Biggest age gap in your stories?

[ScrappyPaperDoodler]

At dinner, one of my friends remarked about someone we knew who was getting married to a woman that 30-years his senior. I don’t see the issue but everyone around the table had quite a lot to say. That got my brain working and now I’m curious as to how the author community feels about age differences in relationships.

What’s the biggest age gap you’ve written into a story and what as it’s significance (if it had any). Also, would you say your view of what’s acceptable in fiction differs from what you deem acceptable in life?

 

[KeithD]

A lot of my stories have wide-span age differences in them. I could probably come up with one or two with a span pushing fifty years. Much beyond that would be physically impossible if the characters are sex partners unless the story gets into sci-fi.

 

[SimonDoom]

At dinner, one of my friends remarked about someone we knew who was getting married to a woman that 30-years his senior. I don’t see the issue but everyone around the table had quite a lot to say. That got my brain working and now I’m curious as to how the author community feels about age differences in relationships.

What’s the biggest age gap you’ve written into a story and what as it’s significance (if it had any). Also, would you say your view of what’s acceptable in fiction differs from what you deem acceptable in life?

I don't have any personal feelings about the subject. I think if two people love each other and want to get married that's great. If two people find each other and love each other in this crazy world it's no business of mine, or anyone else's, to judge them for it.

The President of France is a good-looking guy of the age of 43, married to a woman who's 68. Seems to work for the two of them. I will note that she is very good looking for 68.

I write many parent/child incest stories where the child is usually around 20 and the parent is 20+ years older, so this is nothing new for me. I'm working on a Mature story with a man who is 27 and a woman who is double his age, 54.

 

[TadOverdon]

"Lucille" in Mothers Gone Wild is probably 30-some years older than her son, who is the younger of two children. I forget if we gave her a specific age beyond "early fifties."

 

[Payne_Hall]

My latest story is called Silver Fox. I know, it’s unoriginal, but here we are.

Anyway, the age gap is 18 years for those two. This is excluding the vampire story, by the by, because that doesn’t seem to apply to the scenario. In the story, it works really well, because the main male character is having a really strange midlife crisis and meets a redhead next door and so on.

Some of it was actually based on some real life occurrences that I’ve been near, though. It’s always been an interesting thing how the couples worked out in real life because the ones I’ve seen have always seemed to be sweet with a kind of balance in their lives. For example, an older guy likes to be a caretaker/instructor role, but also enjoys the energy of having someone younger around. A few I’ve met will say that it keeps them young.

Incidentally, another real life twist on this that I’ve always thought holds hands with the idea involves a couple that are the same age, but the guy is... God bless his heart, but he’s an idiot. And the girl just loves teaching him why certain ideas are not, shall we say, correct.

 

[NotWise]

At dinner, one of my friends remarked about someone we knew who was getting married to a woman that 30-years his senior. I don’t see the issue but everyone around the table had quite a lot to say. That got my brain working and now I’m curious as to how the author community feels about age differences in relationships.

What’s the biggest age gap you’ve written into a story and what as it’s significance (if it had any). Also, would you say your view of what’s acceptable in fiction differs from what you deem acceptable in life?

The largest age gap in my stories is about twenty years, and that includes I/T stories.

We have the Mature category here that is largely for age-gap stories, Mom/Son stories, and Daddy/Daughter stories. I have no problem with the age gap in literature and I'm not really opposed to it in real life, but I don't see very many couples with large age gaps. A former coworker was ten years older than her husband. That's about it.

 

[Omenainen]

My mature story had a fifty year age difference, because I wanted to go all in and see if I could make it work. Like KeithD, I don’t think it could really work with much more than that. In real life, I myself have never been attracted to anyone much younger or older, but I don’t care what others do.

 

[ElectricBlue]

What’s the biggest age gap you’ve written into a story and what as it’s significance (if it had any). Also, would you say your view of what’s acceptable in fiction differs from what you deem acceptable in life?

I've got an older woman younger man story where she's more than twice his age, and several older man younger women stories where he's twice hers, but where ages are left implied, not stated. The younger partner is generally late twenties or early thirties - although the older woman was written as being in her early seventies; a reclusive model. I used Tippi Hedren as she is today as my visual muse.

 

[KeithD]

Hmm. I don't see the Mature category for younger older gap. I see it for all older characters.

 

[MelissaBaby]

From the first chapter of Mary and Alvin:

"I'm not sure I feel right about going out with someone, no offense, but someone twenty years older than me."

"How old are you?" he asked.

"Twenty seven."

"Well, I'm only forty six."

