dating yourself?

[lovecraft68]

Nope. Our school goes with the idea that if we let them use their phones, that we can teach them to use them responsibly. I support it. Before we changed the policy, I spent more time policing the phones than I did teaching.

They actually use them in my classroom to do work- flash cards, etc. they also submit all of their work electronically by snapping a pic of their work.

I know this is changing with the times but is it any wonder most of these kids have no common sense, problem solving ability, memory, or anything resembling a work ethic?

Kids are as bright if not brighter than ever these days, but society has them using very little of that intelligence. Book reports are copy paste off of google and they have no clue what its like to really have to research something.

This generation is the laziest in history, but I don't see it as their fault, they only know what they see around them and the parents are too busy trying to be kids themselves again reliving their lives on the internet and acting worse than their kids.

And don't get me started on entitlement.

 

[oggbashan]

...
And it made me think about writing ... are there things you aspire to keep out of your stories, or to put in them, to keep yourself from sounding dated?

I mean, we're all on the internet, so we've got enough of a grasp of technology to not sound like a dinosaur when writing, and I like to think I'm kind of young and keep up with technology, music, books, that young people are into ... but I have to admit there are definitely things out there that the young people are into that I know nothing about.

Does anyone do research to keep their younger characters sounding authentic? How do we keep up as writers who continue to age? Do you find yourself writing about older characters the older you get?

Anyone have directions to the Fountain of Youth?

If my school had graduation, I would have graduated in 1960. I was running a main frame computer system in 1963.

My grandchildren keep me up to date but I accept that I'm old. I don't attempt to keep up with modern music, modern teenage trends and certainly not the current mode of speech. If I tried, I would appear ridiculous. I'm not of my grandchildren's generation, nor of their parents' generation, and they know it.

I don't have any difficulty talking with modern teenagers. Most of them seem more serious and more focussed on academic achievement than their parents and my generation were. They are well aware that they will have to compete for employment when they leave school, and that incurring major debt for a university education is only worthwhile for a meaningful degree in a 'hard' subject such as Science, Medicine or Engineering.

In my writing I use older characters and sometimes write stories set in past eras. I know that the 1950s and 1960s are ancient history, but some of those who have sent feedback on my earlier stories written in or before 2002 were young children when I wrote them.

I'm not sure that I could write a realistically convincing story with the protagonists as just Lit-legal teenagers in 2014 - if the time setting is critical to the story. What I hope I can do is write timeless stories about people. How people interact with each other, how they love each other, argue with each other, grow together - those things haven't really changed.

If I walk through my local town I can recognise people who could be models for some of Shakespeare's characters, or even Chaucer's Pilgrims. The quarreling Montagues and Capulets are here. Justice Shallow and Dogberry are here. Even Romeo and Juliet are here, even if they are more likely to be divided by their parents' cultural traditions than being from noble families.

To conclude: I don't feel a need to be modern, with-it, up to date, in my stories. If I tried not only do I think it wouldn't be convincing, but that the story would soon be out-of-date, past-it, and irrelevant in a year's time.

 

[MSTarot]

I'm currently working on a story that starts now and will run to about twenty years into the future.

I've been having to look at trends and try to predict where they will go in twenty years. I look back twenty years and the amount of change I see that happened is staggering.

Where will the smart phone and twittering generation be in 2034? Well a lot of them will be running the country, defending it, teaching or helping to keep it going.

Beyond that it's all guess work

 

[lovecraft68]

I'm currently working on a story that starts now and will run to about twenty years into the future.

I've been having to look at trends and try to predict where they will go in twenty years. I look back twenty years and the amount of change I see that happened is staggering.

Where will the smart phone and twittering generation be in 2034? Well a lot of them will be running the country, defending it, teaching or helping to keep it going.

Beyond that it's all guess work

Twenty years from now? So you're writing about the US as a poverty stricken third world nation that is still ruled by emperor Obama and everyone is stoned because he still supplies legal pot to keep the people stupid?

Okay, that's a little far fetched. I'll start again.

20 years from now...... you'll be writing about a smoking crater.

 

[FragileUnbroken]

I think I am automatically disqualified from the original topic. I was born around 1990.

 

[Weird Harold]

It made me feel so old! I graduated from high school in 1990!

What makes me feel old is people bitching about feeling old who didn't graduate until after I retired from the USAF. (aka people who weren't born when I graduated. )

 

[MSTarot]

Twenty years from now? So you're writing about the US as a poverty stricken third world nation that is still ruled by emperor Obama and everyone is stoned because he still supplies legal pot to keep the people stupid?

Okay, that's a little far fetched. I'll start again.

20 years from now...... you'll be writing about a smoking crater.

Close.

The main character will end up the leader of an Neo- Luddism, new gypsies, modern day Bohemian, anti-technology "cult"

Technology will have reached a point that people feel they can not live without it. Take away their cell phone and they have to have counseling.

Using the idea that kids are being raised by government monitored computer "home schooling" Parents are required by law to provide internet access.

Drugs? Yep. Anything commercially grown is legal but homegrown is not. Think moon-shining but for pot.

