Jo here, spinning off Edith's weekend blog about unwritten books we want.
(As we run up to Christmas, I'm using Christmas images.)
So what about children of our characters?
I don't think I'm going there. One reason is that I don't want to follow my characters into middle and old age. I don't have anything against middle and old age -- I think I have some good characters in those slots -- but I have a strong streak of realism, so some of them would have to suffer the downside, and a few would have to die. I simply don't want to go there.
I'm well aware that this creates a gaping hole is my Regency world, because at those glittering aristocratic events there should be quite a lot of Mallorens. The children born in the 1760s and on into the 1770s would only be in their fifties in the Regency. Their children should be very active in the social scene. Rothgar himself could well be alive, though he'd be around 90, but his heir, assuming a son of his, or one of his brothers', would be a VIP.
I don't want to go there, however, so I don't.
Which takes us to the Rogues. No danger of the same gaping hole problem because I will never -- this is one of the few certainties in the known universe -- write a book set in the Victorian era. You will see this also means I will never write about the Rogue's children as adults because they'd be living in the Victorian age. ::shudder:: Another problem. They'd be Victorians. ::shudder:: ::shudder::
I actually think they'd be the raging loonies, in the best possible way, of the Victorian age, led by Arabel Delaney. I can see an annual summer camp for Roguettes, where any tendency to subscribe to meaningless social conventions will be dissuaded while equal opportunity sports, arts, science and self-sufficiency are required. And the idea of then setting them loose, rich and powerful, on Victorian society is oh, so tempting....
But the thought of what they face depresses me, so I'll stay in my bubble and imagine alternate history.
Leaving aside the Victorian age ::shudder::, what do you think of sequels in which the origincal chararacters grow old and perhaps suffer degenerative diseases and die? Do you want to read them?
How important is it to you to read about protagonists' children growing up?
Do you do this for yourself, spinning out the characters' lives as you wish them to be?
Jo