I'm 25, and though these are not all the major characters in West there is definitely a trend.
Jed: 33
Serge: 38
Morris: 29
Jorik: 62
Glista: 29
Since leaving school I haven't spent any time around younger people at all. Went straight to work and never looked back. I have no idea what kids are like independent if my own memories and I'm pretty scared about introducing them. I've even googled kids of different ages because I'm not sure what they look like, how bad is that?
I totally understand! I'm making fewer younger characters nowadays because I feel a disconnect with them in real life.
I'm 21, will be 22 in a few weeks! I came up with Heroes of Thantopolis1 in my senior year of college, when I was 17.
The protagonist Cyrus is 12, and will be 13 at the end of the comic.
Helene is an immortal goddess, she's thousands of years old, age is an illusion.
Sagittarius is as old as the invention of the western zodiac
Trickster and Xisea are dead; Trickster acts like a radical teen, while Xisea is like a child.
When I was younger most of my stories were about young adults or adults. Now I'm an adult and most of my stories are about kids or teens.
It's understandable @ScampiCub, and it's totally okay. Children change so much!
Exactly! When 99% of your time is spent with older people it's going to impact you some how, and as you get older it becomes harder and harder to expose yourself to different groups.
Luckily a few months ago we had an event at work where a face painter was involved and there were kids everywhere. I spent the whole day asking kids how old they were. It's amazing how different two 8 year-olds can look.
@getsuart They really do. It's also insane how vastly different they are between families.
Well, well it is a hard question. So much depends of the script. But in general my main character are in 20-30 years old. But a lot of them are more than 60s. I don`t think age is universal for my stories, the plot will make the age of them. In some of my stories pass an entire character life.
My stories are very influenced by 1800s literature, because of that, have an entire variety of ages.
I am 33, and the main characters in A LEGEND (of some sort) are:
Unnamed Protagonist - About 17-19
Princess Rona - About 18-20
Mindy the Water Spirit - A few thousand years old
The Master Blade - A few thousand years old
Gohrim the Wizard - About 65
Agnar the Magician - About 45
However, most other stuff I write tends to feature protagonists around my age, so I definitely noticed that effect too, @joannekwan
I'm 23!
In Aetherwing, only a couple characters are under thirty (with a fair amount of them being in the 30-40 range.) Azora (a main character) is 19, and Marcel (the other main character,) is 22. I'd place Myra at around 46, and Calgyre is probably in his early 30s? (Or at least he looks like he is.)
I'm 31. The protagonists in Stray Cats aren't quite as old as I am. For the bulk of the story Grey is 26 and Sabot is 25, though we're not quite there yet.. right now they're 22 and 21 respectively (and only Sabot has a couple chapters when he's 22-24). I definitely feel the need to make characters that are at least sort of in my age range, that way I don't feel like I'm making them unrealistic (unintentionally adding in my inherent ageism).
I'm 26
In Discount Religion The ages for some of the characters are a little tricky, but going by physical age Angie and Birdget are 16, Christopher is 19 and Vicktor is 38.
Well given most of my characters in Lalita at the end of the universe are from different planets i never thought of ages. But for my human characters
Lalita and Nina are 19-20
Eli is 21
And i have 2 other characters that show up are 23-24
Which make scence because the story began as a escape from my adult life (I'm 23) so i wanted a group of characters that are with that age group.
But my other stories all seem to be in the age range of 13-17. But this would be because i want to make stories that would appeal to children and create characters closer to their age than mine
I'm in my late 20s now but I originally started working on Zenchav when I was in high school. The main character then was a super old ageless character and that's more or less the norm for the story now, lol! I did use more teenager aged characters as subsidiary characters then compared to now since the main story was centered around a school. The school is still in the story (which is a large part of my second comic Zenchav Out of Order) but I think the way in which it is used reflects that I'm older since I focus more on the teachers and parental characters than the younger ones. I do still enjoy writing teenagers though and I feel pretty comfortable making them protagonists still, as I have in other stories of mine.
My main characters are 16 years old, their teachers from 24 to up. Same with the villains.
the rest characters have variety in years, even going to 11 years old.
I'm 19, and my main comic protags are 10-11 years old, with one 14 year old. anyone older than that is a side character.
most stories i've written in the past featured characters younger than 13, mostly because i've always enjoyed writing child protagonists and the only books that interested me when i was little were about kids my age. you can have them facing danger or being introspective, and their lack of experience/autonomy can affect how they view the setting or the plot's events. i'm still hesitant about writing in-depth adult characters as protagonists, since i dont have the life experience myself.
but i do write short stories about teenagers around my age, and my more recent characters having been getting older; some of the stories i want to write in the future aren't well-suited to be led by children. .... plus it's probably socially unacceptable for an adult like me to be so invested in making fictional children as miserable as possible. :B
"plus it's probably socially unacceptable for an adult like me to be so invested in making fictional children as miserable as possible. :B"
Tell that to JK Rowling
I'm nearing my 20s, and like everyone mentioned here, people usually write characters with similar ages or at least near their own age range. Personally , I like writing characters near my age group because I feel like I can make them more fleshed out since I'd be more or less aware of the kind of issues and troubles they may or may not deal with.
