Hello! I recently revamped a whole bunch of stuff about my main character, and it seems fine, but I'm never gonna be sure until I get someone else's opinion, so if you have the time and are interested, please take a look! and let me know what you think, thanks!
I love your character! Her backstory provides a lot of details for her mannerisms and the way she acts. Truly amazing!
Oh my gosh! thank you so much! I can't tell you how nice that is to hear, I really appreciate it!
Normally I have a ton of critiques about people's characters but you a really good job a giving Olive reasons for what she does and why she does it! There's a few things that really stood out to me that I think would maybe provide a lot more depth if you played around with them a bit, but also I don't know if you plan to write a story about her and many you do intend to make these big things or maybe they're not influential to your idea at all :)
I though it was really interesting the prejudice she has against Christen people. This would definitely be a thing that you could fall back on if you ever need to explain why she did this specific thing around this specific person because they're Christen. Religion is a thing that a lot lgbt youth are affected by, I definitely was, and I love reading books where there's a character who's religion affects their sexuality/gender identity and vise versa. So yeah I think if you wanted to write a story with Olive this could be a thing that sets up a lot of good plot points.
Another thing I noticed is how sometimes she forgets to shave and has a light stubble, I'm not trans and I've never experienced body dysmorphia or anything so Im not really one to talk about this, but I think this flaw that shows the small flaws of being trans could be used to further develop her. Ive read my fair share of trans characters and I think its really important to show the small flaws that remind the reader that they are trans and they were a different gender at birth. I think these small things can really be used to develop characters for instance, what would her reaction be to seeing a small stubble? Would she have a panic attack or something because of dysmorphia? Would she be fine with it because she's come to terms with her gender identity? There's a lot of questions you can ask yourself from small things like this.
Kind of going back to religion, I noticed how she has a prejudice against Christens and (I'm assuming) has had a bad experience with the church accepting her, but she still practices Christianity. Kind of similar to my first point but this is just another thing that can develop a lot of plot points, like what does her religion mean to her? how have other people who practice the same religion reacted when she comes out? how does she react to their reactions? Theres a lot of things that really affect lgbt people that can be used to help develop a character, like religion, family, education, social class and tons of other things.
One more thing is just to make sure you really look into transgender people when writing Olive. (If you are trans then sorry you don't really have to do this, but it may still help) This is a touchy topic for readers especially if their struggling to figure out their gender identity so make sure you have it right. Also research can just be really helpful to learn about how different people deal with being trans differently.
Okay, I had a few more things but I need to go to sleep lol, I hope that maybe helped a bit :)
@"betsy.cant.write" Oh geez, I've been so busy lately that I haven't been on this website in literal months, so I'm sorry that I wasn't able to reply to your amzing response sooner! I'm so happy that you think I did a good job establishing her reasoning, that was one of the things I was scared the most of, and it's really satisfying to see someone acknowledge that. As for all your other points,
1) I completely agree, and I do plan on writing a story with her so I'll be sure to write that in
2) that's honestly something I didn't really think about, but it's a very interesting idea and one I'm excited to explore
3) You see the things about Olive's experiences with the church and God, is that through the excessive prayer and bible reading she had to do, she realized how wrong the church and her family were about God and his intentions
4) I've definitely done a lot of research into this, the last thing I ever want to do is accidentally make fun of/mock someone going through extrememly difficult circumstances, which is why I'm asking people what they think
Once again, thank you so so much for your kind words, I really appreciated it