@softrocks
My main character is in high school and has no idea what she wants to do with her life/after school. Her original idea falls to pieces as she realizes how silly it was. She is surrounded by friends who all know what they want to do. One character has the highest grades in the class, and is really great at math. They want to become an aerospace engineer because they're fascinated by space and want to further space exploration. They're exceedingly smart and dedicated, working and studying all the time. The other friend already does Private Investigator work in his spare time after school, and wants to become a professional PI once schools over. He doesn't get very good grades but he has a whole range of other skill sets that help him understand how to read people and keep hidden.
I want lots of representation in the friend group, of dedicated and skilled people following their dreams, to contrast the main character who isn't very good in school and just wants to have fun. The whole moral of the story is that, people develop at different speeds, not everyone works the same and not everybody is built for the same thing. It also explores the stress put on young people to decide their lives by age 18, and themes of anxiety and comparing yourself to others. I need characters to explore these ideas. I have someone with book smarts, someone with street smarts and someone with emotion smarts. But I think I need more than this.
First of all, while I have strong personalities for all these characters, I need more "glue" to keep them together. They are already very busy people, so while they are away, I need more people to keep MC busy? I need more diversity character wise, with an interesting take on "what do i do when school ends?".
So far I have the very busy yet supportive engineer, and the very edgy looks-off-into-the-distance-when-talking-about-SOCIETY detective, but I don't think that's enough to form a functioning friend group. The main character is girly and bubbly, and I think I need more people who relate to her if the group is going to function at all. Any ideas help!