Welcome to puberty! Here's your ticket to the adolescent world and all the wonders that come with it: your growth spurts, voice changes, hormone fluxes, and most importantly....your super-special powers/abilities that you've lived the past thirteen years of your life knowing nothing about! And would you look at what it's wrapped in: an impressive secret destiny that your guardians (who probably aren't your parents) have kept hidden from you your entire life. If you're lucky, it'll come with a special heirloom/talisman that only you can use! Well, that's it, everything you need for your journey into adulthood. Have fun and watch out for your completely evil nemesis! This seems to be the course of many fantasy books, especially "High Fantasy" books. Now don't worry, this isn't a rant about plot-device originality, that's another post for another time But honestly, why is it that most character abilities develop mostly in the teen years without the character ever knowing about them before that? I actually think I might have the answer(s) to that question, (on a very theoretical level of course).

First off, there's the pretty weighty of those who've gone before. I feel it would be safer to say that this influence is largely an unconscious phenomenon, but it would be a bit silly to deny its existence. The books we read and movies we watch feed our imaginations and shape the kinds of stories we craft, even if we're not always aware of it. So maybe one of the reasons characters' powers pop up at puberty is because that's simply when powers pop up in many stories

But that doesn't really answer the question. After all, what got people started doing this in the first place? That's a bit too historical a question for me to answer it. I mean, I'd have to research and hunt down the very first fantasy story in which a young adolescent develops special powers. And even then I'd still not be able to see the reason behind it. I'd have to ask each and every author personally about why they did it.

However, even though I can't authoritatively answer the question, I have my own suspicion about the allure of adolescents with powers: the struggle to come to terms with new powers/abilities symbolizes that everyone goes through as he/she matures into an adult. Like all good symbols, it allows the author to communicate the struggle to us in a way that our rational minds isn't quite aware of or even able to express by itself. And just as it can be subconsciously received, I think it can be subconsciously employed. I seriously doubt anyone sits down and says, "I'm going to use Aloron's struggle to control his new-found ability to breathe lightning as a metaphor of his struggle to mature into an adult." That doesn't negate its value as a metaphor. And if the appeal to readers was unconscious, then I think it not illogical to infer that its appeal to authors could be unconscious as well.

However, this explanation of the tendency to throw powers to teenagers doesn't justify its thoughtless use by authors.

For instance, consider this: every change that takes place during puberty has had its foundations laid from the beginning of the child's life. Take the growth spurt, it gives extra growth to arms and legs that the child has had and been able to use for their entire lives. I used a safe example, but just about all the other changes are changes of already-functioning features of the person. So why not have special abilities work the same way? The abilities could be there all along in a weakened state with the character aware of them from the start and they grow and develop along with the rest of the child, and their development accelerates along with all other development in the child during puberty.

Also, the changes of puberty are far from instantaneous, the same should probably be true of your characters' abilities. In my personal opinion it's a bit too easy when a character's abilities manifest at full strength almost overnight. Most authors that I've seen, handle that pretty well with character abilities, making them difficult abilities to master that take practice and training. However, most books only cover a span of a few months, and that still seems a bit too easy to me. I mean, puberty lasts for a few years, couldn't power development do the same? Yes, some of the changes are few within a few months, but I think our readers could survive if a character's abilities take more than just a few months to fully develop. Also, in some books it's the characters' control/use of their abilities that take time to develop more than the abilities themselves.

From a worldbuilding perspective, if your characters' abilities are common to their race, then surely that race would have incorporated the development of those abilities into how their culture raises children. The Sci-fi Lorien Legacies series (I Am Number Four and The Power of Six) handles that pretty well. The characters are the last of their race along with their guardians who help them with the development of their gifts. Most of the guardians wind up being killed by the bad guys, but the reader is still given brief glimpses into how the race implemented power-development into their culture. Also, the characters have spent the past seven years of their life looking forward to their powers manifesting around age 13 or so (sound like another point I recently made?) Similarly, even if your characters are the last of their kind, you can still at least make it look like their race had a culture before it died off (another post for a later date ).