I used to like making teenage characters for my comics , but then given the setting of a lot of my stories, having a bunch of teens as the central characters sometimes makes it feel implausible.
My character's ages are :
Laine : 23
Altair: 28
Mira: 27
Heike: 36
They're pretty much around their early 20s to early 40s. With the main character perhaps being the youngest in the cast. Oddly enough, my characters are waaaaaaaayyyyy older than I am. orz
I'm 26 years old here all the main characters ages. I tend to write protagonists from the mid teens to mid twenties because that is generally my target audience. I started making comics when I 17 years old however, my art was horrendous until I was 22.
Seishin Patona1 (action, adventure, fantasy) Zethero is 19, Aureen is 18, Zamel is 25, Kaligus is 30
In The Midst (drama, romance, slice of life) Sikaru is 16 going on 17(has a birthday in the story) Amilia is 15 going on 16 (also has a birthday coming up) Elvos is 17
I'm 22 going to be 23 in June.
I made my four main protagonists when I was in my teens.
Lucy is 22
Jack is 20
Trent is around 18
Mel's age shall remain unknown for a while 
And Umbra is thousands of years old
I'm a youngster, 19 years old.
When I first got serious about writing my own stories (right around age 11), all my 11-year-old friends were writing stories about 16 and 18 year olds. I read their stories and thought, "well gosh, these characters don't act like any 18 year olds I know", so I made a rule that my characters could only be my age or max three years older. I finally dissolved the rule a few years later, but I would bet you money that well over half of my characters are in between the ages of 12 and 15. Even 16 and 17 year old characters are kind of few and far between for me, ha.
That said, in my practice comic the main cast consists of people aged 15, 27, 33, 35, 53, and 58. That's probably the most diverse age group in any of my stories, ha. I have another couple of comics on the stove, most of which have casts in the 12-16 or 16-20 age range.
I'm 27, and my four MC's are:
Volken - 18
Meri -15
Rosso - 26
Nero - 28
I guess there could be a relation if you could find one, but for me I wasn't really thinking on it too hard back when I started.
I'm 30 and my characters in Silversong are:
Tebetha - 18
Garfric - 62 ... (Erren years 27ish)
Bowen - 21
Sebastian - 23
Socha - ???
There are a lot of other characters to that greatly stretch this age gap too, like Teb's folks Silvie is ??? and Torrian is 53, not to mention a folk turning up on chapter 3 thats roughly 70
I'm 24 and my characters in Cosmic Fish have ages that vary really, especially since none of them are human, but the comic still focuses on the aspect of growing up and how society or your own perception can change you for better or worse, so most are young adults (or late teens)
Acantha - starts off around 18 or so.
Krazzle - he's 53, although in his species years it's a little less in our perception, a little over a decade? -waving motion-
Gallo - He's about 24 too
Characters for later
Bavel - She's 23
Hessa - 12
Ramus - 16
Schnell - 72
For the guardians it doesn't really count and it's not because they're immortal but mostly because once they die, they're reset. So age doesn't matter to them but i guess I'll say Bells is about 60 since the last reset, more or less. The other guardians: Syias (48), Meynia (89), Fanud (135), Ciante (41), Dehra (114)
(They die a lot, people just don't notice)
The Vapors is set in college so all of the characters are college-age; the main characters are freshmen so they're both 18.
At the moment I don't plan to bring parents or teachers or siblings or anyone outside of college-age into the story; I kind of like the idea of the college setting as this weirdly insular little community of young people that exists separately from the "real world".
Edit: Also, I'm 27
Most of my characters in my comic Life of an Aspie1 are teenagers in their first year of high school putting them all in the 15-16 age range. The main protagonist's grandma who works at the school she attends is part of the Baby Boomer Generation putting her age in about the mid 60's.
I totally relate to this as well because when I was like 15-18 years old my character line up ages from 11-16 then when I got into college my character lineup was like 20-21. I'm currently 24 and my main character, The Angel with Black Wings is around 27 and Silver is around 29 (in terms of looks though. Their real age is way older than what they physically look like.) Ray on the other hand, is 15 because it's required in the story.
I think over the course of time my preferences change. Back then I was really fond of school life and would like to create a detailed story about highschool and love stories but when I got older I prefer more serious stories that deals about emotional and real life struggles.
Hey! I'm 20 years old, but I started my romance comic Alone when I was a few months shy of my 19th birthday. As for my two main characters, Sarah is 32 and Jack is 37.
I'm 23 myself, I feel like I keep going on about stories I haven't been started on, oh well. Most of my characters gravitate towards the young adult age, and possibly younger. Its my favorite type of fiction and I find it easiest to write in that age group.
