Oogs again. Here to talk about the common use of younger (teenage) characters in epic fantasy, study the downsides and upsides of this approach, and look at characters on the threshold of one thing or another.
1. Hazards of Mixing Genres
I’ve run across a few epic fantasies lately that were bildungsromane, which leads me to ponder the philosophy of plotting them, as the two genres seem to be rather contradictory. The plot of a bildungsroman is of a much looser weave than an epic fantasy.
A bildungsroman, (to use a metaphor) is like a meandering stream weaving its way through the park, while an epic fantasy is water cascading down a gorge in a thousand waterfalls. Once you start meandering, you don’t want to interrupt yourself with a sharply focused, one-conflict gorge (especially not if you go back to the meandering afterward).
I once read a novel where the writer couldn’t balance the two conflict styles and jerked me back and forth between incidents in the life of the heroine and an external-conflict driven story. Not to say the development can’t be mixed, but in that case, the external conflict has to be the driving force of the internal character development.
A epic fantasy bildungsroman has one real plotting disadvantage. You still need a climax to it. A crescendo. Something to sum up the conflict and bring it to a conclusion. And since it’s internal, you somehow need the external setting to marshal a suitable demonstration of what your character has learned.
But all things aside, when done right, this type of novel can have wonderful results.
2. Appeal of Younger Characters
Branching off from the above, I ask why even bother to write a younger character, who needs that internal growth and development? (I’ll skip over the marketing reason, appealing the target demographic.)
Some fairy tales start out with children young enough to return to the parental home after adventure is done; still fewer start out with an adult who left the parental home (and possibly even married and founded his own home) going on adventures. But the main plotline is generally one in which the hero, living in his parents’ house, leaves (voluntarily or involuntarily), has adventures, marries, and settles down in a new home.
This has several advantages in fantasy.
If you want to send the hero on a quest, who is he leaving behind? Spouse, children, job? A little less than heroic. No one? But if it’s no one, how did an older character manage to get to his current age without acquiring responsibilities? A little self-centered, mostly likely. That’s where the teenager comes in. A sixteen year old can have no responsibilities without any more reason than age.
Youth also gives more room for growth. The character can grow, mature, develop—and not raise so many questions about how he started out so immature.
Romance subplots. An older character would need a reason to not be attached romantically (in most fantasy societies), while a teen can just be waiting for The One (who he’ll find during the course of his quest, conveniently).
On the symbolic side, younger characters are liminal. (More on this word later.) Goes hand in hand with all the other liminal traits they often acquire—going on journeys; transforming into a wizard, a swordsman, or a king, etc.—and reinforces them.
In general, it’s easier on an author to find motivation for a younger character—he’ll want to explore, find himself, all those sort of things commonly found in a bildungsroman. An adult character needs more persuasion—the Dark Lord burned his village down, stole his wife/fiancée/eldest son. Thus, older characters need more backstory, which means more work, and a heavier, more complicated conflict.
But then, when you’re using a teenage character, you run into the epic fantasy/bildungsroman plotting issues stated above. Everthing is a trade-off, isn’t it?
3. Liminality in Fiction
An explanation on liminality. It comes from the Latin limen, meaning threshold. And those poised on the threshold are usually more interesting to read about.
And it’s really useful in fantasy.
The first is that the hero transitions through liminality in some way. In the beginning the character is removed from his normal condition, then he is transformed, then he settles down into a new condition. This can be your full blown character arc. It also has other transformations. Going on a journey is a liminal state, one of transition. Getting married. Having a child. Growing up (this is one reason why the adolescent/young adult is so popular as a character). Becoming the king—from a farmboy, but also from a Crown Prince.
Then there are permanently liminal things—places, beings, times. Crossroads, gates, ports, shores—mountains (between the land and air). Borders between countries, localities, farms. Dawn, sunset, midnight (sometimes even noon); New Year’s Day; solstices and equinoxes.
But liminal characters can be the most useful. Hybrids of species. The werewolf, both beast and man. The vampire, both alive and dead. Centaurs, fauns, winged humans, other half/half creatures.
