Birthdays

Posted on 18 November 2009

Birthdays.  We all have them, and I am on the outgoing side of my own this very moment (technically it ended 30 minutes ago in the timezone I am in).  Yet, why is it that unless it is super central to the plot, we don’t ever read about birthdays in SFF?  Yes, we get the birthdays like Biblo Baggins making an “exit stage left” and like Harry Potter’s “Congratulations, you are ten.  Now go save the world for the next seven years.”  But there are many multi-year spanning novels out there where birthdays are simply ignored, and I feel this is a waste.

See my reasoning is that a birthday, even if for non “plot” important reasons, is a great way to develop the character and draw in the reader.  Just the way a person treats their birthday is extremely telling.  For example, I typically down play my own, although today I actually kind of lived it up in the PM.  My coworkers did jack for me (although they knew), my drinking buddies did lots.  And my reactions to both are probably very telling to someone who pays attention.  It’s those small reactions and nuance that turn a 3-d yet still flat character into a living, breathing thing.

So, I guess when writing, consider: is his/her birthday a big event to your character, or just another day.  Must they, at all costs, have a cake, or do they not care, or are they non-traditional and want pie or something.  Are they going through what every post 21-yr old goes through on birthdays and thinking about getting old and the future, or are they different or not even at that point in their life yet?  Even to the most stoic, uncaring person, a birthday has some meaning, even if just a symbol of the inexorable progress of time.  Show me that.  And, honestly, in the next novel I write, I think I very well will show it too.  Tit for tat, eh my friends?  Tit for tat indeed.