Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Character age question

This is topic Character age question in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Zixx (Member # 1798) on :

I am facing a dilemma in my current fantasy WIP. In the story, characters of different races have a different life expectancy. Some of the smaller races might be more physically active and can live to 200 years while another race that that utilizes more mental abilities can live for 1000 years, if not a little longer. Also, those expectancies are meant to be natural, not magic that adds years to people's lives.

Someone could say, hey, why don't you just cut everything down X percent and have it be like people today. Or less unrealistic, like Race A lives 100 years and Race B lives 150 or 200 etc. But for my story, the longer life expectancies work better for my timeline, so that certain people know things that others don't because of their ages and how long they've been around.

So any thoughts to whether it is fine or stupid or whatever? Any thoughts or comments would be most welcome.

Thanks

Zixx

Posted by Lord Darkstorm (Member # 1610) on :

Different life expectancies is nothing new. That has been in d&d books for quite a long time. The main thing to remember is the attitude of the people based on that life expectancy. Someone who is going to live 1000 years will not be in much of a hurry most of the time. They have plenty of time and would rarely rush on anything less than life threatening. Shorter lived races tend to be more in a hurry since their time is much shorter.

LDS

Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :

I have long-lived races in my novel. For the longest time I had them living something like 1000 years when I started aking myself those same questions. The thingi s 1,000 years to them will feel much like 100 years to us, so the number makes little difference.

Here's the thing...you mentioned that your timeline depends upon these diffrences, I suppose because some events happened almost a thousand years ago that some of the older thousand year lifespan creatures will remember. Why did it have to ahppen 800 years ago? That only sounds like a big number to us because our lifespan is so short. But actually, if you think about it, there are only a few older people who can still tell us about the turn of the 20th century, and WW II vets are dying off left and right.

But we know all about WWII, you say? Ahh, but in a fantasy kingdom, undoubtedly set in a pr-technical era, the common person will not know about it. It will have been passed down as a story, and certainly been altered already.

As for my own story, I ended up giving them an approx. 300 year lifespan. It seemed to be the best compromise between making things reasonable and getting what I needed out of an extended lifetime. In the end, though, it probably doesn't matter at all what you choose to do.

Posted by Jules (Member # 1658) on :

I've just finished reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Icehenge, which is an SF novel in which human's life spans have been extended to extremely long lengths by a medical breakthrough. This causes all sorts of interesting problems for his characters: massive difficulties remembering things, severe depressions that result in people just not caring what happens around them and becoming semi-catatonic, etc.

Also worth reading along this line are Anne Rice's vampire chronicles (starting with Interview With The Vampire, although you may want to skip it if you saw the film, The Vampire Lestat, Queen of the Damned, and so on...) which sometimes touch on the subject from the point of view of immortality being excessively boring...

Posted by punahougirl84 (Member # 1731) on :

This made me think of Tolkien and his Ents - took all day to say "hello" and remember their responses to Merry and Pippin? Their age certainly affected their personalities and actions...

Posted by Lord Darkstorm (Member # 1610) on :

A concept I have for my novel (which is on hold for the moment) has a group of people who are immortal, but not by choice. How long can a human live before they become insane? I figure after about 2000 years they should just about have lost it. Add to the immortality a thirst for new knowledge, and they become cursed.

Excellent source of information, assuming you can get them rational long enough to find out anything.

Posted by TheoPhileo (Member # 1914) on :

I messed around with this a little in my novel, and quickly ran into the problem of timeline. I have about 6000 years of history in my world, fairly throroughly thought out. But as soon as a race has a 1000-year life expectancy, it only takes a couple generations to span the entire history of the world, which makes it immediately difficult to hide anything in the past you don't want characters aware of yet.

The entire recorded history of our world is only about 6000 years, when you get down to it. Like Christine pointed out, 1000 years is much longer than it actually sounds.

Posted by punahougirl84 (Member # 1731) on :

Also, back to what Jules was saying - HOW do people grow old? Do they do it gracefully (like elves) or do they get wrinkly and crochety, losing memory and ability with time? Is the aging process like what we face now, but times 10 - retire at 650 years, in a home at 850 years? How long is "youth" and at what age are you considered "experienced?" Hate to bring it up... but Robert Jordan has a long-lived race, and there is a "young one" (think he is around 100 or so) going around doing things that would not usually be allowed - he also can't be in on decisions by the "elders" or do certain things. Ogiers, that's their name! They are builders - it makes sense that for great works that take a long time, he has a long-lived race doing such work.

The purpose and culture seem so important to this question. Someone already addressed how people might know stuff anyway, even if they did not witness the events in question. Another tool authors use is making the long-lived characters limited in other ways - like in the size of their population (which works with evolution as well - a trade off - long life, but few children - happens with elves too I believe). If a long-lived character is a wise one with knowledge, they are often isolated - then they are sought out via a long, hard journey. Or, they show up, knowing your mc needs them to succeed in their quest...

Wow, this was cool to think about! I almost feel like a writer...

Lee

Posted by Lord Darkstorm (Member # 1610) on :

quote:
which makes it immediately difficult to hide anything in the past you don't want characters aware of yet.

Why? If you were going to live for 1000 years, and other groups were going to be dying off before 100, you would want to go off and be with others that live as long as you. So by nature most longer lived races would not be in the mainstream civilizations. It is a matter of perspective. If every day of your life became a week, but you only aged one day, life would take on a different perspective. Only the young of the long lived race would venture out to be amoung the shorter lived races.

So if the older lived races concentrated on themselves more than the rest of the world, only events that affected them directly, or something that was large enough to make them take notice, would be remembered. Also there is the assumption that someone 900 years old would even bother speaking with someone that was 20.

If you take any of the majore dnd style books that have been done well, they portray elves as reclusive. They sit in their forests doing their best to ignore the world, and even if someone did go to the elves the elves do not trust anyone not a part of their race and group. There are some exceptions to this, but overall you have quite a bit of control over what a long lived race would tell someone else about. Not to mention it gives you someone who can drop some critcal hints or even outright details of what you need to get across to the main character(s).

LDS

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

I will sum up all the points made above by saying that there is nothing wrong with using long lived races--or even immortal races, as long as you get it right.

And there are some constants about having more life experience (though these are modified by individual variables, of course).

One thing that I think you can do away with is the notion of spending hundreds of years in retirement and then in a nursing home. Such things didn't exist before the beginning of the last century, still don't exist for most of the world's population, and won't exist forever...or even much longer, one way or another. It would be like having your main character drive a Ford truck...fine for a story set in our day, a bit strange in a fantasy or far future SF milieu.

Posted by punahougirl84 (Member # 1731) on :

A long-lived character, say a wizard of some sort, world-weary, goes off into "retirement" - lives on his own away from civilization... MC and friends need to find him to help do away with the bad guy... I was speaking above more about what the aging process would be using an analogy, not meaning there are retirement homes in fantasies! (could see it in sf-futures)

[This message has been edited by punahougirl84 (edited February 06, 2004).]

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Ah, yes...but not a very good analogy. When you use the phrase, "retire at 650 years, in a home at 850 years," it calls to mind the modern sense of the word retirement rather than the older sense.

In the older sense, a wizard would have 'retired' because he wanted solitude, not because he was (feeling) old. So it has nothing to do with the case either way. And no, nursing homes (or the equivalent) won't exist widely in the far future. That is a simple matter of fact. Though I suppose that you'll just have to wait and see...oh, right, the age thing