Another thought is to have your characters develop powers that aren't tied up with some secret destiny. Or maybe like the Lorien Legacies characters, your characters grow up knowing about their destiny.

Or what if your characters with special abilities is called to fulfill a destiny prior to puberty?

Just some thoughts.

I've read at least one story in which the reason is given explicitly: the "powers" that come in at puberty are such that, in the hands of anyone younger, they'd be a significant danger to themselves and others. (To invent an example: can you imagine an infant throwing fireballs out of his cradle if he didn't get fed, without having the awareness to realize that this hurts anyone?)

On the other hand---in some stories, "powers" are given a physical foundation (at least in the explanatory doubletalk), so (for example) there's an area of the brain that's been growing all her life but now, with the new hormones, flips "on" and gives her the ability to read minds. Kind of like how a child has a voice, but it takes maturation (starting with puberty) to make it piercing enough to break glass (or whatever the equialent danger with basses is), and while nearly all children have a complete body and a full complement of muscles, no college football team is going to recruit a student who (because of superior intellect) graduated at 12 and is presently 14. And some other stories (by more careful worldbuilders, usually) make the dangers of magic-wielding children a plot point.

And on the gripping hand---sometimes, I think, this is simple coincidence. The author wants to write a fantasy novel involving the protagonist coming into his powers. And the author wants to attract the currently "hot" demographic, teen (or preteen!) readers who haven't read enough of the past several generations of fantasy to know whether it's any good or not ... so, of course, he makes the protagonist an angsty teenager. (And in far too many cases, the author also wants to bring in ... other themes ... that preclude making the characters too much younger.)

On your second point, it aligns with one of my points. I mention having the abilities be present in a weakened, undeveloped state and gradually develop over time. For instance, said fire-ball-thrower from birth is fire-proof and only upon puberty develops the ability to throw fire balls. It also touches on my culture point, if the culture has systems for training younglings in their abilities, then children would be better able at a younger age to handle whatever weak abilities they have at that stage

What if the mind-reader's special brain-part functioned enough from a young age for her to perceive people's moods better than others without her ability could?

That can be perfectly fine, if written well, however there are probably a slew of examples of people who don't write it well. I think readers can recognize a well-written book regardless of whether they're familiar with its genre or not.
My thoughts on angsty teenagers could take up an entire series of posts

Teenage years are angsty enough without adding new abilities into the mix

... except that those are related but quite distinct abilities. Being fire-proof should probably be a prerequisite for throwing fireballs, but I can't see any way for it to "gradually develop over time" into throwing fireballs. (And isn't puberty the opposite of "gradually developing" anything "over time"? In the standard human body, it's, as you note, not anything new, but all the processes that have been proceeding gradually or, in a few cases, simply waiting suddenly happen at unprecedented speed all at once---so voices crack, growth happens in spurts, and, as a side effect, lots of teens get acne.)


Yes. Or (in some conceptions) the ability might be something that all children have to varying degrees, but unless the first minimal degree is used and practiced with it atrophies instead of continuing to grow, so the developed forms only tend to appear in cultures with the training systems.


An interesting idea, and one that some authors using the trope have run with, but others (the ones I was thinking of) simply made it "this character can suddenly read minds" (which generally develops into a whole host of other powers) and attribute this to a previously-unused area of the brain getting more blood, or some other hand-waving explanation.


Sorry, I skipped a few stages of logic here . In "any good" I intended to include something like "not hopelessly derivative". A story set in a world that's Middle Earth with the serial numbers filed off will probably feel wonderful and tremendously original to a wide-eyed reader who's only read "popular" (i.e. recent-"best-seller") children's books and fantasy, but will produce the opposite reaction in a reader who's read Tolkien's original or any significant number of the subsequent hack authors who did the same trick of "borrowing" Tolkien's world and changing just enough to discourage lawsuits.

To give another example from outside fantasy (and outside fiction altogether): If you'd never read a poem published after 1850, but were fairly well-read in the literature before that point, and I handed you a poem with all the letters that would ordinarily be capitalized in lowercase instead, or with all the punctuation missing, you might think "that's an unusual idea" and that it made the poem more interesting. But if you were familiar with e. e. cummings and the host of subsequent imitators, you'd (or at least I would) think something along the lines of "not another one ..."

