I Need Some Help With My Main Character

How long should it take my main (female, if that helps) character to fall in love with another man when she already likes someone else at the beginning of the story?

That really depends on the story. What is the story?Is she supposed to go through years of attempting to win the first guy's heart before realising that the second guy is really the one she wants?Or does she give up on the first guy for a particular reason, but later realise that the second guy is a bad idea and come back to the first guy?Is she sleeping with both? Running from one?If you can decide what the story is, and what the point of the story is, that will help to show you how it should develop.If it is a story of discovering good qualities in a man she had previously overlooked, who was right under her nose, you need to portray her seeing him as repulsive, or ridiculous, or unattainable at the beginning - and then have her come round towards the end. Gradually, as he reveals his character through a series of emotional moments, and/or minor incidents? Or suddenly, when he rescues her from a dragon/house fire/horrendous situation involving the first guy? Or a mixture of both? You tell us.You could have her flip both ways, leaving the first guy for the second guy, and then going back to the first guy. Or meeting a third guy. Or leaving it all behind to ranch wild horses in Alabama.The key to good writing is that it should be entertaining and the plot should be plausible. So whatever develops should make sense.(EDIT If the story is to be believable, you should have push-pull factors influencing your protagonist’s decision. I.e. she finds herself attracted to the second guy, but there’s also something that is beginning to put her off the first guy. Small, irritating issue, like he smacks his lips when he’s eating? Medium issue - he spends too much time watching football on TV when he should be taking care of his kids? Or big, bad, ugly issue: he has been in jail for child molesting? Again, that depends on your story, e.g. if it’s a comedy, drama, or something darker.)You sound like you are fairly young as an author, so what's the best advice for a new author?Read good books. Read good books about writing. Watch movies and see how the story arc develops.And keep writing! You will get better at it. If one story runs out of steam, start another.Pretty soon you will get the hang of it and your best ideas will pour onto the page.Good luck! :o)PS I’d suggest editing your tags on this post in order to get more answers, as this is really about creative writing.

I need some ideas on how to kill my main character. She's gonna have a perfect life with a perfect house, perfect family and perfect friends then dies unexpectedly. How should I make her die?

I’m guessing this could be sort of literary story where secrets will come out in the aftermath and maybe the main character will narrate things from the afterlife or you will show how several characters are profoundly affected by her secrets, her life, her death?Maybe she has aneurysm or a massive stroke and dies quickly. I think I would use aneurysm if she was young and stroke if she was older. She could have a fall putting up or taking down Christmas lights or cleaning the gutters.I don’t think you want to draw attention to the death as a very unusual one, unless you are going for a tone of irony that matched other circumstances in her life.Maybe she lived a good quiet life (on the surface) but she died in a spectacular way that made headlines. Maybe she occasionally subbed as a teacher or school nurse or volunteered at the grade school and was killed by a school shooter. Maybe she was just taking cookies to her kid’s class. Maybe the kid had mowed her lawn one summer.If she was secretly murdered and you were aiming for a mystery, you can be quite creative. She could have ingested poison in a variety of different ways. She could have a health problem and the killer stressed her out to bring on an attack. In real life, Sunny Bulow was possibly killed with an injection of insulin (she had hypoglycemia). She could be offered something that she is violently allergic to. She could be stung by a bee and her epi pen is unavailable. Who lured her out of the house and into the garden and why?Remember as Chekhov said, if you introduce a loaded gun into the story for any reason, at some point it has to go off. Be sure to use foreshadowing and make sure there is some sort of payoff.