It was enormous fun to see the world through those different lenses, and try to reproduce that in the books. I needed the help of the old people in town to check that my understanding of their approach to problems was accurate (I’d experienced being a teen and twenty-something…and was then being a forty-something…but had yet to be an eighty-something. And the old ladies at the library loved instructing me. “Would this character do so-and-so?” “Oh, honey! She’s seventy eight? She’d outwit that SOB in ten seconds…did I ever tell you about Old Miz X and that developer fellow from the city?”)

When writing mature characters, it helps to be within ten years of their age–or have access to a variety of people who are their age, and who can check that your handling of situations for the older character makes sense. Otherwise, the much-younger writer will see them through only that lens–not through their own–and is likely to produce cliches (the rigid, conservative, backward-looking spoilsport or the impossibly wise/kind/generous fairy-godmother.) Those who have grown up in multi-generational situations–more than just their own family–are probably best suited to write mature characters when they themselves are still young. And–as always with any writing–it helps to know and interact regularly with people of various ages, observing, listening, and constantly expending your understanding of the full range of human attitudes and behaviors.

I still write young characters…but also middle-aged and older characters…because it’s more fun for me and more realistic for readers.

Regardless of the genre, the protagonist’s age has ramifications on all aspects of the story: there’s the obvious stuff (the way they speak, their physical action, plot elements), and then there’s all of the subtler dimensions (their reactions to events, the narrative voice/details they notice, etc.).

And I think different authors are going to find different ages more natural to write: I know plenty of adult-market authors who cringe thinking about getting a YA protagonist right (and vice versa). Like everything else, it’s a considered choice and one that takes a ton of hard work to execute correctly.

I would say that one of the benefits of a younger protagonist is that you get to sculpt the limits of their experience. In a sense that is an expository crutch because you can now have this new person experience your world without it being a true info dump. I also think that there is a sense of sympathy/empathy for the loss of innocence that is often the backdrop event around which young protagonists struggle. So from a meta-writing stand point they are attractive.

Where as with a mature character you have someone who is going to experience the world with more cynicism and be less likely to make mistakes which allow the writer to offer easy further glimpses. You’re also dealing with mature characters who could be harder to empathize with or to connect with for a broad audience.

With the keener need for subtly in exposition and character development I think the bar is higher for mature characters.

-Seamus