I actually like reading older books, like ones written in the 60's/70's/80's and seeing glimpses of their culture. I'm sure a lot of other people do too!
Concerns about "dating" a story
- Thread starter geminirising
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She probably had no idea how much people would retroactively hate the 80s 20 or so years later.
It seems like most decades get a fair amount of hate 20-30 years later, at least from the younger generation. It may have something to do with its being the decade their parents' generation was their age? Back in the 80s and 90s, I remember gagging at anything that showed people wearing bell bottoms. Then they (urp) came back in fashion, and the younger kids started wearing them again and going "ew" at straight-legged pants.
It may also be that looking back at an earlier decade (via a contemporary work set in an earlier era) through our filters of now may work better for some readers than something written during that actual decade, when people lacked perspective or hindsight.
Like movies and books created in the 50s or earlier often seem to pretend that racism and sexism didn't exist (and maybe even pretend that minorities and women didn't exist as real, well-rounded people). But books and movies made about the 50s in more recent decades tend to address these things, which really did affect peoples' lives in so many ways. I sometimes find it hard to read a book where the predominant "value" is that something that we now think of as very wrong (and with good cause) is just okay, or even invisible, as are entire swathes of people who existed back then.
I think people do worry overly much about being dated.
Here's an example. I recently acquired a box of books...and many of them are from the 1950s.
One of them was the C.M. Kornbluth novel "Not This August". It was published in 1955 and set in 1965, with the cold war having gone hot in 1962. It was Kornbluth's vision of what would happen if the Soviets won.
Ironically, it stands up...as perfectly acceptable alternate history
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And while the casual sexism is indeed quite visible in the 1950s stories I'm reading, the good ones still stand up. I just have to remember when they were written. Science fiction may be in the future (usually) but it's a product of its present. A lens through which we can see today's society.
The thing with being "dated" is that most readers do check copyright dates. Most people think about when a book was written. Heck, Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea stands up remarkably well despite not remotely being science fiction any more...
Here's an example. I recently acquired a box of books...and many of them are from the 1950s.
One of them was the C.M. Kornbluth novel "Not This August". It was published in 1955 and set in 1965, with the cold war having gone hot in 1962. It was Kornbluth's vision of what would happen if the Soviets won.
Ironically, it stands up...as perfectly acceptable alternate history
.And while the casual sexism is indeed quite visible in the 1950s stories I'm reading, the good ones still stand up. I just have to remember when they were written. Science fiction may be in the future (usually) but it's a product of its present. A lens through which we can see today's society.
The thing with being "dated" is that most readers do check copyright dates. Most people think about when a book was written. Heck, Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea stands up remarkably well despite not remotely being science fiction any more...
What's really embarrassing for a science-fiction author is if you write a story set about 200 years in the future, and people are still using some technology that's common at the time you're writing. But then that technology becomes obsolete in about 5 years. People who read your story 10 or 20 years later will really laugh at you.
For example, I've read stories written back in the sixties where interstellar spaceships were flying through hyperspace, and the navigators had to plot course using slide rules.
So, if you're writing science fiction, that's definitely something to avoid if you can! Otherwise, I wouldn't really worry about dating a story too much.
For example, I've read stories written back in the sixties where interstellar spaceships were flying through hyperspace, and the navigators had to plot course using slide rules.
So, if you're writing science fiction, that's definitely something to avoid if you can! Otherwise, I wouldn't really worry about dating a story too much.
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I remember watching Blade Runner a year or so ago and thinking, "Wait, this takes place like five years from now? I don't think so!" Still enjoyed it, though.
For the most part, I think concerns over 'dating' your work are overblown. However...
This. I read something recently that had a lot of cultural references to the time period I grew up in, which was kind of cool, but it felt at time a little too much like a nostalgia trip, like the author was wallowing in his own memories. Like so much else in writing, if it gets distracting, it's a problem.
When I re-read "Andromeda Strain" by Michael Crichton, I knew it was dated, but that didn't distract from the reading. In the movie, I kept thinking "that technology's not really very advanced" or "such horrible computer graphics". Being grounded somewhat in reality, the older dates make more sense.
THAT SAID, if I am reading a story set "10 years from now" (either given by the author or the copyright date) and read something about floppy drives being so great, I would roll my eyes. Mind you, I wouldn't necessarily throw the book against the wall, knowing when the author wrote the story, etc. My suggestion would be to write more generically ("Search engine" instead of Google, etc).
