My Writing Guide

Writing About Immortality

ORIGIN

1. Granted Immortality – the character is given immortality. Gods and other high-magic beings will gift their mortal friends or pawns. Or perhaps the character has found a magical artifact or spell that will make them immortal. In other words, the character is born mortal, but becomes immortal. Examples: Nicholas Flamel (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone); Ganymede (Greek mythology); vampires (Twilight Saga); Jesus Christ (the Bible)

2. Natural Immortality – the character is born immortal. Immortality is a characteristic of their race, whether by science, magic, or their genes. However, the character does age and stops maturing a little over the age of consent. (Although it would be interesting to have a culture of immortal three-year-olds or immortal ninety-year-olds.) Examples: elves (Lord of the Rings); Asgardians (Thor); Greek/Roman gods

DEGREE OF IMMORTALITY

1. Incomplete – the character cannot die from old age or sickness. They can be killed by violent means – that is, they can be burned, shot, stoned, quartered, hanged, drowned, bled to death, etc. Or the character has a weakness (like silver bullets with werewolves) or there is a certain artifact that can kill them. Examples: elves (Lord of the Rings and Inheritance Cycle; can die violent deaths); angels (Supernatural; can by killed by angel blades or godlike power); vampires (can be torn to pieces and burned, stabbed with wood stakes, beheaded, etc.); werewolves (silver bullet); Voldemort (Harry Potter; can be killed if his horcruxes are destroyed as well); zombies (headshot)

2. Complete – the character is immortal no matter what happens. They can be torn apart atom by atom and age a billions years and still look like twenty-somethings. Granted, characters that have complete immortality are often too powerful to capture or torture anyway. Examples: most gods/God; personifications of Death

CONDITIONS

1. Conditional Immortality – the character needs to do something to preserve their immortality. Characters must perform certain rites – bathing in virgin's blood seems common – or take the essence of a certain compound, or pray to gods, or become mortal for one day out of the year. If they fail to do the action, the character will become mortal and possibly revert to their true age within a matter of seconds. Examples: immortals (Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel; mortals swear obedience to their god in return for immortality); that crazy doctor guy (Supernatural; had to constantly look for fresh organs to replace his decayed ones); the Queen (Snow White and the Huntsman; had to have virgin's blood); gods (American Gods; needed worship)

2. Unconditional Immortality – the character is granted/born with immortality and don't need to do anything to sustain it. Examples: elves (LOTR); gods

Some things to remember about Information Age Immortals:

If the immortal is living on Earth amongst mortals, they are going to encounter several problems. To begin with, to "fit in" as say, the middle class, immortals must: have an address, money, and job. To get all of those, you need to hand out your name, address, age, date of birth, social security number, and tons of other personal information. This personal information is entered into dozens of different databases, and those databases are going to notice when your driver's license says you're eighty and your face says you're twenty. At the very least, the immortal would be suspected of fraud.