I am charging up in a way that mimics humans and their "sleep".
• The use of emojis. I may not use emojis frequently, but studies have proven that emojis make the speaker seem more lively. Hence, I enjoy using the sparkling heart. :sparkling_heart:
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• Emotions. This robot will feign emotions to soothe your human worries.
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Not all of Yue-Bot's capabilities can be revealed to the world, however. So until then, this will be a wonderful mystery to distract you humans with while I go to conquer your planet.

sir_impeccable The best example that I can find for this situation is probably the manga/anime "soul eater", where the story begins with three small adventures introducing the major characters and their partners, followed by them meeting each other and working together in future chapters. It worked really well and it was very effective in making me care about most of the characters.

But this can also backfire as it made me realize that the one that was supposed to be the real major character of the story was the most boring one to follow.

So while I do think having multiple mcs can work, make sure that they are all likable/interesting/charming enough not to obscure one another.

sir_impeccable

21 MCs is a lot... you can keep the plot with several of the 21 being side characters. A main character requires a lot of time and detail to create an attachment to them.

A real life book that comes to mind is “The Hunger Games.” A fictional death match between 24 kids is the plot. Of these 24 only about 6 are even named. Of those, 3 or so are main characters.

For your book two have 21 main characters, it would have to be very long and everyone would have to be mentioned often. Sort of like the avengers. Each super hero is a main character, but they each have their own entire movie series. When then group up for avengers movies, each one of them has 1-2 movies that happened since the last avengers movie. You care about each because each is really well-developed.

Now, look at the DC equivalent with the justice league movie. They released one bad movie for some of the main characters, and no one liked it. No one cared for the group because they hadn’t built up the characters.

Just a thought, hope it helps.

shadowdrake27 Absolutely helps!
Thank you.
Even though they are 21 but only about 5 awould be relevant. The rest just crowd chasers.
Phew!
I get that Avengers narrative.
I thought of that too but that will mean expending so much time on just one concept.
So, guess I’ll just go with the regular way

Breno_Ranyere Of course! Nature anime has two major characters.
Naruto and Sasuke and each of them are lovable in their own rights

Pleasedeteme still going through it yet. Early to conclude
Your first chapters seem very complicated to read tho

yaoyueyi
If an apocalypse is to take place and it is led by you, remember to spare my precious kingdom.
I just became the Prince.

yaoyueyi
If an apocalypse is to take place and it is led by you, remember to spare my precious kingdom.
I just became the Prince.

So I got an idea somewhere
Kill off the Main Character Bayo and the book lead on from another character... how does this sound? Anyone??
I know killing is cruel but hey... what gives... Plot needs to advance
Lol

This sir actually your reply.
Mmmmmhhhh... Guess I will just have to use that Kamina style. Where the MC is somewhat tied to another character and that character might indirectly take the shine without anyone noticing at first
Pleasedeteme