Years ago, I read a contemporary Christian novel that was the final in a long-running series that had covered the history of a single fictional family for almost 400 years. The Epilogue was about how their family story was about to be made into a movie. The hero was a young man … who would be played by Robert Redford. In 1996.
Yes, the handsome young hero was about to be played by a sixty-year-old man.
It struck me as stupid even then, and I mentally rewrote the ending. In my version, the movie starred Brad Pitt (who was still a baby-faced thirty-three). I never thought of why the author made such a silly mistake (or why their publisher didn’t swap Redford for someone more age-appropriate). But I’ve suspected the reason for a while, and a recent conversation on Twitter confirmed it.
Many authors use their own cultural touchstones instead of those which fit the character.
This mostly comes up when authors are writing about characters younger than themselves, resulting in characters who are in their twenties or early thirties (or, worse, in their teens), but sound like they’re in their fifties. I’ll share some examples from my own reading, editing, and from the Twitter discussion:
Actors
If you’re using actors (or movies or TV shows) as a cultural reference, make sure they are the actors the character would use. In the 2020s, the hot actors are Bradley Cooper and Henry Cavill and Benedict Cumberbatch, not Robert Redford, Brad Pitt or even Leonardo di Caprio. The power couple is Emily Blunt and John Krasinski, not Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
Movies and TV Shows
Equally, your contemporary YA or romance heroines watched Star Wars: The Phantom Menace before Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. To them, Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica and Higgins from Magnum, PI are both female. And, as shocking as it might seem, Mr Darcy is not played by Colin Firth.
Musicians
Work out what musicians your character would be listening to (probably musicians their own age or up to ten years older). If they are listening to older music, make sure there is a reason. If they’re a musical theatre fan, it’s likely they’ll know and love all the musicals. If they play the violin in an orchestra, it’s likely they’ll listen to classical composers as well as contemporary hits.
Books and Magazines
I remember spending hours of my teenage years pouring over magazines telling me what makeup to buy and how to apply it. Modern teens get this information from Instagram and YouTube.
Adults buy magazines on a range of topics: home decor, fashion, motherhood. The younger generation watches shows YouTube. So don’t write that a room looks like a shoot in a design magazine. Say it looks like the “after” shot in a home renovation show.
Technology
Technology is another area where writers can get it wrong. Now that almost everyone has a mobile (or cell) phone, many people no longer have a home telephone line (if they do have a landline, it could be because it’s free with their internet connection).
Equally, conversations aren’t necessarily the one-on-one dialogue from our past. We might put the call on speaker so several people can contribute to the conversation. And calls don’t just have to be sound: internet video calls are common, whether they use old-school Skype, or something more modern like Facebook, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom. And we’re just as likely to make those calls on a table or desktop computer as on a landline (previously known as a telephone).
Text messages are another potential issue.
Back when mobile phones only had number keys, people would use txtspk and abbreviations to get their message across in as few keystrokes as possible. Now, all phones have full keyboards along with predictive text and dictation functions. Teens text in full words and often even in grammatically complete sentences (and often dictate longer text messages).
They don’t write c u l8r.
They also don’t go to the video store to hire a movie on videotape (or even on DVD or Blu-ray). They have a Netflix subscription (and possibly Apple, Amazon Prime, and their favourite anime channel as well).
Fashion
We even have to check our fashion accessories. While I’ve been wearing scrunchies in my hair for twenty-odd years, they’ve been seriously out of fashion for at least ten of those years, so aren’t something a younger, hipper woman would wear. Pinterest is a great place to research what people are wearing.
Vocabulary
Finally, make sure your vocabulary is consistent with your character’s age and education. Avoid works like dear, folk, and slacks—they’re words my grandmother used (for reference, Grandma was born in 1921). My mother doesn’t use words like that, and I certainly don’t.
Using such vocabulary may give the wrong impression. You might think “dear” implies affection, but the reader might see it as something quite different:
It was strange that this man who was likely only a decade older than her thought to call her “dear.” It was a sweet term of endearment, but it reminded Emma that she wasn’t presenting herself as a competent adult.
Google Ngrams is a handy tool for figuring out what words were common and when, although it can’t tell you what the term meant (and meanings do change: much of Urban Dictionary is NSFW, but it’s an excellent tool for discovering the current meaning of a word or phrase.)
The basic principle is that a reader shouldn’t be able to tell how old the author is by their vocabulary or the cultural references they use.
Remember, you’re writing your character’s story, not yours.
Consider your character’s age, culture, educational background, and make the effort to find and use the appropriate cultural references.
The bonus? This will make it easier for you to write original characters, because each character has a unique upbringings and cultural experience. Reflect that (not yours), and you’ll go a long way towards creating unique characters your readers can care about.
