@idyllicwrites I still haven’t made gotten over a lot of these struggles, but to work through them I usually toss around ideas with friends (writer friends specifically), sometimes talking about a story with someone with fresh perspectives can give your the boost you need to start, or bring up ideas you hadn’t thought of before. I think my characters and their roles fall into place as I work on the plot, how I want them to move the story along, what challenges they face. The jobs are still a tricky thing for me but I usually start with something random and see how my characters would fit into such an occupation in the story, how they’d live (are they rich/poor?), how it’d affect their lives (are they struggling/facing challenges?), and if their job reflects their personality (for instance, in your story Nicki is a jeweler and she treats Bey like a diamond, she’s confident, sharp, and strong, where as Bey is a soon to be actor/dancer/etc. which kind of reflects her personality as well, she’s figuring herself out just as she is her sexuality and what she enjoys sexually, she’s a bit shy, but very free spirited in a way, and has a want/need to please as one may do an audience for a performance) usually I just look at these ideas and come up with something that I think fits my character’s aesthetic all around, and then maybe I’ll have events based around these things. The same can go for stories where the characters aren’t working, but they all have an interest that reflects their character through that interest
