Silver and Gold: When Your Characters Age
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Make new friends, but keep the old.
One is silver, the other is gold.
It’s a children’s rhyme talking about friendship.. but it can be relevant to fictional characters as well. Afterall, characters that authors become close to are like internal, personal friends.
Some writers enjoy taking their characters for the long ride down the path of life. They keep the same characters for many years and develop them slowly, fully throughout their writing lifetime. Other writers enjoy creating new characters for each new world or writing project they undertake. Their thrill is in meeting new people and developing new characters in different directions each time.
This piece is going to focus on the authors that like to develop long-term characters… and how their characters are affected by time and changing interests.
Developing Your Character Skills
Designing and developing fictional characters is a skill, just like any other skill that an author has in his or her toolbox. And like other skills, writers get better at character design and development with time and practice. The more a writer works with characters, the more he or she will learn about how to build a strong foundational psychology and background for those internal, personal friends.
This means that though the oldest characters a writer created may have had the most time to develop, they may not be as dynamic as some of the writer’s newer characters. This is no fault of the character… it’s just a fact of growing skill and knowledge on the writer’s part.
When Authors Change
Character-driven writers are people who are very aware of change and emotional development. Afterall, that’s the whole focus of their own writing - stories that hinge on the way their characters grow, what they learn and how they become different people at the end of all things.
Writers are subject to the same changes as their characters. There’s no getting around what time adds to our knowledge, experience and emotional outlook on life. Similar to friendships that may grow stronger or fade over time as people change, an author’s connection to older characters may also wax and wane with their mindsets and life circumstances.
What may have once seemed the ultra-cool character to write about two years ago is now a shamefully shallow and annoying fellow that you’d roll your eyes at. A character that you may have never even considered developing years ago has stolen your heart away in your newest chapters. Again, this isn’t so much the fault of the characters as it is a change in the way the writer views the world, themselves and other people.
What To Do When Characters Age
Have you found yourself in a situation where your beloved long-term character suddenly seems less attractive than your shiny newly developed characters? And if so, how does that make you feel? Maybe it doesn’t bother you - it might be a sign to move on to newer things. Or maybe it bothers you a lot - a character you have a lot of emotional connections to is being shoved aside… and no matter what you try to do, you just can’t get that special spark for writing them anymore.
What are some options for writers when something like this happens?
Character Makeover. This can be a tricky thing to do — trying to figure out what makes the newer characters more appealing, and finding a way of bringing the old character up to date. The only problem is that if you change the older character’s dynamics too much too quickly, they’ll no longer be the character they were before.
Perhaps the character doesn’t need a complete makeover, however. Consider what areas you may not have developed and see if you can’t flesh out bits and pieces that rekindle your interest. Real characters are very much like people - there is always something new to learn from them if you know how deep to look.
Character Hiatus. Life runs in cycles - you can see that in modern fads that come and go. We become interested in something and when that interest runs its course, it’s off to something else. But that doesn’t mean that sometime later, we might not rediscover old things and find interest anew.
The same holds true for characters. Maybe what you need is some time away. Go do something different. See new things. Meet new characters. But don’t forget the old characters - you never can tell when they might fit just perfectly in a new project and will demand to make their grand re-entrance.
Character Retirement. It may be the easiest or most difficult thing to do. Letting that character ride off into the sunset for the last time. Does that mean that the character is no longer a part of your writing? No. Just like the friends you make and people you meet, there will be something of that character that has made a mark on your life that cannot be undone. But maybe it’s time to let them rest.
Have you ever experienced troubles with character aging? If so, how did you approach the situation? We’re always looking to hear other writers’ experiences and thoughts!
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2 Comments on Silver and Gold: When Your Characters Age
if is regarding age, i usually evolve my character into a more elder/playing a more senior role. e.g. politics (advisors to kings), parenting/tutoring younger characters (create new spinoff character from the older ones), freedom of press (writing for truth, coz pen is mightier than the sword) and involved in ancient studies (mages style…locked up in tower).
GamicPresss last blog post..Trickster Tales - Time Crisis (S3) Episode 3
KJ sez:
Aging characters… Hmm. I can respond to that in a number of ways.
In terms of in-story aging, I’ve seen quite a number of them go birth or early childhood into middle age and parenthood– often kicking and screaming along the way, but occasionally with dignity. I’ve been amused sometimes, and other times saddened by watching someone’s early hopes and dreams come crashing down. Even that old scamp Kat grows up eventually. Some characters I met when they were older and then learned where they began, but of the characters that I met when they were young and watched them grow along with me, I’d say I’m proudest of Telion. He was a very broken and fragile boy when we first met… and now I’ve seen him grow into a strong man on whom others can depend. The passion is still there, but it’s a steady source of emotional power rather than turbulence. He’s not only learned to heal, but he reaches out to heal others.
As far as characters who’ve changed as MY life changes… Well. There are some I really can’t feel anymore. Others I’ve revisited and found they’re not at all the person I thought they were. Whole stories I’ve had to let go, because the brilliant bits I thought were worth saving… aren’t worth an entire story which engenders no love or enthusiasm in me. I could have written it then and edited it now– but I can’t go back and recapture that inspiration. I can’t reform a character from the photographs I have left.
I was on a KoH-hiatus for some time while I worked on RS (although the two stories bleed into each other in my mind, so occasionally I’d take a time-out and revisit the future.) Ever since Icarus and her crew reappeared in February or so, however, even RS has been on a back burner, and I can’t get back to working with the characters– even though I’m no more than 50 pages from the end. (That’s not a lot for me!) It makes me sad, because I want to finish it… but I’m not in a state where I can do that right now. Icarus has me in a very harsh and modern state of mind, a gritty lens through which I know if I tried to view RS, I’d be upset.
The third answer involves archetypes, but I think I’ll save that for my own rant.