When I started writing (admittedly cringy) stories back in seventh grade, I used to write nearly all-male casts. Why? Because I'm a guy. Kinda wrote whatever came first and most naturally to me.

These characters were generally either complete goofs, or absolute cringelords in everything they did. I did have a couple female characters here and there, but generally, they were either supporting or background characters. During this time period, for at least maybe a year and a half, nearly all the characters I used were human OCs, with ponies really just thrown into the mix because ponies. Not much else was really done to relate to the show itself, outside of a few plot points, lore, and small references.

Short to say, after bombing on my first and second stories, I took a complete 180 in how I wrote my characters. I came around to recognize that cringy human protagonists really didn't seem to work out in my stories, so I started writing exclusively ponies for a time. Gender balance also began to skew more towards the center as I began to write more and more female characters during this time, while focus on comedic characters began to turn away for a bit as I tried to write more realistic characters instead.

And then came my comedy era. A string of oneshots mainly focusing on canon characters, plus an OC-centered fic here and there, character balance became almost exclusively female. I especially focused on the Mane Six, simply because I continued to stick with the mindset of writing what came first and best, and so pretty much from the point of the "Screw Time!" and "Screw Space!" miniseries of stories on until "Equestria Forever" nearly every major character, save for a small handful, were female, and likely part of the Mane Six.

Equestria Forever saw my return to writing human characters-- with a male protagonist for the first time in a while. Save for (if I remember correctly) a minor appearance of a human character in "The Wielder of the Orb", no humans had existed in my recent stories, save for the occasional quip in "What If", my comedy anthology. Short to say, not writing humans and writing almost exclusively female characters likely played a role in "Equestria Forever" dropping dead in a hole. It was more or less a brief return to the cringelord OC characters that were written when I first joined the site.

So things then simmered down for a bit, and I returned to writing almost exclusively female and/or Mane Six characters in my stories. The one story between then and the current period of writing that I'm in that contained a male lead character ended up bombing very much in the same way Equestria Forever did, even when the male lead character was a pony this time around. I found success in a female filly OC, "Gadget", who would appear in my "Lab Horse" trilogy of stories revolving around her wish to return to Equestria. It also marked a return to male human characters, albeit more as a supporting character than a lead role. This time around, things went rather smoothly, and by the time of the third story's cancellation due to a sudden and dramatic shift in my writing style throwing a wrench into the entire series, I actually began to feel confident about writing male characters again, and human characters, as well.

And that leads into the current period of writing that I'm in. I've largely struck a balance between my more serious stories and my comedies, and while I still primarily write female/Mane Six-led stories even today, I've finally begun to make a return to writing stronger male characters in my stories. Ignoring the almost entirely Mane Six-dominated comedy line of stories I've pushed in the past year or so, on the serious stories side of things, I've found a comfortable spot in writing male supporting/partner characters in my stories, often with their role intertwined with the lead protagonist's role in every possible aspect. I've found myself often writing mentor characters, centered often upon high education, with the most notable example from my current stories being Professor Argall from Pony-Me, a retired professor and programmer who is revealed to be the very supportive (and a bit overprotective) adoptive father of the main protagonist, Lisa Garnet, of whom was at first more or less an extension of Twilight Sparkle before growing into her own, separate character.

Following the publishing of Pony-Me, I've tried one more time at rebooting "Wielder of the Orb", which began its life as... my first story, dominated by cringy human protagonists.

Dropping the human cast entirely, the story instead serves more as a soft reboot of the first (failed) reboot of Wielder of the Orb, which follows instead a mare named Nightshade, and her somewhat wacko friend, Lightning Rod. Though, this time around, their relationship is emphasized slightly more with the story opening to them as friends and roommates, and while the story itself is currently on hiatus on account of real-life things I'm dealing with, I plan on having Lightning Rod and Nightshade having pretty much equal share in story appearance and significance.

