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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/21728
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I actually think that this story would work better with someone who is 18-20.

I haven't read any YA novels for a few years now, so I don't know at which point plots and themes might be deemed _too_ complex for such an audience, but here is what I would do.

Being early 30s with a wife and kids and a stable job is not only normal for a lot of people, it is the _dream_ for a lot of people. So having your protagonist then feel this is 'wrong' would possibly alienate a lot of readers right away.

However, having such a young person already have an 'established life' is more unusual. It will signify that he never really got to live a rebellious lifestyle, and readers will immediately be suspicious of the protagonists life, meaning it will make more sense when _he_ becomes suspicious of it.

Of course, being so young and having a family isn't wrong, it happens a lot, but it is less common and not necessarily something sought after by a lot of young people in the modern day.

This way when your MC leaves his family and joins the rebellion, he initially feels like he has walked out of a trap, and that that was not the life he was supposed to have. This would alleviate him of any guilt he has when pursuing another romantic entanglement.

You can then have something happen later in the story when he is fully committed to the rebellion that makes his resolve waver. Maybe he sees a family die that is similar to his own, and he then thinks about the responsibility he has to _them_, and whether he has made the right choice. Maybe sprinkle in a couple of things that the rebellion does to make him doubt further, like torturing POWs for information or committing war crimes for 'the greater good', showing that neither side is _fully_ in the 'right'.

He will then doubt whether he has just been caught up with more propoganda, just from the other side, and then needs to find a middle ground. He will also consider that he actually might have _truly_ loved his family, and he now realizes he abandoned them, and doubts how much the governmental conditioning had a hand in the choices he made.

This actually gives him a _choice_, as there are reasons to accept and reject both sides, as opposed to setting up an obvious choice and giving him no say. That is the _real_ freedom he chooses, instead of only being able to accept his life or seek to destroy everything about it. Give him reasons to want aspects of both lives.

This also makes the final decision more meaningful, and ends in the bittersweet way you wanted. Either he betrays the rebellion and allows the status quo to continue in order to save his family (and the countless others like them), or he needs to ruin the lives of many people in order to give them freedom.

* * *

If you're struggling to find reasons _why_ the government have encouraged him to have multiple children by the age of 18, then just add in something like that they are using a significant proportion of the population (maybe like 50%) and training them to be soldiers to colonize other planets (depending on how far in the future this story is set) and wipe out alien races in order to steal their planets or resources.

Or they could be using them as forced labor, or using them for meat etc. but using them as dispensable fodder for any reason will make up the protagonists mind once he finds out that it is the government that is really the ones that need to be stopped.

Original score: 1