Ah, never thought about the connection until now! There was another thread asking creator/readers age, which was great seeing who is participating here. Reading others responses on this thread, I see that creators tend to write within their age group (stick to what you know)-- to an extent. As we go through life -- observing and living-- our first hand experience tends to shape our characters.
I'm 33. Started thinking about these characters when I was 31.
The Pale1 (drama, crime, supernatural)
Some of the main Characters in Issue/Chapter 1 are:
Sheriff Logan 40, Agent Ink 33, Dawn 26, Eddie 25, Harold is in his 40's, Luca 27
Creating the age ranges is a different story, but certain life events and time had to pass by to get to a particular age for Agent Ink... it just happened to place him at my age.
Very fun thread!
We're both recently 22 years old! Our characters:
I think statistically most characters tend to be aged at 15-30ish years. People usually find this the "ripe most relate-able storytelling age". Not that you can't write characters beyond those ages, but that's the "safe zone" for most writers.
I guess it's only natural to make most characters similar to our own age because that is the age we are most familiar with, can relate to, and can represent the best.
However, since In Our Shadow features characters who are evolved animals with far shorter lifespans than humans, my characters range between two and four years old... with one exception of a 46 year old ^^
Generally speaking though, I have twenty-something characters because those I can relate to, and can be the most versatile in situations XD
The Daniel casts' ages, eh?
Daniel himself is 27...but also became an undead guy, so he's kind of stuck in a messed up, dead version of 27.
Christine is 26
Wayne is 29
Leonard is 34
Francie is 31
Molly is 7
I wanted to ask something in this topic rather than start a whole new one on it....
Do you guys think having older main characters (I'm talking mostly like 40s-60+) would turn away readers? Are they not relatable enough to a younger audience? Or do you even think the characters looks make more of a difference than most care to admit?
Ooh, great question!
I think a series with an older cast could definitely turn away some readers, particularly teenaged ones, since they're at that age when they're beginning to figure out who they are as a person and consume media featuring people/characters doing the same thing. But having an older cast could also be an interesting hook, like in the movie Red (but even that has that young woman who is thrust into the old pros' world).
For me, how much I can relate to a character is based mostly on their personality.
I'm subbed to this one series, Easy2 (careful, some nsfw stuff and man x man themes), about a middle-aged teacher who is still trying to find himself. He isn't particularly handsome, or fit, or dashing (so like a lot of 40+ year old men xD), and I can see how people can pass over it. But I enjoy it because he's introverted, shy, and a little grumpy at times, all of which can describe me as well.
But definitely looks are a huge part of it. Like vampires can be hundreds of years old, but they're usually very beautiful/handsome/young looking, and those are the ones that sell. I think people tend to be more shallow than they like to admit.
Yeah, I can actually see some people going, "I-I can't like this character, he's old and wrinkly! Eww. XO"
I also never see old people who are turned into vampires (save for ONE time in the TV series Salem's Lot). That's actually even worse than being an eternal child in my opinion, it'd be....interesting. o_o
I wanted to make all my main characters teenagers at first but that didn't seem quite right, plus it would have made the story very 1 dimensional and boring, so some of them are older and even the younger one's have occupations. Truth be told, the reader barely gets to see any school life it seems like they're older because of their experiences. I'm 21by the way.
Mitsuki aka Scarlet - 18 - Priestess
Yuki - Undefined since he's a spirit of sorts though he fits right in with the group
Kouta - 18 - Music shop assistant
Ichi - 18 - Student body president (They all attend the same school)
Akatsuki - 22 - Professional comic artist
Takeo - 24 - Professional calligrapher
(Kouta, Ichi, Akatsuki and Takeo are also what are known as guardians)
The others that have appeared so far
Ko-chan - 30s - Priestess (She likes dressing younger though )
Mitsuki's Grandmother - 60s - Kannushi and Spirit council member
Asumi - 23 - Priestess
I'm 17 and most my characters for Blood Type: AB are pretty young.
Beenard: 22
Caroline: 26
Elsie: 23
Bronty: 24
I feel weird having such young characters for this project, usually my characters are between 35 and 60, but Blood Type: AB's story just worked better with a younger cast. It's really weird drawing such young clean faces, no hundreds of wrinkles in sight.
I might do a project with my older characters at some point, I love them so much and I always need more stuff with older characters.
I wish I could tell you the age of my characters, but the age of pretty much EVERY main character would be a GIGANOMANIC spoiler... well... I am 29. That's no spoiler at least. It's just sad.
Lol I guess they think it would be weird seducing an old person XD but they do have older looking vampires in Underworld and kinda oldish ones in Twilight I think.
Also guilty of aging characters along with myself, ha! It must have to do with comfort-zones, being able to write your experiences properly in lieu of guessing ahead of time.
For There's No Such Thing as Jason -- I.T., the characters range from 18 to 31. Jason (View) Centrall is freshly 18, a super nervous college freshman. Dimitri (Dim) Lassre is 21, somber and scheming, works at Jason's university as an I.T. consultant.
