In this episode of A Book and A Dream, Megan O'Russell discusses getting a character's age across through experience, knowledge, and even sexual know-how.
Also a special notice! Ember and Stone, book one in the Ena of Ilbrea series, is only $0.99 for a limited time. Escape the madness of the world for a little bit. Escape into Adventure. https://books2read.com/EmberandStone
In this episode of A Book and A Dream, Megan O'Russell discusses getting a character's age across through experience, knowledge, and even sexual know-how.
Also a special notice! Ember and Stone, book one in the Ena of Ilbrea series, is only $0.99 for a limited time. Escape the madness of the world for a little bit. Escape into Adventure. https://books2read.com/EmberandStone
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is like brushing the back of hands, going to be the ultimate insight of excitement. Or is it just, you know, a little bit of casual foreplay while in a ballroom full of people, Welcome to a book in a Dream with Megan. Oh, wrestle an author's adventure and writing, reading and being an epic sand girl. Hello, my name is Megan Oh Russell, and welcome to Episode 16 of a Book and a Dream. Have you ever really wondered how authors go about describing characters ages as there's not a line up at the front of the book where they're like and this 12 year old and this 14 year old, How do you get the vibe of what age group your characters have? It's tough. Let's just start there. One of the weirdest things is how your perspective of events shift over time. So I recently read a Twitter threat about people discussing a Druze and books. And then I was speaking to my husband about how we look at things so differently that by the time you're an adult, are you really sure how things went when you were a little like when I was four? I was in preschool, and I have this crush on this boy in my head. We were dating and he moved Now in my memory, which seems like it should be correct. He came to say goodbye to our preschool class, and he was wearing like a little military school uniform, which I thought was like real cute. But I can't think of any circumstances. Were a four year old would be wearing a miniature military uniform? We're being sent to military school. I don't think that exists when people are for I don't know. He was probably wearing like a polo and shorts to go to like the Catholic preschool, and I just thought that it was super fancy, but in my head he was like shipping out. So that's one of the biggest problems that I found in writing. The different age brackets is how they view the events that are unfolding around them and how we as readers experience them through those characters. So, for instance, it's easier to talk about in the first person, though this is not an exclusive issue. Two books that are written in the first person. So let's take Bryant Adams of High magically messed up my life and for African Days and Anna Ryland of Ember and Stone. So they're both about the same age when the book start out. If you look at their lives where they've been, Bryant is in Manhattan. He's privileged to 16. He's never had anything like duck defying, but has, like some good world experience, he's growing up in Manhattan. He's traveled. He, like, goes to high school in the Bronx and, you know exciting things. Then you look at Anna. She has a very small scope of experience. She's really never been outside of her tiny town, where she knows everyone there. But she's dealt with a lot of trauma. She's dealt with death. She's dealt with fear. So even though they're both starting off and I'm living on a level playing field as far as age, Bryant is gonna look at things a lot more flippantly, a lot more excitedly. He's going Thio think of things as adventures rather than a threat, because in his world things aren't threats, their adventures. Everything's gonna turn out fine. You know, my mom's gonna be there making me dinner when I get home, and it's all gonna be cool, which you know, then obviously, who ripped that security out from under them? Because that's what authors do. They torment their characters. But if you were to put Anna in that same exact situation, probably removing cellphones, cause she wouldn't know what they were, she wouldn't view it as an adventure. She would view it as a threat on her life. Now she wouldn't have the knowledge base to necessarily be able to identify it because you know no Internet or to know exactly where to run to, because she only knows her village. But she would have the street smarts to view it as a threat right away. And a lot of that does have to do with genre our expectations within a genre very greatly, like if you're writing, I dystopian your character should be at least familiar with painted death. Even if they haven't experienced it personally, they should at least know that the world is a deep, dark, not so great place. They should have that base level, whereas, you know someone like Bryant who's looked unhappy. Little Manhattan thinks like, Oh, yeah, there are problems in the world, but Starbucks and pizza so there is a difference based on that. A lot of it also has to do with how we as a society, view teenagers especially, well. Im away author. So for me, it's teenagers. But when I was 12 I was, you know, muddy and scratched up from playing outside and, you know, hanging out in tree houses in 12 year olds now have, like, iPhones and perfectly contoured makeup because they're not being forced to go through, You know, 10 years of trauma where you don't know how I shot was supposed to work. So it's a very different thing with how we are allowing Children to grow up, How your pushing to tell, how you're pushing Children to grow up and what our expectations are of what knowledge they should have at what time. Unfortunately, while that affects people like Bryant, what are you gonna do about the other genres? So here are a few things you want to look at when you're choosing how to project a certain age. Group B A 13 16 4 30 Whatever it ISS. First of all, you want to look at your time period. A 16 year old in the Victorian era would not be well unless it was a plot point that it's weird that she is hooking up with a guy in a closet. She would not be crawling around with some guy in the hay. Unless, of course, it