Thread: Character Ages?

The official canon age of Red and Blue are 11, it was in the manuals for the games.

I, personally, use any age set: A.D, for example, starts his journey at 11, just as anyone in the Japan-based areas can. Unova, and presumably any America-based area like Orre, start at 16 or later. Sometimes, like Michael shows, younger people choose or are forced to ignore the rule. The rule doesn't apply to battling, though, just journeying.

Basically, I'll happily use anyone over 11 or 16 =P

I'm widely varied. Here's my RP characters' ages, starting with the youngest:

• Joanie Aimes, Collie Calloway, Annie Jameson and Bella Austin: 17
• Colin Sonan: 18
• Jim Gai: 46
• Wyatt Sonan: 80

And there's more that I have yet to officially debut. Basically, I'll make a character whatever age the plot calls for.

Almost all of my characters are between 11-20 but sometimes I will through in someone younger/older.

In my fic, Bulbagarden!, my characters age and mature as the fic goes on. For example, in the fic's first "season," the core cast was 16-17, but as of it's third "season" they are all 18-20ish.

I never really liked the whole "Hi, I'm and I'm 10 years old. Today, I'm starting my journey" thing. So I try to go with characters who are a bit older. In a story I'm writing, the main character is 19 when she sets off from home, simply because I don't agree with a 10 year old taking down criminal organisations, destroying gyms with little effort and becoming league champions.

Her being older allowed me more wiggle room with personal backstory, the building blocks of who she is, her personality and how she deals with situations. Instead of dropping out of school to tromp through the wilderness, she developed book smarts and as such, will go about most situations with some rational thought and strategy behind them.

Not to say that all characters should be like that. My main character's rival is 14 years old and already well into his journey. One of the gym leaders left home when she was 12.

I think that to be a good writer, you have to try to be original. Most fan material I've seen that features "original" characters are usually uninspired clones of the main cast on the anime with different names. Thinking outside of the box and going outside of the norm should (theoretically, I haven't really been successful with this) bring in a more diverse audience.

I usually put my main characters in their teens but I also have characters that are in their thirties, though they're mostly secondary characters or antagonists. I'm a teen so it's easier and I rather writing for teens, though I've also written other stories with older characters.

Usually 13-15 for main characters, and 10-12 for siblings. I write often in my free time, and I haven't posted any fanfics yet. I'm new to the fanfic section here.
Anyway,
I think that when you keep a character at an older age, They should act mature.
If you want them to have a childish side, make it believable. For example, if Ash was 23, then he might play a little Xbox or Playstation. But he wouldn't play duck-duck-goose or tag unless he was a father with young children.
When you keep a character at a younger age, they may do more childish things (like play tag) but you have to keep an eye out for OOC situations.

My OC's are typically mid-late teens (Kenna Devine), to early 20's (Maya Nijiro, my first character, was 18-20 in her first incarnation, but as my general all purpose character, she has been made older or younger as the story or RP demands

In short, they have some life experience, but they still have some innocence too

I write all ages, but do they act their age has to do with the story. Like an 8 year old who acts like they are 50 and a 13 year old who acts like they are 5

All of my central characters have been teenagers, except for Relaunch Sequence. However, I always like to at least have a couple of cast members who are 30 or older.

In regards to gender, I honestly don't prefer males over females or vice versa. Hell, the other day I was being interviewed by a female friend with me answering in the role as one of the female characters in my original work (for reference, she's 30) and afterwards she got kinda pouty that I write female characters better than her, so it isn't really a case of "Men can't understand some women things" and "Women can't understand some men things" (although that is true to some extent, it is possible to learn xD). The main protagonists of both Bright World and my original work are male but I always have a mix of males and females in the main cast (for example, the Bright World story revolves quite a far bit around Hilda). Also, the protagonist in my next original novel I'm planning is female; although when I get around to writing that will depend on if I can get my first novel published (think anywhere from 2 to 10 years from now xD).

I just find that when I'm writing something for teenagers, it is easier for the reader to relate to the central character more if they are a similar age, so if I do at one point write a story aimed at older readers, I will naturally have an older central character.

Originally Posted by Katelynn

I think that to be a good writer, you have to try to be original... Thinking outside of the box and going outside of the norm should bring in a more diverse audience.

honestly, I kind of agree to this, seeing as how the games and anime (and a good portion of the Adventures manga) has the trainers going through this in one way or the other. though i suppose a good part of my story stems from the GameCube spinoffs.

I hardly considered what my target audience would be... but since I am now, I think mine would be somewhere in the late teens or so. the only fanfic I'm writing (and another I'm still brainstorming) has a fair amount of harsh language in the most notable points, and death (and its details) is something I try to describe at a minimum, but other than that, I hardly make anything new to the scenery (the current world of Pokemon is a good enough place for me to see).

as for the characters, I essentially made him out as a 16, very powerful, except that for the most part, he tends to have a tic too many that set him off. besides that, I actually molded his appearance from PBR... but that's miscellaneous stuff.

Ren from Champion Game is a few days shy of fifteen. He started his journey when he was ten, and it took him nearly five years to get to the top of the League. He did all have his badges after three and a half years though, plus a few from Unova and Johto. (Busy guy.) He's a smart kid, which confuses some people. I wanted to try writing a slightly younger character than most of my mains for a change, and I think it's working out fine. I write Ren kind of like me in some ways. So he's a fourteen-year-old who talks like a slightly-above-average sixteen-year-old, which makes him sound like a significantly-above-average fourteen-year-old, which is exactly what I was going for.

Alvaro from SGTG, on the other hand, is sixteen like me. He didn't start his Pokemon journey when he was ten because he simply couldn't be bothered. He gets forced into it. I like writing Alvaro, because he's a lot like I could have been if I wasn't so cheerful. He swears a lot and likes to hit people, and he has no idea how to do the Pokemon Training thing.

Way down the other end of the scale, we have Joseph Hart from Icebound, who is twenty-seven years old and extraordinarily badass. Nancy is twenty-four, and Victor is - I think - twenty-five.

Anti from Artificial is, uh . . . well, she was in stasis for fifty years, so technically she's about 55? But she is a robot, so . . . hell, she doesn't count. Why am I even talking about her?

In most of my fanfictions about Pokémon, they're in their early teens. I don't care what some people say, the protagonists of Black and White are 13/14 in my headcanon!
So, usually, I range from 10-20 years old. I don't usually specify their ages directly anyway.

An experienced character can be any age above the age of the in experienced character. If you want a character people will feel sorry for you'll have most succes with a character under 15, but it all depends on what you want peope to feel sorry about.

I usually don't age my character until I know what character I want them to have. Or I pick an age that sounds good for the purpose of the character and go from there.

I don't know if this is of any help to you though.

I usually make them in a range from pre-teen to teen years.