Writing immortals and age differences within relationships
When I was a teen, there were far too many books featuring characters that were hundreds of year old and dating teens.
It still happens. But we’ve come to a point where many people agree this isn’t great. There’s a huge debate when it comes to age differences in media, but teenagers are generally too young to be dating immortals.
A lot of these stories justify the age difference with the immortal having the body of a teen. Now, if they have the mind of a teen I can kind of see it, however then there’s the problem of, why even bother having them be hundreds of years old if that’s not going to play a role at all in their character?
Personally I avoid them, kind of.
Here’s the thing, in my own books there is a variety of species with very different life expectancy-s, some are immortal, others live for hundreds of years, some have the normal average human lifespan.
So how do relationships work? Scratch that, how do healthy relationships work?
Because we are allowed to write problematic relationships as long as we don’t fantasize them.
Well, I use the life-long method of, it depends.
Because a five year age different is not the same when talking 15 to 20 and 30 to 35. The same goes for immortality, a two hundred year age gap is completely unacceptable for an eighteen-year-old and two-hundred-and-eighteen-year-old.
But what about a forty-year-old and two-hundred- and-forty-year-old? I allow it. Because the thing is, yes, this a complicated and layered relationship, but these are two consenting and understanding adults. It’s important there be communication about the different experiences and this relationships won’t be simple, but there’s no abuse happening here.
A forty-year-old is capable of understanding what they’re getting into.
The immortal character is also capable of understand their human partner won’t be around forever.
For there me, there isn’t a number of years that makes an age gap acceptable or not. For me the youngest characters needs to be fully developed mentally, and there needs to be healthy communication.
That isn’t to say I don’t have characters who are seven-hundred years old and refuse to date anybody under the age of five-hundred, but in their case it’s not a matter of morality, it’s about preferences.
This character has experienced a life very different to that of a human or any other short life span species, and explaining that type of life can be difficult, hard work. They prefer to date people who share similar experiences.
I have a variety of characters with a variety of relationship preferences and their own personal rules. But this is how I handle age-gaps.
I hope you found this interesting and I would love to hear if you have a different opinion!
If you want to check out my books, free to read stories or other social medias you can check out my author website. I also have a discord for my book series where I’m open to talk about writing, publishing and books in general so if you’d like to reach out me join my discord!
My third book will be going into beta reading soon so if that something you’re interesting in, stay tuned!
Have fun writing!
