Age in writing

Age is an important factor in your character’s development.  As you write, you have to address age appropriate dilemmas for your characters.  If you are writing a series, you are presented with the issue of aging your character or keeping it  the same age throughout the series.  The interactions of your characters should be age appropriate, around issues that affect that particular age group.  Marriage dilemmas, teen issues, younger kid’s points of view, all of that is taken into consideration when writing your characters.  In a historical novel, some of this issues differ with modern times, since women got married much younger (in their teens).  Periods in history affect the age issues in a particular piece of writing, so does cultural backgrounds and regional customs.

Although age is not something that has to be mentioned in the story, behavior and setting of the characters should be congruent with it.