Reliably determining quality takes experience.

Oh, and while the teen-coming-into-her-powers story can indeed be (and, I'm sure, has been) done well, choosing to make the protagonist a teen simply because that's the "hot" demographic usually precludes the sort of care that produces a work of real quality.

I think a big allure to using teens is the fact that your audience will predominantly consist of teenagers. So authors write books for teens, about teens. They are relatable.

You seem to comprehend the main thrust of what I'm saying there, but let me explain it a little further.

Basically I'm saying that you have hints of the abilities present throughout the character's childhood and perhaps have the hints develop more towards the full ability as time goes by just like his/her body and mind does, and then when puberty causes an eruption of changes in his/her body, the hints of the full ability that have been there all along explode into their full potential. If I mentioned abilities developing throughout puberty slowly, it was because I was thinking of not all of puberty's changes happen all at once, it's a period of years in which several different explosions take place at different times. So it could be that different facets of a character's true ability manifest at different points throughout puberty. This would be particularly effective if your character has multiple abilities.

The makers of Smallville are a good example of this concept with how they show Clark Kent discovering/developing his Superman powers during his teen years (in the beginning). Throughout the first few seasons of the show, we see Clark Kent discovering new powers, while the first episode makes it clear that he's known about his super-speed for awhile (and possibly his super-strength as well). That's kinda the concept I have in mind, the kid is aware of their abilities but still have to deal with all the confusion of controlling them when they come in full force.

*nods in agreement to what is said*


Which would be so much closer to being relatable than what is commonly done.

I always thought that (as others have already said) it made the most sense to have powers grow with the person.
As well, I agree that many people write about teenagers because it's popular and their readers will relate to the characters.

Maybe it's because little kids aren't power-hungry. There's less conflict if the character is used to their power and finds it mudane. However, if a teenager -still working on finding their place in the world, and working through the angst of growing up -suddenly receives new abilities, doesn't that give them more of a struggle? It gives them the chance to lord it over their peers, making them more sure of themselves -something many teens need. It presents them with a destiny they may or may not have known about, but that leaves them with choices like leaving their family behind, and not having the secure future that they thought was in store.

In contrast, think about the way of a Jedi (I've been watching Star Wars).
Most Padawans are taken away when they are very young, and know throughout their life what they're going to do when they grow up.
That's why Anakin's story is more interesting than everyone else's. He came into his destiny late -leaving him with choices like leaving his mother, and without the training that made it possible for him to stay on the light side. There is a struggle because he's learning about his powers late, and he's not prepared, like other Padawans would be. He also strives to prove himself, because he is different. He wants to be greater - because he's newly out of slavery and never learned humility.
A story about a normal Padawan would be boring in comparison, because, having trained in the way of the Jedi all their life, they would not struggle with attachment and everything that comes with it.

To summarize, it makes sense for them to come into power in their teens because it makes the plot. It forces the character into things that wouldn't otherwise be there. Does this make any sense?

Well said, Aldara. That very well could be one of the reasons people use that device. But maybe the better question for us to ask is "How can we as writers, handle our characters with powers in fresh, creative ways that are different than the cookie-cutter angsty-teen-with-super-powers stories?"

In the hands of a sufficiently good writer, any character will be one readers will relate to And for a less-skilled writer, writing about teenagers risks restricting your audience to teens ...


Most of that, though, is to my eye reasons to avoid the teenager-comes-into-powers trope---as a Christian author, I need to remember that fiction shapes culture as well as reflecting it (characters are used as role models; they're not just realistic portrayals of people), and power-hungriness, angst, and lording it over one's peers aren't qualities I would want a reader to decide to imitate.


That makes sense ... but it's certainly not the only option. The transition from childhood to adulthood is only the first of many such transitions in life; it would make just as much sense (in terms of making the plot) for powers to appear at marriage, or with childbirth, or at "advanced age" ...

That is an amazing idea.