Immortal Characters: Yes Or No?

A panel description at World Fantasy raised the question of how we write immortal characters. So many end up acting like modern twenty- or thirtysomethings. Should we even bother to attempt these centuries-old characters?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Hell, yes.

In one novel concept, I have a 4,000-year-old vampire. In a short story, I have a race of immortal lobster-creatures. One urban fantasy novel has the main character regularly interacting with creatures hundreds, if not thousands of years old. An entire series revolves around a set of artificial intelligences that have shaped the world for hundreds of thousands of years.

So no, I don’t think these are character types best left alone.

However, the pitfalls for making these characters believable are difficult to avoid. The temptation for lazy writing beckons. Far easier to write someone no different in any real way – any of the ways that matter – from anyone you might pass on the street.

Far harder to hold onto the knowledge of the history they’ve experienced, their loves, their hates – all the things that shape who and what they are now.

What might fascinate me most is how they would view time. Time, as the saying goes, is relative, after all. The older we get, the faster it moves. Wouldn’t someone a millennium old lose track of years – maybe even decades – the way we lose track of days of the week?

My advice: write an immortal carefully. But don’t let it stop you from writing.

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