is part of your story that she's like stepping out there. But that would not be considered average behavior that would be considered something strange where you know, you write a modern set novel and some people go play, spin the bottle and make out in the closet for seven minutes and everyone's like Friday night. What do you know Dio that also applies to fantasy worlds like you're creating an offworld fantasy. You're not gonna have a time frame like we would have for, you know, Well, in the 19 twenties, this was okay. But in 18 10 that was a big no, no, but I would strongly suggest making up the rules of your society is P D. A. Okay, is drinking okay, what are the expectations of virginity before marriage? If you're going into you know, that horny away a Siri's? What are their expectations of how Children should get money? Do they live with their parents? At what age should they leave their parents? When are they expected to get married? Answer those questions so you can sort of relate. Thio were in that process of transitioning into adulthood. Your characters fall. Also look at what has been expected of them. Once you've written down that list of what society has expected, what has happened to them personally? Did their parents die? Have they raised four younger siblings? Has everyone else they know still been kept within the safety of home and they've been kept out and forced to earn their own living? How have they been asked to exceed the standard of what is expected of their age group? Also within that comes knowledge level. Let's say you have someone who is super Super book smart. They've read an entire library. The way that they behave because they have all of that knowledge would be different than someone who is illiterate. They're going to know a lot more about royalty, food, travel. They're going to have that knowledge base. A really fun that you can play with is if they have that knowledge base but no street smarts, then you know that can end in disaster and disaster is always fun when you're writing a book. But look at how much education they have, building them up to being the hero in their own story. Also, really, really look into genre, and I know we talked about fantasy and dystopian, but there are expectations of books. If you are going to write a paranormal romance, they're going to expect your characters to behave a little bit older than if you write a straight up urban fantasy. If you're writing an Academy book, you can get away with more innocent behavior and mannerisms than you can. If you're writing a dystopian, So do your genre research. Read some books and see where the line in the sand has been drawn. Another thing. And it's always awkward to talk about because they're teenagers and, like you couldn't even film this for HBO. But you need to look at how much romantic experience your characters have had versus their peers, so f there in a strict society where there's like no touching allowed. Have they fit in with that? Do they know what happens when touching happens? Have they been told the birds and the bees have they gone there for themselves. While I don't think that and let me hop upon my feminist soapbox for a moment, well, I don't think that every character's virginity is necessarily the business of the reader. You, as an author should at least know, as they know what lies below the clothing of the opposite sex because you know that's going to change. How they interact with their love interest is like brushing the back of hands, going to be the ultimate, an insight of excitement? Or is it just, you know, ah, little bit of casual foreplay while in a ballroom full of people, Those are great ways to build on what your character knows for their age group, if you need to add in a side character who's either more prudish or more sexually active than your protagonist in order to give readers and deeper look into the world and what that society expects of them in the different ways they could disappoint their parents. Then go for it. It's world building. It'll give readers a better insight into what is making your character tick and what ways you want them to grow. Speaking of growing, your characters know going in. How big a journey you want them to take? Are they Starting off is an assassin? Are they already the leader? Are they a savior? Are they an innocent child who's going to be forced to become something? If you look at a Siri's like Aragon, you have small town Kid really knows a lot about the woods but doesn't know anything about, like girls or the world or anything else. And by the end, he's epic because he grew. So if you want them to have that huge coming of age story arc like Harry Potter like Aragon, the know how innocent you need to start hm so that you give them a place to grow. If Aragon already had, like, you know, 12 girlfriends and was totally great at fighting, then he wouldn't go anywhere. So, yeah, if you start the series, he reads as a little bit young for his age. But then, by the end of the series, he's way mature for his age because he had that transition. So if you're a reader, give authors the benefit of the doubt that they're creating that are for a reason. And if you're an author, nature you're creating that are for a reason. And most importantly, when you're figuring out how to aid your characters just focus on their personality. If they're super outgoing, super smart let him of their life. If they are an introvert who does not want to speak to any people, let them go. Let them be who they are, guide them with their ages but love them for their characterizations and personalities first, because that is what readers are going to hold on to. So if you are an author, have you ever had any problems setting up how you want your characters to display their age? If you're a reader, are there any times that you've seen this done really well, or maybe not so well? And you're like, Why is this nine year old leading an army? Let me know I am interested. Drop it in the comments below or tweet me instagram me, Facebook, me, I'm everywhere. Don't forget to, like, follow subscribed whatever it is on your preferred platform. If you are watching this as a video, don't forget that a book and a dream is available in podcast form on basically every platform, and I will see you all next time