Now the guy is living in an artist squat when the power get shut off because they didn't pay the huge tax required for people that are stealing power.

Not wanting to get too far fetched.

 

[patientlee]

I think I am automatically disqualified from the original topic. I was born in 1990.

Oh so disqualified.

 

[TwoShades]

I was thinking about this a few months ago. I think back on 'recent' memories of my teens and twenties then realize that that was 20-25 years ago! I was reading my Dad's memoires, and about how DIFFERENT things were for him. How much change HE saw. It made me think. Other than the internet, cell phones, and digital cameras, not much is different now than it was when I was growing up. DVR vs. VHS recording is not that significant, IMO. Same political issues... same social issues, same work days, same transportation. Digital technology is the only things thats really different in my life.

(Medical advancements aside of course.... which is HUGE.... but knock on wood... so far I have been lucky

 

[Swilly]

I really don't pay much mind to my age at all. I think the fact that I'm very active and have yet to find something that I really can't do helps with that.

Of course, it is somewhat comforting that there are people older than me out here. I am, however, older than the OP.

 

[echologue]

At least you folks don't have to carbon date yourself like this old fossil. Graduated in 77 kisses to all you youngsters

 

[TxRad]

I graduated high school in 1964.

Damn, I'm old.

I try to keep my characters in the country which helps with the lingo and bullshit. Well, to me anyway.

 

[Swilly]

I graduated high school in 1964.

Damn, I'm old.

I try to keep my characters in the country which helps with the lingo and bullshit. Well, to me anyway.

Is that "country folk" country or the USA?

 

[AirRichard101]

I'm currently working on a story that starts now and will run to about twenty years into the future.

I've been having to look at trends and try to predict where they will go in twenty years. I look back twenty years and the amount of change I see that happened is staggering.

Where will the smart phone and twittering generation be in 2034? Well a lot of them will be running the country, defending it, teaching or helping to keep it going.

Beyond that it's all guess work

Can you appreciate the foresight of Gene Roddenberry? Tri-corders and communicators seemed far-fetched at the time and today you look at the insta-gram video from your spouse/off-spring/grandchild on your cell phone.

 

[TxRad]

Is that "country folk" country or the USA?

Country country.

Plus I keep at least one character old just to have an out when something goes over their heads.

 

[49greg]

The word really is ruined for me. Everything with my daughters is "Really?"

"Really?" I graduated in '67 and first heard 'really' back in '71 during basic training. I guess everything that goes around comes around.

I hate 'like' and 'you know'. And I tend to use them, especially 'you know' after talking to people who do it. My wife was an English major and corrects me quite often.

I'm sure I date myself with my writing. It was only a few years ago that I stopped spelling "phone" with an apostrophe in front of it - 'phone. That's the way we were taught to do in my day.

 

[49greg]

Who's heard of Yik Yak? It's purpose is to text anonymously within a 5 mile radius. Anything you post goes to everybody in that area with YY installed. It's the perfect app for cyber bullying, calling in fake bomb threats, and a host of other non-beneficial-to-society activities.

We had assemblies to discuss it with the kids today at school.

Just one more thing...

The only Yik Yak I've heard of is in the movie "The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak"

When I watched it I kept thinking that there must have been a much steamier and kinkier European version.

 

[JKendallDane]

I'm not old...and that invitation to the fourtieth high school reunion I just received couldn't possibly be mine!

If you want to watch eye brows go clear up into their hair lines and be looked at as if you make dinosaurs appear young, tell a teenager how you remember being able to pull into a gas station, get ten gallons, a pack of Marlboro reds, a can of Coke, AND enough change back from a five to get into the drive-in.

Hell...they don't even believe the stories about how we had to walk three blocks to catch the school bus!

 

[Hypoxia]

I remember when air was clean and sex was dirty.

 

[oggbashan]

I remember when air was clean and sex was dirty.

I remember when London air had smog thick enough to hide Holmes' enemy Moriarty, and Dickens' Fagin; and the risk of unprotected sex was an angry father, not AIDS.

 

[_Lynn_]

At least you folks don't have to carbon date yourself like this old fossil. Graduated in 77 kisses to all you youngsters

In 1977, I was married and had two kids already.

 

[sr71plt]

Me too.

 

[lovecraft68]

This thread is good for me. MY kids are busting my balls about passing 45 next month.

 

[Mockingjay]

It made me feel so old! I graduated from high school in 1990!

----------

Does anyone do research to keep their younger characters sounding authentic? How do we keep up as writers who continue to age? Do you find yourself writing about older characters the older you get?

Anyone have directions to the Fountain of Youth?

Oh man, I was still a semen in 1990. LOL

But anyway, since you whining about how old you become, if you want to write about the present younger generations (excuse me, I'm one), try to hang out with them. Observe them if you couldn't since they will look down at you and think you look like their dad or mom. Take note how they speak. Be updated with their fashion, language, attitudes, etc. especially langauge it's always changing, i.e. the slang. It's one way of getting in touch with their real world upon writing fiction.

There's no Fountain of Youth. I destroyed it when I was two since I wanted to grow up, haha, kidding.

 

[robertreams]

graduation

Cheer up I graduated from high school in 1962!