Six top characters that benefit from the passage of fictional time

In ongoing book series, Jeff Somers notes, "characters often seem to exist in a strange universe where nothing changes and no one ages." Yet some authors choose "the route of unexplained immortality and age their characters over the course of a series." One such character:

Jack Reacher

Lee Child deliberately made Jack Reacher 36 years old when he started writing about him, saying that Reacher, “had to be fully formed; couldn’t be Jack Reacher, boy detective”. Then he started aging the character a year for each book—which would now put him in his 50s, but then Child slowed down the process by shrinking the intervals between books. Instead of setting them a year apart, he now only gives Reacher a few weeks off between novels. Over the years, Reacher has grown to be a more thoughtful and more deliberate action hero, much to the series’ benefit.

Read about the other characters Somers tagged at B & N Reads.

The Jack Reacher books are among Casey Lee's ten favorite book series.

--Marshal Zeringue