So that's that. I went from a nearly all-human male character cast, to an all-female pony cast, to a mostly-female pony cast, to a mostly-male human cast, then back to mostly female, ending things off with a (hopefully) more equal balance, for the first time in my writing career.

What about you?

6850257
I've always found writing OCs easier which is why I'm mostly concentrating on the OCs and not the mlp characters. Still working on how to write Applejack and Pinkie Pie. Was never comfortable writing their dialogues.

And when I say OCs, I mean Human OCs because I like to use the behavior of many people from all different backgrounds on them. Like for example, I have an OC that came from a drug addict family from a neighborhood similar to Inglewood or Compton and another OC that came from a city like Tijuana or Juarez.

6850264
Yeah, I've found myself enjoying writing human OCs more than pony OCs as well lately. Ponies are still fun to write and all, but for the most part, a pony OC just doesn't seem as relateable to write as a human OC. The example you provided just about sums things up as far as human OCs go, 'cause they often tend to end up being more realistic in personality, simply because you have a stronger basis to use for their design.

6850278
The thing I never liked from Human OCs, at least from some stories, is that they're either the edgy depressing type, or all of the Human OCs act the same way as if they're all from the same background.

I prefer a lot of diversity.

6850279
Hm. Outside of the human-centric stories I mentioned in my original post from those two specific stories, I really haven't had much trouble making a diverse set of characters.

6850257
I find that if I'm not paying attention, I naturally lean to writing sarcastic characters. However, instead of trying to stop this I find it easier to just write stories that have a need for sarcastic characters.

6850257 Well yes, it's just that mostly my preferred character type is Rainbow Dash.

Weird, that. Outside of that no real preference, but there are certainly characters I find more of a chore to write than others.

I have a very deliberate mold for my protagonists, which has been broken all of once in all of my fiction, including my original works which at this point far out number my mlp fics. That mold is a queer femme character who tends to be an outsider in some way from where ever the story takes place at. I have found cannon main characters to be limiting to my writing any more. In this I mean stuff like writing Twilight or Applejack even when they are secondary characters. There are some cannon characters that are easier to write but as of late I have been leaning heavily into alternate universe stories where changes to cannon happen before the beginning of cannon and then me attempting to write a cannon character changed by that event and what followed as a result. The most current example is writing a Twilight whose parents weren't changed back after being turned into plants by her magical surge leaving her and Shining Armor orphaned. (For the record spike did pop back down into a small baby dragon but that was due to the difference in what magic had been applied to him compared to the parents)

I've been told a terrifyingly large percentage of my protagonists seem like alcoholic sociopaths with proclivities towards promiscuity and violence.

6850359 "The most current example is writing a Twilight whose parents weren't changed back after being turned into plants by her magical surge leaving her and Shining Armor orphaned."

"I know." Twilight Sparkle sighed and returned to watering the flowers in the Golden Oak Library windowbox. "Growing up after I lost my parents was so difficult. But now I'm here, and I have so many wonderful friends!" She put the watering can down and gave Applejack a brief hug. "Thank you for sharing."

"Tain't nuthing," said Applejack as Twilight turned around to gather some nearby books. "Fact is, Granny done her best to raise us up right like my parents, and Ah've kept myself busy with the apple farm since then. It cracked our family, but didn't quite break it, and we've been growing it back together ever since." She nipped a blossom off the nearby flower and chewed while thinking. "Ah think they'd be right proud of the way we--"

"Mom!" screamed Twilight Sparkle, darting back over to the window and the flower that had just provided her friend a morning snack. "Are you hurt!"

6850446
Okay so that is great and I hadn't thought of that.

Hmm let me think... I would have to say that I love writing about humans a tab bit more than ponies but my first published novel on here is about a unicorn oc who happens to be a secret seventh element of harmony. Unlike a lot of other stories however he's not OP as all hell. He has his one shtick that he's good at and that's technology and even then he's had some setbacks from time to time. He's just as flawed as everyone else and he learns overtime with everyone else from the show.