Does Age Matter?

[J. Rook]

I asked a friend to read the opening pages of my novel which is about to embark on its search for publication. Her one criticsm was that the main character is "too old" (he is sixty) to attract younger readers to the story. This friend has just passed the sixty mark.
I offered her fifty-five. She asked for fifty at the most, but the storyline will not really allow for that. Do you think she is right?
My friend's reading tastes tend towards Historical Romance, Crime, Thrillers, and Terry Pratchett, although she knows her way around the classics of literature.

 

[Kitty]

If the age of the character is right for the story then no, they're not too old. Maybe there's some other reason that she's not connecting with this character? What is it about their age that bothers her?

(How old was Miss Marple?)

 

[Carol Rose]

Hogwash. IMHO, we need MORE older heroes and heroines in fiction. Keep your character the age they need to be for the story.

 

[KG Christopher]

I don't think it matters, there are so many colourful deep older characters. You just have to look at Harry Poter or any fantasy, they are full of devious old gits, or Cruella De Vil. OK, if you are trying to say your 60-year-old character has started a new career as a prize fighter, it might be hard to pull off, but mostly life experiences are seldom stratified by age.

 

[Patricia D]

What everyone else has said - the character's age should be decided by the author and consistent with the story.

 

[Madeleine Conway]

There seem to be a spate of older protagonists - Rachel Joyce's books, Emma Healey, Jonas Jonasson - I think you are fine with an older hero. And look at Ed Reardon's Week....Make your hero/heroine the age that suits the story you want to tell, and so long as s/he is not a Mary Sue/GaryStu, your story is yours to tell with whatever age hero suits you. Go for it.

 

[J. Rook]

Lovely replies. Thank you to every-one. I did not want to make my initial question too full of information, but the story is science fiction. It establishes itself in contemporary time, goes back thirty years for the middle section (the main character is in his early thirties) then returns to the present day to round things off. My target group is the reflective science fiction reader, from young adult to the most mature. I shall make no changes to his age. He stays sixty.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

With an ageing population, and people taking better care of themselves, there's a different attitude to age these days. I've written several characters in their sixties, drawing on not only my own experience but from things I've observed happen to those close to retirement as I grew up. I mean more how the world treated them, not how they saw the world, for they still felt the same about things—the mileage on their life odometer was irrelevant.

As Madeline L'Engle said: 'The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.'

An inspirational older novelist, who included ageing characters in her stories is Mary Wesley. She didn't publish her first adult novel until she was 71, and went on to have ten bestsellers in the last twenty years of her life, selling 3,000,000 copies.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

The age question was central (in a horrific way) to 'Greybeard,' by science fiction Brian Aldiss.

Morse wasn't young. Culture's chocka with charismatic elders.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I would love to read a sci-fi book with proper adults in it! Keep him 60! Show how awesome 60 can be!

 

[Boopadoo]

I have a post-apocalyptic story I was writing serial-style for about a year, that I'll eventually turn into a proper novel, in which the MC is a 50ish biochemist single mother who just happened to learn how to kick butt and manipulate folks as survival skills. As Luanne likes to say, "In 2062, 50 is the new 20."

She became one of my favorite characters to write.

 

[Alistair Roberts]

Does age matter? Well we all have some

 

[Chase Gamwell]

Lovely replies. Thank you to every-one. I did not want to make my initial question too full of information, but the story is science fiction. It establishes itself in contemporary time, goes back thirty years for the middle section (the main character is in his early thirties) then returns to the present day to round things off. My target group is the reflective science fiction reader, from young adult to the most mature. I shall make no changes to his age. He stays sixty.

Considering the subject of the novel and how it sounds like the story is set up, I think sixty sounds fine. Tbh (and in agreement with pretty much everyone else here), characters need to be whatever age the story dictates they are.

Keep on keepin' on!

 

[J. Rook]

Does age matter? Well we all have some

We can't do without it.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

It just occurred to me that one of the main characters in my MG adventure is a 65 year old cockroach. He plays the cynical voice of experience...

 

[J. Rook]

It just occurred to me that one of the main characters in my MG adventure is a 65 year old cockroach. He plays the cynical voice of experience...

That reminds me! In one of my sci-fi books a young boy (living in another dimension of course) has a cockroach (an intelligent, tele-sensitive and faithful large cockroach) as a pet. Two out of the three people who have read the MS tell me to change to a different species, otherwise people will be put off. I'm still thinking. I rather relish the idea of your cockroach as the cynical voice of experience.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I hope you keep the cockroach

 

[Robinne Weiss]

Keep the roach! In my story, it just wouldn't be the same if Peri wasn't a roach--the major comic relief of the book revolves around his running up pant legs. That, and getting flushed down the toilet and crawling back through the bathroom sink drain. You just can't do that with any other insect.

 

[J. Rook]

Keep the roach! In my story, it just wouldn't be the same if Peri wasn't a roach--the major comic relief of the book revolves around his running up pant legs. That, and getting flushed down the toilet and crawling back through the bathroom sink drain. You just can't do that with any other insect.

A very good point!

 

[Richard Sutton]

Been doing household fix-it chores the past couple of weeks, so I missed this 'til now, but I've given this subject a lot of thought. Age does matter. Unless you are capable of writing your story to a specific genre reader's needs, it seems we all write what we write, then hope it falls into a genre or subject category that will give us a narrowly targeted reader. Readers' behavior has been discussed and plotted and dissected ad infinitum, but there are some things that seem to be true. Younger readers enjoy reading about protagonists their own ages. If you want a younger readership and the story does indeed target the genres that younger readers enjoy, then you may need to make your MC younger. Most of my own work will not interest a younger reader. I've come to terms with that and accepted it. Maybe someday...

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I agree with this, but I would also say that the world is full of people of all ages, so including characters that are out of the ideal age range for your readers is obviously necessary (unless you've set your story on a desert island with only the main characters...which has been done lots of times in order to avoid those pesky adults who might ruin the story )

 

[Richard Sutton]

Of course, in order for a story to be absorbing, it needs to have the trappings of real life, which includes characters of all ages, interacting; yet the MC should still be of the age of the target reader for the best results, or so I've been told. Who knows, anyway? Luck can't be regulated and ordered, can it?

 

[Boopadoo]

The two main protagonists in my nearly-finished WIP are technically 6 months and 2 years old. How does that figure into the "age matters" protocol?

(Spoiler - they're clones)

 

[Katie-Ellen]

There is a demand for the charismatic or villainous oldie, for sure, but age matters for the reasons Richard says. In 'The Sword In the Stone', there is the antiquated Merlin, and the book was written for children, ostensibly. Merlin looms huge but the main contact point for the reader is the young Arthur, still known as 'the Wart' in this first book of the series by EH White.

 

[Patricia D]

With an ageing population, and people taking better care of themselves, there's a different attitude to age these days. I've written several characters in their sixties, drawing on not only my own experience but from things I've observed happen to those close to retirement as I grew up. I mean more how the world treated them, not how they saw the world, for they still felt the same about things—the mileage on their life odometer was irrelevant.

As Madeline L'Engle said: 'The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.'

An inspirational older novelist, who included ageing characters in her stories is Mary Wesley. She didn't publish her first adult novel until she was 71, and went on to have ten bestsellers in the last twenty years of her life, selling 3,000,000 copies.

Thank you for introducing me to Mary Wesley - truly an inspiration. Although it's too late for me to emulate her early years, I'll do my best to follow in her later footsteps. ;-)