: Re: Establishing a social circle for a promiscuous character I am developing a college-age female character and think that there may be a contradiction. This is an important secondary character, a

@Jessie137

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In my personal experience, there is a night-and-day difference in a friend who sleeps around, and a friend who sleeps with your boyfriend.

Since everyone is college-age they will have ingrained opinions that don't align with their actions, and liberal platitudes can change abruptly when an issue effects them personally. Experience, and reactions, will not be evenly distributed.

Give the characters the depth to have an opinion that they later need to unpack and examine. If you are debating something as a writer put the debate into the mouths of characters, but also stir it up by sometimes making the characters think differently from how they behave. Characters are fallible, and not everyone gets a satisfying character arc where they fix their emotional baggage.

I'll end with an anecdote. I had an always-around friend who made a play for my boyfriend, who was flattered and interested. I was hurt, but (reverse psychology) I told him that if he preferred her he should go be with her and that ended it.

But from that day on, my best friend called her no other name than "Boyfriend Stealer" no matter who was around or what the conversation, that woman's name was "Boyfriend Stealer". That wasn't how I felt since she hadn't actually stolen my boyfriend – it was emotionally complicated and I distanced myself from her – but it was amusing that my best friend had such a strong reaction. Like it was the only important thing to know about that woman. It became her name.

Month's later, the same woman stole my roommate's boyfriend.

We had 3 different reactions. My best friend heard about it and was immediately sounding the alarm, shouting it to everyone she knew. I thought I was liberal-minded about open and extended sexual relationships, but when it happened to me I didn't care for it at all. I wasn't exactly wounded, but I had to accept that in practice my boundaries were a lot different than in theory. Meanwhile, my roommate had heard the literal warning calls, saw it (almost) happen to me, and still kept the woman in a very intimate circle, going on 3-way movie and dinner dates. She was completely surprised when it happened to her.

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