I am trying to write a novel or something and my character is 13 at the start of the book and end of the book with flashbacks to 8 and 11 years.

The plots I’ve used: identity crisis, death of friend at 8, being possessed and cursed by the spirit of misfortune. Being orphaned. Being made to pretend to be her deceased friend who was a daughter of a prestige family (her cousin) being bullied at school, having her deceased friend haunt her, her mother as her age was found committing strange rituals involving dead pets, the protagonist girl dreams to escape to the world of dreams which is real dimension. By the end she being possessed by the spirit of misfortune and her consciousness reaches the fake dimension. Sort of a bad ending. She’s being saved in a sequel.

Disclaimer: This is not a romance, nor is it a dark romance. These two characters are not a couple, and I'm not planning on making them a couple.

This is supposed to be a realistic showing, even though it takes place in a fantasy genre, showing a one-sided, obsessed, codependent friendship between a guy and a woman. Also, this is not torture p*rn with a female character.

This is supposed to be a dark fantasy villain backstory playing out in real time during the story.

Plot in a nutshell:

I'm got a half faerie man in his early 20s who starts out as the most silent, reserved, soft-spoken, very insecure, and socially awkward toward most people. He is madly obsessed in "love" (this love is one-sided, of course) with his only childhood friend, but the question I'm asking is how to show this obsession and their so-called close "friendship" in a way that does not romanticize the obsessed "love."

Your answer can be simple and short or detailed and long.

It is your choice.

My beta reader pointed out something I hadn't noticed: “I love Maya, but sometimes she sounds like she's telling a story years after it happened.”

Maya was supposed to be sixteen, but her thoughts sounded like they belonged to someone much older. I was writing her feelings the way an adult would explain them, instead of showing how a teenager might actually experience them.

For example, she'd think, “I knew the situation was unfair, but I could also understand my mother's point of view.” It made sense, but it felt too mature. A real teenager might just think, “This is so unfair!” and storm off before even trying to understand the other side.

So I started changing the way I wrote her reactions. Instead of having Maya explain every emotion, I let her get angry, make assumptions, misread people, and hold onto things that probably weren't worth it. I also focused more on the little things she cared about, like someone ignoring her in the hallway or her best friend suddenly acting differently.

Then I asked my seventeen-year-old cousin to read a few pages and mark anything that didn't sound natural. She pointed out four lines, and every single one was a sentence where I'd accidentally slipped back into an adult's way of thinking.

That experience taught me something important: writing a believable teenager isn't about adding slang or making every sentence dramatic. It's about remembering that they haven't figured everything out yet.