Unsure whether people will read it

I threw out my back on that last Peru expedition, now I can't tie my shoes without bending my knee to the side and letting out a loud grunt. I'm just getting a little too old for this $hit.

With something like that, you don't have to mention an absolute age, and the type of physical issue and the way you describe it could add way more to characterization than you would get by simply listing that age.

Anninyn said:

I know 60 year-olds who were travelling round the world..

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I'm married to one. Before we came here he was playing lead guitar blues in a pub band - not bad for someone who didn't have a guitar till he was 55.

Lidiya said:

Damn, I could go up to age 134 and you guys would still be telling me tales of how men of that age conquered a lost colony or look healthier than a 20 year old!

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Actually, it is more that you are overlooking several high-profile individuals such as Ranulph Fiennes (68 years old and more awesome than most people half his age), and using age as an arbitrary plot device.

Just make the father unable to adventure due to old injuries and so forth hes picked up over his active years.

It isn't the age, its the mileage....

Oh, 52 makes a little more sense. But yeah, agree with other people here about looking for other reasons...

Speaking of age, when I was 13, I was terrified of getting old. I had this premature weird mid-life crisis thing going on.

Have you started writing yet? Because the book isn't going to write itself. And even if things do go wrong, editing and revising is still a thing.

By the way, I just thought of National Treasure with the father/son thing, only in that movie, I think the father gave up on treasure-hunting and hoped his son wouldn't continue with it.

Anninyn said:

Stop worrying.

I know that's a pointless thing to tell a fifteen year old - I don't think I stopped worrying about things I couldn't control until I was twenty-two.

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Then there's those of us who continually worry about things we can't control well into adulthood. (Raising kids does tend to remind you about how much control you wish you had vs. how little you actually do.)

Anyway, to the OP, as others have said, write the book. Don't think about marketing or how similar it is to what's out there or even your ability to accurately portray someone considerably older than you at this point. First books are about getting it done. It seems simple on the surface, but it's where many aspiring authors give up. Jump that hurdle first. There will be plenty more ahead of you and you'll deal with each as it comes up.

Oh, and as someone who's staring at the big 3-0 on my horizon... I promise, it's not as old as it seems when you're a teen. It has its perks, too. When I try really hard, I can actually get people to take me seriously instead of giving me that, "Oh, you're just a kid, what do you know?" look. I love being a mom too. And running the house the way I want. Neither of those would've have worked out so well in my teen years. (Oh, and for whatever it's worth, I continued looking like a teenager well into my 20's. I actually asked my hair stylist to cut it so I looked older.)

Anyways, best of luck and congrats on that first chapter!

Lidiya said:

I was thinking of starting the book as the character is travelling home from some sort of trip to another country. However, a 15 year old wouldn't be able to do that on his own (without making him run away from school or something).

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Everyone has covered your question better than I could, but I thought I'd pop in just to add, there are ways he could be doing this at 15. When I was 15, I came home to New England from the Philippines to finish school. My parents stayed in the Philippines, where he was working, my grandparents picked me up in Boston. There were two stops in between and an overnight alone in San Francisco, so I could have had an adventure.

I guess I just mean, write your story any way you want, but if you want him to be 15 you could do it.

Lidiya said:

I just don't like the 'teenager going on an adventure' type of cliche :/

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And adult-going-on-an-adventure isn't a so-called "cliche"? Just thinking back to a few awesome books here... The Razor's Edge, Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, every novel written by Jack Keroauc, Of Mice and Men (though that's admittedly stretching it), A Fraction of The Whole, The Corrections, et cetera, et cetera.

The bottom line is, almost every story has been told and is therefore cliched to some degree or another. It's how you tell it that counts.

Furthermore, the minute you start worrying about whether or not people will read it before you've even written your novel is the minute the novel becomes dead. Writing must first and foremost be for the writer. Otherwise, your hearts just not going to be in it, and you will wind up hating your work and hating the person who wrote it (okay, so that's a bit melodramatic, but in all honesty, you might feel that way when writing something that you're just not into).

Lidiya said:

I'm not even 16 and I'm horrified at the thought of aging. My cousin recently read me an article about how you start getting old in your mid 20s when your skin begins to get more dry :O I haven't been the same since.

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I look better now than I ever did in my teens, so don't worry about that. You sort of grow into your face a lot.

Besides, I just got ID'd yesterday when my husband was buying beer, so apparently I look under 21 (which is what they ID you at though they sell it if you're 18).

And being 26, 30 seems a lot younger than it did at 14.

Katrina S. Forest said:

Oh, and as someone who's staring at the big 3-0 on my horizon... I promise, it's not as old as it seems when you're a teen. It has its perks, too. When I try really hard, I can actually get people to take me seriously instead of giving me that, "Oh, you're just a kid, what do you know?" look.

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I know, right? They're letting me buy a house? They listen when I talk! People accept it when I give them advice! I can drink booze in front of my mum! Adulthood is brilliant.

And another agreement for just write the thing. I remember worrying about whether people would read the first thing I wrote at 14 and it stopped me writing it.

Life is short and once you're out of formal education it moves very fast. I feel like I was 18 just last week, but it was 8 years ago. When you're an adult and you have so many other demands on your time writing becomes a joy snatched wherever you can, you'll wish you'd spent less time worrying about it and more time writing it.

I agree about the too old trope. 50 only seems old to you because you're young. My husband's mother said 70 always seemed very very old to her, but when she got to 65, "old" moved out to 80...

JimmyB27 said:

I couldn't disagree more. The first step is wanting to write something. If you write anything other than what you love to write, it will show in your work, imho.



I'm thirty and I still haven't stopped...

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I'm almost twice your age and I haven't stopped. I'll stop when I'm dead, or mentally unable to write anymore.

To the op: persevere. writewritewrite the thing!