I have a large plot twist planned. Pretty stereotypical: two guys compete/show off for a girl, gurl can't decide. One day shile shes off doing her thing(wip) the boys kiss and realize they werw just competing/showing off to impress each other and the girl goes evil(long story XD ) I just can't figure how to work it in I have an idea just…ugh, you know?
This is going to be long, but here we go…
I have this one story that I first came up with when I was around 12 or 13. I was pretty new to world building and making characters so I decided it would be set in a medieval Europe type setting, just like every other fantasy novel I'd read. Fast forward like 10 years later, and I've kinda given up on the story. I liked the concept but there was just a lot of stuff that wasn't really done right and I decided I'd rather focus on my newer stuff than try to deal with it.
But then one night I was looking up picture on google places that I wanted to visit. I ended up looking at pictures of Mongolia and I was like "hey this looks like it would be a cool setting for a story." I have a really hard time coming up with story ideas, but I was kinda determined to make this work. Eventually I started thinking back to my old story and was like "Y'know, instead of writing a new story you could just make this work with your old story."
It ended up really working out because this one of the things that didn't really make sense about my world. For some context, my world is made up of five (previously six) nations and 4 of them are cold, mountainous, forrest covered, typical fantasy setting. The fifth one is just like 90% desert. The desert started at the border of this country and I know it's a fantasy, but that's not how geography works. So by turning the one nation into more of a semi desert it gave me a more realistic setting.
It also gave me an opportunity to redesign some of my characters because I wanted them to look like they belonged in this setting. They were all white with brown hair (and mostly brown eyes) before so my main cast was now more diverse. I also had to redo all their outfits to make them more fitting for the setting. Still kind of working on this a little bit, but their designs are already way better than what I had before. Idk if anyone really cares, but I did a before and after thing with one of the characters https://sta.sh/02e72in9ghic
TL;DR changed the setting of one of my stories from a basic medieval Europe inspired thing that made no sense to more of a northern Asian type setting that's way cooler. It had a really big impact on the story so that's why this post is so long :)
I guess the biggest change I've made to my story is the setting (and basically the entire plot). It started off as a high fantasy where one of the characters travels back in time to prevent the death of her sister, and ends up embroiled in royal politics and a lot more kind of boring stuff now that I look back. It changed to be a steampunk fantasy adventure story, where basically the only similarities were the personalities and general designs of the two main characters. Not even their names stayed the same lol
Originally my story idea started as a war between heaven and hell and revolved around the son of Lucifer as the MC, meeting a witch who is the daughter of a fallen angel, and they go in search for a legendary sword created from the blood of Judas Iscariot and Mary Magdelene, capable of killing archangels and then in the end the FMC dying and my MMC helping hell win the war.
And now it's changed to an alternate earth with a creation story thats pretty dope, and now the FMC is my main main character and is bound to a space-time sword capable of traveling throughout the history of the earth at different time periods where she meets up with the MMC at different times and eventually brings about the destruction of their world (when in their minds they are attempting to save it). FMC still dies at the end though. It involves time-travel, and pocket dimensions and other things of that nature.
A shift of main protagonist because the new protagonist is much better fitting for the theme
I'm revising my whole story, it may not sound like a lot but I'm completely re writing 7 chapters of work!! And I'm changing the plot, and the main character completely, she went from innocent new girl to troubled teen who has a severe case of cabin fever.. and she's become the type of hero who wouldn't die for her friends…she's become more of a warrior, fight first, check wounds and emotions later…
I'm only just beginning with this story, but recently I discovered that the MC best friend, who appeared to be a cinnamon roll and is a character I never thought he'd do anything bad in his life, is actually The Bad Guy™. I still have trouble accepting this fact, but it makes a lot of sense considering where the story is headed.
While writing a draft for a book I grew annoyed with one of the four important characters who was supposed to be a very charismatic dude who could get the ladies. But he clashed with another character who was a sixteen-year-old girl trained in hunting and self-sufficient who refused to take a back seat and do what she was told (mainly because they hired her as a guide). then a friend suggested a fight scene between the two during which the main character would notice the dudes unstable, fragile ego and kick him out.
Afterwards, the story had a much better flow because the main character now had someone of his own age to talk to who had a different worldview and treaded him as an equal.
Changing the world entirely? One time I made some characters in an already-existing fictional setting, then it kind of became less and less like the source material until I switched it over entirely. It's now becoming an established world with cultures and relations and backstory and everything.
Other than that probably the time when I decided my story needed a villain, because it had none, so I purpose-built one. Somehow they ended up becoming one of the 4 main protagonists. I still don't have a villain.