Comments from older readers

[dirk2024]

Also: Fuck I feel old.

It's getting to the point where there are 25 year olds born after 2000 and they are like an alien species. I'm nearly twice their age. Their points of reference are so completely different. I just wonder if this is what it was like for my parents and grandparents, like you are ever so slowly becoming disconnected from culture.

I was a little stunned the first time I thought of someone who wasn't alive at 9/11. Of course it made sense that they existed, considering time stops for no one.

But 9/11 had such an impact on our lives we still post, "where were you when it happened" stories.

 

[lc69hunter]

The second is from You Could Have Stayed, about a post-divorce couple eventually reconciling, told over the course of seven conversations.

There's so much introspection in the comments from older readers. It's not always regret, thankfully, but sometimes that's there, too. And I think that's okay, especially when it can mean growth, or at least coming to terms with what's gone before. Even in that horribly sad comment on Bramblethorn's story, there's a certain peace in, if not having lived the life they might have hoped for, finding solace in stories that deliver, vicariously, on what one has been denied or even denied oneself.

I saved that one as a favorite

 

[Actingup]

I was a little stunned the first time I thought of someone who wasn't alive at 9/11. Of course it made sense that they existed, considering time stops for no one.

But 9/11 had such an impact on our lives we still post, "where were you when it happened" stories.

I imagine that those who can remember WWII feel this even more strongly!

 

[Gamblnluck]

I find some of the age descriptions funny. I turn 73 in January. I write and go on cruises frequently. I even mow my own lawn even if it is a riding lawnmower. My editor for my Pay the Piper stories is 75. One of my beta readers is my age.
I graduated highschool in '71 so my education differs widely from some of yours. We were at the end of the 'hippie era'. Sexual freedom was pretty strong, BUT at the same time we had strong values instilled by our parents.

 

[THBGato]

Sexual freedom was pretty strong, BUT at the same time we had strong values instilled by our parents.

Sounds familiar. And I graduated at the end of the 90's

 

[R20232000]

Just want to say im 32 male but if any of the older readers want to chat juat message me i have pics of me anf my wife also

 

[lovecraft68]

Not sure how I missed this thread. I get a lot of comments/feedback from people who say they're in their 70's and older. A lot of them on the small number of romance stories I have. Commenting about how it reminded them of someone in their past or their longtime current spouse.

I enjoy those because I think people who are older have such vast life experience have some great takes on pretty much everything. My sister used to work at a senior care center and she would always talk about listening to the great stories the men and women there had to tell.

 

[Actingup]

Not sure how I missed this thread. I get a lot of comments/feedback from people who say they're in their 70's and older. A lot of them on the small number of romance stories I have. Commenting about how it reminded them of someone in their past or their longtime current spouse.

I enjoy those because I think people who are older have such vast life experience have some great takes on pretty much everything. My sister used to work at a senior care center and she would always talk about listening to the great stories the men and women there had to tell.

You didn’t miss it - you were just having a quick nap . Yeah.. the life experience and stories are special. In pop culture they tend to be represented as droning on about the old days, but that misses the point as well as being shallow and ageist.

 

[iwatchus]

we had strong values instilled by our parents

I am just a couple of years younger than you and I certainly feel this was true for me. But I don't think this has actually changed much.

As it has turned out, I like working with younger people. I have been in academia working with college students for roughly 30 years. Before that, I was only working in industry (I continued to keep a food sporadically in the water until about a decade ago). One of my strengths was recruiting young talent and building them into a new team (or a resurrected group). I did this at least a half dozen times, always recruiting young 20's. I have been working with that same demographic heavily since I was that demographic.

My general reaction is that very little has really changed other than the details. 23 year-olds do dumb things. And they do caring things. And enthusiastic things. The details vary over the decades, but the people don't some much. Some of them have what I consider a real sense of values, some don't. I haven't the percentages change much. I think the recent students are different in some fundamental ways I sporadically try to understand, but not in having values instilled them.

 

[RetroFan]

Writing stories set in the past I have encountered quite a few older readers, although sometimes you don't really know.

For example in my story 'Banging Cousin Becky in Blackpool' which is set in 1955 with flashbacks to the late 1930s and 1940s, I had some grumpy guy complaining that he was around the same area at this time and I made too many historical inaccuracies. This would put him in his mid-80s, but he could have just been an 18-year-old troll from America who has never been to England.

Another interesting thing I noted on other threads was positive feedback for women in my stories set years ago wearing belted sanitary pads and how hot it is. I even learned an archaic term for menstruation from this - riding the paper pony - which I had never heard before. Given belted sanitary pads would have gone off the market by the early 1980s this suggests that these are older readers, but then again they could be younger readers with period fetishes who read about belted sanitary pads and found them arousing.

 

[SmilingLez]

I've gotten wonderful (longer) comments from both male and female baby boomers for my story Fragments - First Love. Makes my heart happy.

 

[NaughteeDragon]

My point here is: don't underestimate us old farts. WE are a big part of your audience.

Being an old(-ish) fart myself I try to write with that in mind. Particularly if I’m writing mature characters. When I write younger characters I try to have them engage in follies of youth in a way that we can look at and say “ah to be young and stupid again.”

 

[Actingup]

For example in my story 'Banging Cousin Becky in Blackpool' which is set in 1955 with flashbacks to the late 1930s and 1940s, I had some grumpy guy complaining that he was around the same area at this time and I made too many historical inaccuracies. This would put him in his mid-80s, but he could have just been an 18-year-old troll from America who has never been to England.

