I Don't Want to Grow Up...So Why Must My Characters?

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Feb152010

Monday, February 15, 2010 at 3:00AM in

A pop psychologist coined the phrase Peter Pan Syndrome to describe men who want to remain boys. If there's a female version of the syndrome, I suppose I probably suffer from it.

Don't get me wrong. I like to think I've matured in the ways that matter. I confront my problems. I deal with people directly. I don't lie to my parents even when the truth is uncomfortable. And when I want to lose weight, I do it sensibly - not like that popcorn and pickle diet I tried my sophomore year.

There are perks that have come with age as well. I have a real car instead of that oxidized baby-blue Chevy Chevette POS I used to share with my sisters. I no longer work at Benetton. I can stay up late whenever I want.

But, deep down, inside, where it really counts? I don't want to grow up. I still dance in my living room, stomp in snow piles, and break out into the occasional handstand. Last Thursday, I ate pudding for lunch an hour before teaching the search incident to arrest doctrine to my crim pro students.

The world changes around me, but I'm still the same oddball interacting with it.

I used to be a choir geek obssessed with

These days, I inner choir geek watches America Idol and Glee, and, although I no longer tape posters to my walls -- honestly? I'd love for just one day (maybe week) to be

Am I alone in feeling that external time passes far more quickly than our internal clocks can possibly register? I don't think so.

My mother told me when I turned thirty that she still looks in the mirror and expects to see her thirty-year-old self. These guys? I know they don't define themselves through biological age.

So what's my point? If, at heart, most of us don't want to grow up -- and don't really acknowledge that we have -- why must our fictional characters age on the same clock as those of us stuck in the real world? My husband always tell me to face the music: the only alternative to aging is death. But why must that be true for the characters who live through our words?

One of my favorite writers once told me that his biggest writing regret was that he'd given his beloved series character a year of birth. By doing so, he forever locked his character in the continuum of time, and inevitably that character will face the realities of grey hair and back pain. And we've all experienced that as readers, haven't we? We watch as our favorite protagonists reach their seventh and eighth decades but suspend disbelief as they continue to kick in doors, crack heads, and score with the ladies.

My good pal Kinsey Millhone, on the other hand, gets to stay in her thirties. But to keep Kinsey from aging in real time, author Sue Grafton created a time capsule, freezing the alphabet series forever in the 1980's. With no computers or cell phones, Kinsey's world falls further into the distance from the present with each new book.

But why must a writer have to choose between youth and the present? Having celebrated its twentieth anniversary, The Simpsons is now the longest-running prime time show in TV history. But Bart's not a middle manager in an office park, Lisa's not contemplating her biological clock, Homer and Marge are still ambiguously middle aged, and Maggie's still working on her pacifier. But the world around the family changes. For example, in an early flashback, Homer was into Steve Miller's The Joker.

More recently, we learned that Homer spent college in a 1990's Kurt Cobain-like state.

My Ellie Hatcher series is (hopefully) still in its inchoate stages at the third novel.* Although I could always change my mind, my plan is to pull a Simpsons,** always setting the books in the present, but having only a short period of time supposedly pass between books. The year will change. So will the cultural references. But the people in Ellie Hatcher's world get to stay young.

If I'm lucky enough to enjoy a long-running series, I fully expect to receive emails complaining about "continuity problems," but I plan to find a polite way to tell the haters to suck it. If it's intentional, it's not a problem. I pride myself on the authenticity of my work, but who says fictional characters have to age like the rest of us?

I'd love to hear comments: What have other series authors done to tackle the age issue? And would you think less of a series if the protaganist got to experience a changing external world without having to age like the rest of us?

*B-ish (because it's a footnote) SP: 212, the third novel in the series, is out March 23. Read awesome reviews here and here. Watch my low-budget, home-made video trailer, set to one of the aforementioned pop idols, here.

** A lesson on knowing your audience: I unleashed my the-Simpsons-don't-age observation at a book event, and it turned out that no one in the audience -- I mean no one -- had ever seen a single episode of the Simpsons. They looked at me like a child who ate pudding for lunch.

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Reader Comments (53)

Elizabeth George does that, too. Mere months pass between books, sometimes even weeks (scars are not yet healed), although it takes her more than a year to publish one, and then they are pushed into the present, jumping from car phones to mobiles with no apparent problem. It works for me.

February 15, 2010 |

Ruth

Love Kinsey Millhone. The fact that she doesn't really age is comforting to me.

One thing that is good about never really aging your characters, is that you can surround them with YOUR favorite music. If you like 80's music, maybe that is when you were in high school or college and went to concerts and danced at clubs, etc., then your character can describe moods and events in her/his life with those songs. Isn't it easier for an author to create a character who comes from the most defining and involved tier of the author's life? Maybe it is the teen years for YA or it could be young motherhood. It could be post-divorce single life. It could be the senior years like Miss Marple. I think you are right in that your readers will be the ones who identify with the age of your protagonist whatever it is. If you started writing about a 25 year old 10 years ago, then your readers don't expect your 35 year old detective to be chasing around after criminals with a stroller and front pack, do they?

Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch never seems to get much older. He goes through emotional changes, job changes, marital changes but somehow he never seems to get a whole lot older.....just wiser.......or jaded, maybe. Harry likes jazz which is a timeless music and isn't limited by pop culture.

As a reader I like characters to have definition and when I return to them it is comforting and reliable. Then I understand their context when they start their soul-searching. I think that means that I don't want them to age a heck of a lot. When I turn 85 I will still expect that fucking Bond is not in a wheelchair in a skilled nursing facility like I will be. Jeezus. An old Bond. I shudder at the thought.

I don't even want Kinsey Millhone's neighbor to get older. I worry about that every time I read a Grafton.........but I think he will hang on..... she's only got 5 more letters to go.

February 15, 2010 |

anonymous

Because the characters I most seem to enjoy don't age I am given a chance to be that age while I am sharing their world. I can be as young as 30-something or as old as 70-something (Miss Marple) all in the same day. It's a wonderful way to live!

February 15, 2010 |

Mari

I think Lawrence Block's Matt Scudder aged, albeit slowly. His girlfriend, Elaine the ex-hooker, stated calling him a "grumpy old bear" (even as she seemed to stay in her mid-thirties and pretty). That felt a mite strange. Jack Reacher's starting to confront some of the issues of getting older, which I think has actually added a lot of depth to the character.

But, you know, one of the things that's great about being a writer is that you are, for your fictional world or worlds, God. If You want to grant Your children immortality, then so let it be. Considering all the shit You put them through, it's only fair.

February 15, 2010 |

JD Rhoades

Ed McBain was the master of this. (And quite a few other things as well.) His 87th Precinct characters aged verrrry slowly. Technology and current events changed in real time, but his detectives seemed to grow about one year older for every time years of elapsed time, shown mostly through Carella's kids. McBain just left out specific time references. No character was ever identified as having been in a specific war, or with any other historical event that locked them in. This made the suspension of disbelief easy, especially if one came to the series late, as most had to, since he wrote them for almost fifty years.

February 15, 2010 |

Dana King

I don't know if this is just an odd coincidence or what -- but the middle guy in the Billie Jean clip is me.

February 15, 2010 |

Robert Gregory Browne

I'm not tied to either way -- aging or not aging -- in a series as long as it stays consistent within the world the author built.
Some characters and their situations are timeless. Look how long the McBain books cover in terms of years but nothing really changes. In another favorite series, Margaret Frazer's Dame Frevisse histmyst, Frevisse subtly does mature over the number of books, and I like that too.
Even in tvland, a show like Law & Order has been on forever but they don't comment really on how crime fighting has improved technologically over the years therefore each "now" IS now.
The good thing is that it's fiction, you can do anything you want, but stay consistent or have a good explanation for a big alteration.

February 15, 2010 |

PK the Bookeemonster

"I plan to find a polite way to tell the haters to suck it." Have I told you lately that I love you, Alafair? God that made me laugh.

My series so far is set about twenty years ago, so hopefully I've given myself a bit of a cushion. This year I've given my protag twins, and in real life I'm helping one of them do college apps.

And to me, most books in our genre don't cover the space of a year. Reacher, for instance... we usually follow him for a few days at a time, maybe a week. I think that means Lee can cram in a couple of other adventures into that same fictional year for him.

February 15, 2010 |

Cornelia Read

You have just described me perfectly. I'll be 35 next month and still feel like a teenager. I keep waiting to grow up, but I figure if it hasn't happened yet, it's not gonna.

I'm starting my first YA book now. I figure I may as well embrace it.

February 15, 2010 |

Melanie

Great observations, everyone. All of these examples show that writers don't have to be so literal about age as long as the reading experience is a natural one.

February 15, 2010 |

Alafair Burke

And, Rob, you are hilarious. I should have mentioned that you really have to sit through the first 2 minutes of that Billie Jean video before the good stuff kicks in.

February 15, 2010 |

Alafair Burke

I never really thought this through when I wrote my first book, which I conceived as a standalone. Now I've written a sequel. I might try to stick to standalones, to avoid some of this. If I end up doing more in the Hayden Glass series I think he'll age very slowly against a current-day backdrop. I'd hate to see him using antiquated technology.

February 15, 2010 |

Stephen Jay Schwartz

I'm with you all the way on this. Sheriff Dan Rhodes came on the scene in 1986, but in his county only a couple of years have passed since then. If it was good enough for Wolfe and Archie, it's good enough for me.

February 15, 2010 |

Bill Crider

As a reader, I become immersed in the world of the book, no matter the era nor age of characters. The good stuff is timeless. Josephine Tey didn't write period pieces, but now, of course, they seem quite specific to their era. But I still reread Brat Farrar or The Franchise Affair with the same enjoyment as when I was a teenager. (My inner teen happily co-exists with middle-aged me).