THAT SAID, if I am reading a story set "10 years from now" (either given by the author or the copyright date) and read something about floppy drives being so great, I would roll my eyes. Mind you, I wouldn't necessarily throw the book against the wall, knowing when the author wrote the story, etc. My suggestion would be to write more generically ("Search engine" instead of Google, etc).
My favorite books were written by Thomas Hardy. Talk about dated...I had someone leave a crit for me once that my mention of a song was dating my work. I didn't really understand what the alternative was supposed to be....Are you supposed to not mention pop culture, newsworthy events, technology...just for the sake of not sounding dated?
How boring, and impossible from a writing standpoint. People don't want to read something that's been completely stripped of all aspects of the time period in which the story is set. I think, rather, that those things lend the story its flavor.
How boring, and impossible from a writing standpoint. People don't want to read something that's been completely stripped of all aspects of the time period in which the story is set. I think, rather, that those things lend the story its flavor.
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If it makes just as much sense to say it's May 11, as opposed to May 11, 2013, then I suggest staying with the former. But as for everything else, I think it would be odd slash phoney to scrub descriptions in an attempt to transcend time. Your story is set in a certain time. So be it. It becomes part of that culture's time period.
But - did it matter to the story at all that it happened in London? Or in 2008 exactly? Sometimes the exact date and place may be important to 'get' a story, but a lot of times this won't matter at all. If people use mobile phones and the internet, OK, you know it's 'contemporary' in the broad sense. Why does, say, 2010 vs 2006 matter?
I agree it may be a good idea to avoid brand names or a speicified web site etc. 'Mobile' and 'search the net' will in all probability be understood both ten and twenty years from now, even if the technilogy has changed, while 'iPhone' or 'google' may not.
Mark Moore
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Mark Moore
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Meh. I've made references to Kumi Miyasato, a relatively obscure J-Pop star from the 1980s. I don't necessarily expect readers to get it, but those that do will be pleasantly surprised, and those that decide to look her up will find a lot of beautiful songs to listen to.
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IDK, Mark, I looked her up on Youtube, and, well ... she's a very pretty young lady. But speaking of obscure references, can you believe Lu turned 53 in January? We try to stop in for a visit every time we're in your neck of the woods. My daughter timed one of his farts at 47 seconds. Amazing.
If I had read a book that referenced Kumi Miyasato, I would've assumed the writer just made her up. So I guess there's not much of a drawback if people who don't get the reference just assume she's fictional, but people that do get the reference are impressed.
I'm revising a contemporary middle grade that I wrote some years back. One of the first things I did was put a year in. My characters don't have their own cell phones - most sixth graders do today, with the wealthier group having i-somethings. I realized that the story has to stay in the year I worked on it. If it were read as 2013, the reader would be wondering where the tech was. Giving them the year lets them focus on the characters and the plot and not on figuring out an unnecessary mystery or how far they can throw the book.
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Well, if you're on a lovely island on December 7 and you hear low-flying planes, then it's a fine thing to add the full date. I'm not sure that I expect books that I read to be in 2013 unless otherwise stated, but have no idea of the expectations of a MG reader.
Mark Moore
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My approach is to not reference any specific recent real-life events and not have the characters discuss a movie/show/whatever as being new. I have my MCs be fans of new stuff and old stuff, so, as the real world moves on from the time period in which I wrote the story, it could still be happening "now"; it's just tha the characters are discussing old stuff entirely.
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One of the coolest techniques for avoiding dating I've ever seen was in Jay Asher's THIRTEEN REASONS WHY. The MC gets a set of cassette tapes recorded by a classmate who committed suicide. He has to go hunting for something to play them on.
The book never references what kind of audio recording is common at the time the story takes place, just that cassette recording is out of date. Using an old technology, and acknowledging in the narrative that it is an old technology, gives the book a timelessness (which is great because I think it's going to become one of those contemporary classics that gets assigned to middle schoolers for a long time).
The book never references what kind of audio recording is common at the time the story takes place, just that cassette recording is out of date. Using an old technology, and acknowledging in the narrative that it is an old technology, gives the book a timelessness (which is great because I think it's going to become one of those contemporary classics that gets assigned to middle schoolers for a long time).
As others have said -- it's unavoidable.
It shoud also be remembered that all great works are in some way an historical document of their time. In fact, how can any art be anything else? I'm not sure why this is a worry to you.
That being said, some things date better than others. That's just a question of how good we are at what we do, as I see it.
It shoud also be remembered that all great works are in some way an historical document of their time. In fact, how can any art be anything else? I'm not sure why this is a worry to you.
That being said, some things date better than others. That's just a question of how good we are at what we do, as I see it.
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