I've had a couple along these lines, although not quite that ancient. For example, our very own @iwatchus revealed that he'd been to that Genesis tour in the early 70s when I included Firth of Forth in a story. In my recent 'Memories of Sandy' I worked hard to get a particular AC/DC gig in the 70s right (at a small hall in a coastal town), and to get the weather and the cricket scores right on various key dates. For example, in the story, I said:

Boxing Day in 1983 was freezing cold, but Sandy and I went for a drive to the surf beach anyway. The wind was biting, blowing straight from sub-Antarctic waters to spoil the Australian summer.

And I got this awesome comment back:

I remember the 1983 cold boxing day, the South Africans were playing at the G for tge first time since tge apartheid bans and I got 3 tickets,one for dad, one for my sister and one for me.
It rainedcatt day and we saw no cricket but had a great day. Our seats were undercover and we talked like we never had. My wife had the heater going when we got home.

Thank fuck I looked that one up!

 

[iwatchus]

I've had a couple along these lines, although not quite that ancient. For example, our very own @iwatchus revealed that he'd been to that Genesis tour in the early 70s when I included Firth of Forth in a story.

Glad to know while I may be ancient, I'm not THAT ancient.

 

[RetroFan]

I've had a couple along these lines, although not quite that ancient. For example, our very own @iwatchus revealed that he'd been to that Genesis tour in the early 70s when I included Firth of Forth in a story. In my recent 'Memories of Sandy' I worked hard to get a particular AC/DC gig in the 70s right (at a small hall in a coastal town), and to get the weather and the cricket scores right on various key dates. For example, in the story, I said:

Boxing Day in 1983 was freezing cold, but Sandy and I went for a drive to the surf beach anyway. The wind was biting, blowing straight from sub-Antarctic waters to spoil the Australian summer.

And I got this awesome comment back:

I remember the 1983 cold boxing day, the South Africans were playing at the G for tge first time since tge apartheid bans and I got 3 tickets,one for dad, one for my sister and one for me.
It rainedcatt day and we saw no cricket but had a great day. Our seats were undercover and we talked like we never had. My wife had the heater going when we got home.

Thank fuck I looked that one up!

I've never had anyone pull me up on weather on any stories set in the past thankfully. I have written stories set in the past where weather was significant to the plot; Cyclone Tracy in Darwin in 1974, the Big Freeze in the UK in the winter of 1962-1963, and obviously in my story set on the Titanic in 1912 it took place on a very cold night. Nobody corrected me on any of these, although one reader of the Titanic story did comment that I borrowed too heavily from other sources. Given that the Titanic sank many years before I was born, was gone 112 years when I published my story, that at the moment there are less than 20 people still living who were born when the Titanic's only voyage took place (none of whom would be old enough to remember it) and that I don't have a time machine sitting in my garage, I don't really have any other way to do my research.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I've had a couple along these lines, although not quite that ancient. For example, our very own @iwatchus revealed that he'd been to that Genesis tour in the early 70s when I included Firth of Forth in a story. In my recent 'Memories of Sandy' I worked hard to get a particular AC/DC gig in the 70s right (at a small hall in a coastal town), and to get the weather and the cricket scores right on various key dates. For example, in the story, I said:

Boxing Day in 1983 was freezing cold, but Sandy and I went for a drive to the surf beach anyway. The wind was biting, blowing straight from sub-Antarctic waters to spoil the Australian summer.

And I got this awesome comment back:

I remember the 1983 cold boxing day, the South Africans were playing at the G for tge first time since tge apartheid bans and I got 3 tickets,one for dad, one for my sister and one for me.
It rainedcatt day and we saw no cricket but had a great day. Our seats were undercover and we talked like we never had. My wife had the heater going when we got home.

Thank fuck I looked that one up!

Oh, nice! I've seen the reverse of this: an author writing a story set in 1816 and talking about how hot the summer was. Of all the years they could have picked, they picked the one known as "The Year Without A Summer".

 

[MillieDynamite]

In 1883 Krakatoa spewed so much as into the air, that the world temperature dropped 2.2°F and stayed cooler year round for five years. It was a contributor to the 1886 - 1887 blizzard that changed the cattle industry and began the death of Old West version of being a cowboy. I'd imagine that 1816 had some similar even that dampened the temperatures as well.

Oh, nice! I've seen the reverse of this: an author writing a story set in 1816 and talking about how hot the summer was. Of all the years they could have picked, they picked the one known as "The Year Without A Summer".

 

[TheWorldBuilder]

Oh, nice! I've seen the reverse of this: an author writing a story set in 1816 and talking about how hot the summer was. Of all the years they could have picked, they picked the one known as "The Year Without A Summer".

In 1883 Krakatoa spewed so much as into the air, that the world temperature dropped 2.2°F and stayed cooler year round for five years. It was a contributor to the 1886 - 1887 blizzard that changed the cattle industry and began the death of Old West version of being a cowboy. I'd imagine that 1816 had some similar even that dampened the temperatures as well.

Yes, the April 1815 eruption of Tambora.

 

[Actingup]

Yes, the April 1815 eruption of Tambora.

Both were Indonesian eruptions. Which of course makes me realise that there are simply not enough ‘just one bed during a disaster’ stories set in Bali.

 

[sirhugs]

Both were Indonesian eruptions. Which of course makes me realise that there are simply not enough ‘just one bed during a disaster’ stories set in Bali.

which would of course require a field trip to get the scene correct.

 

[Actingup]

which would of course require a field trip to get the scene correct.

Of course! Travelling in context is much more fun. Serious comment... if anybody feels inspired, I recommend that you also go through the mountains of Java (eg Bandung) and to places like Yogyakarta and Solo to get a much better sense of the sweep of history in Indonesia.