But when my cousins and I were writing the Caroline Cousins mysteries, age of characters seemed so important, perhaps because we based the three protagonists on ourselves. We deliberately lopped 10 years off our ages (as well as a few pounds and wrinkles). We didn't know we were going to write more than one, but we ended up with a trilogy spread out publication-wise over five years. But the action in the books takes place in winter, spring and summer of the same year (the now of the book). We've already decided that if we ever did "fall,'' though, we'd have to skip ahead a couple of years. Or not. You still can't get decent cell service on our island.

Looking forward to everyone's new books!

Cheers!

February 15, 2010 |

Nancy Pate

Your mother is right; I, too, have a mental image of myself at thirty and am always stunned to see that the mirror is not cooperating.

I don't have that "how fast do they age" problem since I write stand alones, but I think Grafton sure was smart to advance each book by about three months instead of a year.

February 15, 2010 |

Louise Ure

Alafair, your real hero should be Stephanie Plum. Not only does she not age, she's never grown up. Sounds like your kind of girl.

February 15, 2010 |

CarlC

I don't find myself paying so close attention to what age the characters are supposed to be. I've heard Robert Parker criticized because Spenser should be very aged but still acts like he's 30. I don't think I ever gave it a second thought. I look more for consistency and authenticity.

What I don't like is a series with a character who experiences all kinds of traumatic events and isn't affected by them; that's kind of an aging effect. A character who, say, watches his best friend die in one book and has no scars in the next book (I completely made that up, so if it resembles someone's plot, it is unintentional). That character doesn't grow or change, more like he's living in Groundhog's Day, which I absolutely hated. So, there you go.

February 15, 2010 |

Jen Forbus

I started out having each book set seasonally so Taylor doesn't grow old to quickly, and have now abandoned that and am relying on the story to dictate what the time frame should be. And I'm trying to think if I've ever said how old Taylor is when the series begins - I think I did, but now I have to go check. But I already have several years on her.

And there's no reason to grow up. It is highly overrated!

February 15, 2010 |

JT Ellison

I do like Stephanie Plum, though I occasionally want to throw the book when she chases someone down in a rabbit costume or some other nonsense. One can be immature and still realistic!

February 15, 2010 |

Alafair Burke

the charactors that blow me outa the water are ones like 007 and some soap opera charactors.
look at what they all have went through(supposedly) but, nope, like TIMEX they *Take a lickin' and keep on tickin'*

things that help us out as writers are , the changing times, mores, standards and beliefs. some of these are: that 50, is sometimes looked at as the *new 30* and it's not unusual to have older female charactors with younger men, inter-racial relationships, health conscience lifestyles, and things to keep everyone younger, smarter, stronger.

and even though the times change, your characters, with how they re-act, think things through, their knowledge, can change with them, sometimes smoothly, or sometimes not, depending on how you want that charactor percieved.

there's that FOURTH WALL also, that allows for the suspension of belief. One of the beauties of fiction is it's enertainment value and why people read in the first place. It's such a personal experience...you're grabbing a few moments of your audience's time and they want to be *taken away* .
To me, some charaters are forever at a certain pre-conceived age and for whatever reason, they stay there. If I'm interested in the world set up by the author, I will usually go back, not only for the main character, but also for those secondary charactors...it's like finding out about people you know and care about...right now, I want to know more about the Pendergast family in Preston and Child's new book ..give me those crazy Pendergasts, please!
In Martha Grimes' books, it's the village of Long Piddleton and that weird collection of characters.They ususally talk to each other in the pub, when they started out I had some of them pegged for early 30's-40's range....and if you think about it,
with the references, in REAL TIME, they would more than likely be in their 60's or 70's by now.

point to ponder: does anyone else seem to get that male characters translate into the *peter pan mode* easier than women do? Not to start a gender war...but I'm thinking of CLIVE CUSSLER'S Dirk Pitt and a few others that are series' related.

February 15, 2010 |

kit

" but I plan to find a polite way to tell the haters to suck it. If it's intentional, it's not a problem. "

I love it--and kudos! :) I like your plan re: aging (or not) and I agree, it doesn't hurt a series a bit to not have characters grow older . . . though it doesn't bother me if they do. The only thing (age-wise) authors do that really irriitates me is choose some random age they feel is old, like, say 60, and then write the character like he/she is 90+-er who's aged badly. That yanks me out of a story way quicker than those who stay forever young (with your poster heros, I figure you'd appreciate the Rod Stewart song reference!).

~Ev

February 15, 2010 |

Ev Bishop

* know your audience* was brought home to me REALLY HARD from our youngest child...so I xan relate to that.
we were in the SUV traveling and had a classic rock station playing when this 13 yr old voice pipes up from the back "o..m..g! that boy SO JACKED Brittney's song!!!"

the BOY??? Mick Jagger

the song??? SATISFACTION

I just turned and said " young lady, we need to do some serious homework here...your education is sadly lacking!"

February 15, 2010 |

kit

Don't let your fictional characters age. Not only are you writing great mysteries, someday you'll be writing great historical mysteries. In the meantime, I'm going shopping for a new mirror. Where's Miss MaryAnn when you need to borrow hers.

February 15, 2010 |

Judy Wirzberger

Kit, That is so sad. I still can't believe that people who are thirty years old don't know the Clash!

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