Mary laughed. "You lucky bastard," she said.

 

[jaF0]

In general, I don't state ages specifically unless to make use they're over 18. I may use terms such as mid twenties, or early forties. I might make mention of a mother or father helping to celebrate an 18th birthday, but that's about it.

When discussing parents I'll try to make a reference the the mother had the kids young, so she's still youthful and attractive. I almost never mention the father's age.


As a result, my widest gaps are about thirty years.

 

[NotWise]

A lot of my stories have wide-span age differences in them. I could probably come up with one or two with a span pushing fifty years. Much beyond that would be physically impossible if the characters are sex partners unless the story gets into sci-fi.

The category description is:

Mature
May / December lust & love affairs.

There are stories in Mature that are just about mature characters, but most of what I've seen have been age-gap stories.

 

[KeithD]

The category description is:



There are stories in Mature that are just about mature characters, but most of what I've seen have been age-gap stories.

Ah, I see. "Mature" isn't a good word for that, though.

 

[lovecraft68]

Hmm. I don't see the Mature category for younger older gap. I see it for all older characters.

Technically you're right, but just like Taboo has been shaped into almost exclusively incest, the Mature category has become Milf and older man/younger woman stories.

The fact that Lit's slug under the category reads "May / December lust & love affairs."
Encourages the age gap more than stories of two older people.

At this point if you write about two people in their sixties you'd be better off in romance or EC for reader approval. Another example of the readership slowly morphing a category into a certain shape

 

[Somethingedgy]

I had a story that involved someone in their mid twenties and another who was well over a thousand years old.

 

[lovecraft68]

I had a story that involved someone in their mid twenties and another who was well over a thousand years old.

This story was made possible by Viagra and Cialis

 

[Somethingedgy]

No dicks involved sadly. Just a big vampire lady.

 

[NotWise]

Ah, I see. "Mature" isn't a good word for that, though.

I agree completely.

 

[Bramblethorn]

At dinner, one of my friends remarked about someone we knew who was getting married to a woman that 30-years his senior. I don’t see the issue but everyone around the table had quite a lot to say. That got my brain working and now I’m curious as to how the author community feels about age differences in relationships.

What’s the biggest age gap you’ve written into a story and what as it’s significance (if it had any). Also, would you say your view of what’s acceptable in fiction differs from what you deem acceptable in life?

Outside fantasy/horror, biggest age gap I've written here was 23-30, which became 26-33 over the course of the story. Small compared to some of my RL experiences, but still significant in story. The age gap, along with other considerations, created a power differential between those two characters, but as time passed that balance shifted and the older of the two (narrator) had to adjust to that shift.

Past basic age-of-consent considerations, I don't think it's terribly helpful to consider age gaps in a vacuum. They interact so much with other factors. "25-year-old woman and her 75-year-old boss" is a very different kettle of fish from "25-year-old woman and 75-year-old guy at anonymous swing club".

(Until she walks into a new job and recognises her boss as the guy from the swing club, and then you have an interesting story.)

I know a woman who fell in love with her academic supervisor, almost twice her age. They cut the academic ties ASAP, disclosed the relationship, handled it responsibly, and they're still together and AFAICT happy many years later. I know another academic who used to prey on his students; the age gap was less but it was much much worse because he used his status to manipulate and pressure them into sex. There's no simple "subtract younger from older" rule that will tell you whether a relationship's problematic.

 

[BarracudaSwordfish]

Outside of my fantasy work, my age gap seems to hover around the 33 year mark.

51 yo female, 18 yo male
55 yo female, 22 yo male

About as far as I can go while remaining vaguely comfortable.

 

[KeithD]

When I was the younger one, the biggest gap was 31 years and when I was the older one, the biggest gap was 47 years, so I'm comfortable with gaps in the stories being quite wide. I agree, though, that such gaps come with more to cover in a story then two twenty somethings hooking up for some gymnastics.

 

[lovecraft68]

No dicks involved sadly. Just a big vampire lady.

Well that sucks

 

[Rustyoznail]

The biggest current gap is about 35 years in a Mature story.

I'm writing one for the Summer comp with the gaps being about 45, 30 and 2.

It'll go in Group...

 

[BiscuitHammer]

Right now, I think it's 20 years. I've got another story in the works where it's closer to 35.

I grew up with the movie Harold And Maude, so age gaps (between legal adults) don't bother me at all. I don't even blink when I see them RL.

 

[Euphony]

At this point if you write about two people in their sixties you'd be better off in romance or EC for reader approval.

Or stretch those writer muscles in BDSM with "50 Shades of Grayhair."