Aging like a fine wine—or at least logically

Fictional time moves at your pace.

Your three-hundred-page book can span one year as easily as it can span two-hundred years. The action of an entire novel can cover one day or one lifetime.

Whatever your timeline, make sure that, as action is moving forward, seasons are changing, and goals are reached, your characters are aging appropriately. You can't have them see three Christmases and be six-years-old for all three of them. You can't have them graduate from high school and be seventy-years-old (unless there’s a really good reason for that).

Keeping track of long spans of time can be complicated when you're focussed on story. It takes time to figure out time.

But do it. Take that time.

The logic of your story, and your readers, will thank you for it.