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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35396
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

One way to do this would be the way the movie "Fight Club" did it.

In that movie the main character is a passive person who meets a very active person. This person convinces him to set up a fight club where people come to voluntarily fight each other. Things get out of control, and little clues start building up and the MC realizes almost too late that he is both characters.

Another way to do this is to have the MC act out two different lives or parts of his/her life. For example, the character could be a young woman in love in one plot line, and the leader of a revolution in another.

I think one key to doing this without turning off the reader is to leave little hints, especially if the character isn't doing this on purpose or by insanity. The character may just be very focused and not normally think of the other part of their life.

For example, the young woman in love is reading the paper and is happy that the revolution is winning instead of thinking of them as terrorists. Perhaps when reading she knows just a bit more than she should know from the article, or contradicts a TV report to her family. Perhaps the leader of the revolution is wearing a piece of jewelry that was given to the young woman by her husband.

Another key is to have the plot lines eventually converge. Perhaps the antagonist realizes who the leader of the revolution is and starts a move to arrest everybody in the young lady's house, or to bomb it.

Original score: 2