The stereotypical blind seer is both less and more than ordinary humans in ability. A speaking tree is both intelligent and a plant; a talking dragon is both intelligent and a beast. Encounters with them can be numinous, transformative—though all too often they’re just part of the local color.
One of my favorite liminal characters is Tiraneus. A ghost, both alive and dead; a blind seer, so both seeing and not seeing; and he had been transformed to a woman and back, so both male and female.
So on that note, what sorts of liminality have you found most impressive in fiction?
not very alice 
Michael Reynolds
May 17, 2011
Well, not to tout an as yet published work, but I love seeing liminality in fiction. So much that the novel that I am wrapping up is full of it. My main character is a half-elf/half-human who is a reincarnate Faerie king. He doesn’t know that yet, though. So he is almost fully himself, but not quite so. The story begins and he is helping a northern clan defend their border from invasion…. again more liminality. Another key character becomes possessed by a benign spirit for most of the book’s length as well. The story is a transition from old ways to new ways, which is a reaffirmation of even older ways.
Another of my favorite series depicts the anti-hero type. An assassin who can’t quite figure out if he wants to be a good guy. Sure, at the onset he is evil as can be, but about halfway through the series he has a transition phase.
oogs
May 17, 2011
Sounds like fun! If you’re writing well, the threshold-character is pretty hard to avoid, especially in today’s fiction trends.
If you don’t mind my asking, what series is that? Sounds like it could be interesting.
Alice M.
May 17, 2011
I have a couple of comments:
1. All characters, no matter what age, should be liminal.
2. If the fantasy is set in a historical period that is technologically bereft and mostly pastoral, agricultural or nomadic — as most are — a 16-year-old will have all the responsibilities of an adult. Much as we dislike it, in our own Dark Ages upper-class women were betrothed during infancy, and girls from all classes were expected to give birth immediately after they experienced their first menses.
oogs
May 17, 2011
They all should be yes, but (in my rather humble and untrained opinion) it’s easier to write about a character who’s age-group is known by most people for it’s flexibility. I mean, how many times have we heard about teaching old dogs new tricks? It isn’t true at all. But today, with the emphasis on rounded and dynamic characters, most characters have some liminality.
And yeah, point totally taken on medieval fantasy. (Though you know, I’ve seen a ton of authors take out the ‘romantic’ aspects of a historical period and just leave out the less than desirable or skim over them.)
Alice M.
May 17, 2011
I definitely agree that it’s easier to write about teenagers. They o’erbrim with potential for conflict and transition. Before YA was a “big deal”, it was already quietly being a big deal in fantasy for that very reason.
I’m not certain it’s easier to write about teenagers well. Everyone has to be born and grow up, unless they die too quickly — thus everyone has to go through quite a few of the same milestones.
To generalise, I find adults more interesting. They’re not so plastic; they’ve got a stack of experience behind them.
Another unfortunate consequence of teen heroes: when a narrator says about a teen protagonist that he began his training for such-and-such “many years ago” after his family was slaughtered by Sir Villain of Evilshire and that his skills “are renowned throughout the land” I do the maths and I come up snorting. “Many years” in teen is “three or four years”. It’s difficult to have an air of mystery and experience when your pseudonym came into effect less than five years ago — especially as news really doesn’t travel quickly via town crier and bards, and five years is hardly long enough for someone to forget you.
It’s in the details. I’d much prefer to read a story (for example) about a teenager who grew up early as expected without grumbling and moved to a strange, creepy pasture high above the mountains to tend sheep, where he discovered a crumbling cave with ancient black rites inscribed in the rocks rather than a story about yet another Wonderwoman-in-utero who is So Brave and Strong she can out-fence her instructor in six months flat.
I may write the story about that shepherd, now that I think about it. Hmm.
M. Howalt
May 17, 2011
Interesting read. I don’t write fantasy myself these days, but since I tend to stray into territories such as “historical supernatural Bildungsroman”, this was relevant for me to read. 🙂
As a rule, I believe anything can work in fiction if it is done right. It’s all a matter of balance, as you say.
oogs
May 17, 2011
Yeah, you know, I don’t write fantasy either, interestingly enough. But I do read it on occasion.
And yes, if an author wants s/he can probably pull off just about anything.