Ask A Wench – Characters’ Ages

Christina here and this month for Ask A Wench we are answering a question from one of our readers, Linda Herold, who will receive a copy of one of my books as a thank you! She asked:-

I’d like to know what age group the authors prefer their main characters and secondary characters to be. Also do they like to include family members as characters in their books. I prefer older characters – 40 year olds and up!!

Anne here. I generally prefer my romantic hero to be aged somewhere between the late 20’s and early 30’s, and my heroines to be between 19 and 26. I don’t like there to be too much of an age gap between them, although I know that in history there were often quite large age gaps. But I think modern readers find large age gaps hard to swallow. When I do venture outside these limits, it’s because it’s an issue in the story. I have written a few older heroines and heroes — a couple of heroines who thought they were beyond the age of marrying — but theirs is usually a secondary romance. In general, I stick to younger ones.

But I don’t people my books with all young characters. I almost invariably have at least one elderly character — often more — generally old ladies, but I’ve also had elderly men. I can’t seem to write a story without them, and I enjoy what they bring to the story. And of course there are characters in between, including friends and siblings and children of varying ages. I would like to write a story with a middle aged or older heroine and hero, but that story and those characters haven’t come to me yet. Perhaps one day.

Pat here. Funny you should ask … <G> In romance, I have been debating this question for some time. It’s difficult to break a decades-old habit. It requires rethinking what constitutes romance, and because I write historicals, the subject is complicated. But recently, I’ve taken up writing romantic Regency mysteries, where it is much easier to incorporate older characters. The Gravesyde Priory Mysteries series is all about family of all ages. The earl’s descendants include several lively older dowagers, a middle-aged widow who prefers to be a housekeeper and is currently looking fondly on the butler, and a plethora of cousins of all ages. Everyone takes an active part in the mystery but so far, the romances have been about the younger couples.

Now that I’ve started the spin-off series featuring characters in the village, I have an opportunity to return to people who long ago left Gravesyde Village. I’ve not yet breached the 40-year old barrier for the romances, but I’m actively pursuing the possibility, waiting for the right story to emerge. Middle-aged couples carry a whole lot of baggage to sort out—can I make that part of the mystery? Stay tuned …

Mary Jo here. Fun question! My stories include a range of characters of different ages and often there are family members – sometimes as a source of conflict! More often there are friend groups who are de facto families.

For romantic protagonists, I’m not fond of very young characters – 17 year old virgins just don’t seem very interesting. I think the youngest heroine I’ve had was Caroline, the heroine of my very first book, The Diabolical Baron, and she was 21. I like my characters to have some life experience. In general, my heroines are mid to late 20s and have successfully dealt with life’s challenges. The heroes are usually six or seven years older, so early to mid-30s. Old enough to have significant life experience and to be well established in their lives. (Though I often throw them curve balls!)

One element of romance is having two people coming together to form a new family and likely have children. I’m always aware of the risk of death in childbirth in earlier eras, and I don’t want my heroines to be so old that they’re at risk. (In my contemporary trilogy, the heroines were in their thirties and the heroes were close to the same age.)

A number of my books have secondary romances and that may well include an older couple because the more happy endings, the better. I think my champion happy ending book is Lady of Fortune, the second book I ever wrote. I believe there are five romances, and one is most definitely an older couple. The more the merrier!

Andrea here. My heroes and heroines tend to be in their late 20s — early 30s, as I like them to have experience in some of the ups and downs of Life, which makes them more interesting for me to “flesh out.” Building relationships is challenging — creating trust and bonds of friendship means that the characters have to confront their fears and vulnerabilities. Adversity and disappointments from the past makes building an elemental connection in the present a more complex process to explore. But I find that more and more, I’m adding a variety of ages in my stories, including not only family members, but creating “found families”. I love the added texture and depth that those interactions bring to the main characters. (And in fact some of the so-called secondary characters have taken on a life of their own within a series!). Older characters add wisdom, but they can also add emotional depth as they confront aging and the elemental cycle of Life. And children can add a spark and verve that bring humor and the sense of excitement of all that lies ahead for them in their journey.

My present series, the Wrexford & Sloane historical mysteries, has an ever-growing cast of characters, and I find it great fun to keep weaving and reweaving the specific bonds between the “inner circle.” Sometimes, like real people, they surprise me and keep me thinking about relationships. And that’s a good thing for an author!

Susan here. Often in historical romance, the ages of the hero and heroine fall in the 20s and early 30s, and I’ve kept in that range for many of my books too. When I first wrote romance fiction, my heroines were 20 or 22, and heroes were 28-30 for the most part. Now, looking back, they seem young for some of the situations they handled, but young love was the driving force, and I wrote mostly medieval then – at least my heroines weren’t historically accurate teenagers! Character age often depends on the needs of the story. In my Lady Macbeth, the main character ages from child to a woman in her forties, developing from innocence through powerful determination with a touch of weary wisdom; her counterpart, Macbeth, enters as a youth and ages into his fifties. In Queen Hereafter, Margaret of Scotland ages from young girl to about forty-two, and Malcolm Canmore goes from late twenties to his sixties. History dictated the ages of these couples and gave me the chance to work with older, more worldly characters. Now, I’m writing romance characters who are a little older, the heroines mid to late twenties, heroes into their mid-thirties. Life has taught them much, and the extra years can bring believable depth to a soulmate relationship.

Just now, as I finish writing The Guardian’s Bride, the heroine is a 27-year-old widow and healer accustomed to independence in her work and her life, while the hero is a 36-year-old widower with a small son; his covert work for Robert Bruce has landed him in hot water more than once. What both have learned through their various life experiences has shaped their characters and deepened their ability to love. There is a quality of timelessness and agelessness with characters closer to thirty years old; it’s a just-right age that provides what my romance fiction and characters need. I’m certainly open to writing older characters, especially in mainstream fiction, when actual-factual history decides the ages and experiences of the characters and the author follows those clues to see what the story will bring.

Christina here. I have to admit I don’t write older heroes or heroines, purely because I like my main characters to have their whole life before them. I blogged about this here and explained my reasons, the main one being that I want the couple to have the choice of whether to have children in the future or not. If a heroine is 40-plus, that would be much more difficult (although not impossible of course). And it could be that both she and her partner already have kids from previous relationships, in which case it’s not an issue. In my last book, Legacy of the Runes, the heroine was quite young (18) and the hero as well (21), but as they live in the Viking Age, that was considered mature then. Life expectancy was short unfortunately and boys were even thought to be old enough to go raiding once they turned 12!

I love having older and younger secondary characters though, often a mentor or someone wise who can advise and guide the main characters. Also help them quietly in the background and generally support them when they need it. Family dynamics can also play a huge role in a story and I try to make sure parents, siblings and other relatives are of diverse ages so that they can have some sort of influence/input on how the story plays out. As of right now, I don’t have any plans to write older MC’s, but who knows?

What does everyone else think? Do you want older or younger main characters, or a mixture of both? And do you like lots of secondary characters of varying ages?