Least Icky Age Gaps

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san_remo_ave

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Why can't your heroine be older when they see each other again? Is there a reason other than you don't want her to be considered 'on the shelf'? Does the plot still stand up if she's 30 instead of 23/24?

When I wrote my first Regency novella, I was worried about the same thing --I had a young couple (16 & 17) who were separated nearly 20 years before they reconnected and my story began. I was certainly concerned that the age of the heroine in particular (at 35/36 years of age and never married) would be a problem. But, it's how I needed to tell the story, so I went with it. Sold it, too, with nary a comment from publisher nor reader about her age!
 

job

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I was certainly concerned that the age of the heroine in particular (at 35/36 years of age and never married) would be a problem.

I've seen this solved by making the heroine a widow ...
 

Deb Kinnard

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In "Little Women", wasn't Amy 10 or so when Laurie (at 18? 19?) promised to kiss her once so she wouldn't die unkissed? This is purely platonic between age-inappropriate people who end up married.

If the early 'ship is handled sensitively, the age gap doesn't bother me at all. I also like the younger woman-unrequited thing while he may be ogling comely young women his own age, and considers her his "little treasure" or something equally innocent.
 

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I'd be squicked by 12-17, for sure. I'd think there was something 'wrong' with the 17 year old, something that might not be cured by him becoming a full adult. Even if there's nothing physical, the "wait for me" suggests that he's thinking of her romantically, and that just doesn't work for me, with those ages. In our time, it would be like a high school senior being interested in a girl in junior high.

I'd be fine with the five year gap if she were clearly post-pubescent - 15 and 20, for example. Or if they were both pre-pubescent 7 and 12? It's the different-sides-of-puberty that makes me uncomfortable.

ETA: Oops! Slight necro-thread! Deb Kinnard dragged me into it! Sorry!
 

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Thanks for the info. I only mentioned the young as 13 thing because it did happen and I am sure was not considered in the same light as it is now.

When my characters first know each other, if she was 10 and he was 16, that would personally make me uncomfortable. But I feel easier (though not much!) with her being 12 and him being 17 or 18.

This age gap when they are younger is giving me a ton of difficulty.

I need them to know that they love each other without him seeming pervy and her seeming too much like a child.

But also, there has to be at least a 6 year gap when they are adults and meet again.

Argh!

Were their families friends when they were kids, and that's how they knew each other as younger people, or were they actually friends/childhood sweethearts?

A childhood romance between a 12 year old (who likely wouldn't have reached menarche yet back in the regency period) and a 17 year old (the age when a lot of guys were having their first sexual relationships with "loose women") would probably be pretty squicky to me. But I find large age gaps in romances somewhat unsettling, even if both are well over the age of consent. As a woman, I've always resented the idea that we somehow are old and uninteresting past our twenties, but men get better with age.

Is there a reason why there *has* to be a 6 year age gap between the protagonists?

Anyway, if you're set on that age gap, it's entirely plausible that she could have been, say, the younger sister of one of his male chums, or the daughter of some of his parents' friends, and so he knew her when she was a child and he was an older boy/teen. He may have even been fond of her in a distracted sort of way, at least, but my hunch is he probably would not have hung out with her much or at all one on one. I doubt many teenaged boys (then or now) find girls who are six years younger than them terribly interesting as close, personal friends? More like he might think of her as almost a younger sister or younger cousin if the families were very close. Then he could be all surprised to see how she's matured when they meet again years later.

It's not unusual for pre teen girls to have crushes on boys who are older teens, and for those teen aged boys to be oblivious. What if he says goodbye, kisses her on the cheek with a "wait for me" that's just affectionate teasing to him, but she takes it seriously?
 
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lise8

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If it is childhood love you are going for, then you should probably make your characters children, and 17 is full on teenage young adulthood.

I have just returned from holidays, and my 5 years old has fallen in love (yep, I know) with her cousin who is 12. He is still very much a child in looks and behaviour, and although I do not think he shared her feelings, he was attentive and caring to her, and maybe even a little pleased that she felt so strongly about him...

So maybe that age gap is possible if, as suggested before, she is the one that drives the romantic agenda. They must see each other daily, rather than a week holiday, so I could see how he might develop loving feelings towards her, free of sexual thoughts at this early stage (if he is a late developer, some 12 year old boys are scarily sexually aware!)

I think it would work better that way, because 17 and 12 does make me feel uncomfortable (modern standard, I know), and this comes from someone who is writing a story in which the romantic element is between a couple with 18 years difference! it works as they are adults, it would be inconceivable to me otherwise!
 

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I'm reading a bio of the Romanovs, and Nicholas II and Alexandra fell for one another when they were 16 and 12, respectively.

In the end, you're telling your (their) story. If the age gap fits them, write it, regardless of qualms about squickiness. There are so many elements or plot points that many will immediately say they dislike...until they read a book where it works beautifully.
 

Sapphire135

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Thanks for all the responses.

In answer, she is the daughter of a country squire and he is a servant on the neighboring estate. They have known each other all their lives and the two of them, along with the legitimate son of the gentleman from the neighboring estate, are always in each others company.

My heroine is very precocious. Her father is a lenient sort of buffoon and her mother is dead. She does mostly what she wants in a spoiled, scarlet o'hara sort of way.

When the hero is accused of a crime and must flee, the heroine helps him and he promises that one day he will come back for her.

The six year age gap was something I wanted when they are both adults. Also it would explain why when he comes back, she is still unmarried. If she were 28 or older, it isn't plausible she would be unmarried and also making her a widow wouldn't work.

I have resolved that there will be a three year age gap. If she is twelve and he is fifteen, would that be too Icky?? My other alternative is eleven and fourteen, but I think she would be too childish then.
 

oldhousejunkie

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12 and 15 is not icky at all, nor is 11 and 14. I always had older guy friends growing up because I was "old" for my age. I had the most horrible crush on a guy in his early 20s when I was 10. He flirty in a childish way, called me his "girlfriend", etc. We were being supervised by adults the whole time (I was an extra in a play) so nothing inappropriate happened, but geez...I was so in love! :)

Could it not be similar? He's 17 and she's 13/14? If handled appropriately, there shouldn't be a squick factor. If told from her perspective, it could be her that has the crush whereas he acts more like an adoring older brother? There can be enough of a bond between them without their being any true romance.

In one of my novels, the heroine is 17 and the hero is 34. I wanted him to be a reformed rake, to be transformed by her innocence to some extent. She falls in love with him from the start just because he treats her as an equal (her family is horrible to her). In my mind, it would have gotten squicky if he was over 40. I think an age gap of 20+ years is pushing it. But everyone is different. My now hubby was totally weirded out that I was dating a 34 year old when I was 24 (right before I started dating hubby). Obviously, I was not. :)
 
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Sonsofthepharaohs

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In one of my novels, the heroine is 17 and the hero is 34. I wanted him to be a reformed rake, to be transformed by her innocence to some extent. She falls in love with him from the start just because he treats her as an equal (her family is horrible to her). In my mind, it would have gotten squicky if he was over 40.

In my historical novel, the MC's sister is married to a man nearly 20 years older than her.... and she was 12 when she fell for him! Yes, little girls do get crushes on adults all the time (I know I did) although in ancient Egypt it wasn't such an issue. Even so, my MC did have some reservations, and said she couldn't marry until she had 'become a woman'. She was very devious tho, and faked getting her first period so she could marry him ;)


I think an age gap of 20+ years is pushing it. But everyone is different. My now hubby was totally weirded out that I was dating a 34 year old when I was 24 (right before I started dating hubby). Obviously, I was not. :)

When I was 20 I was dating a 34 year old. When was 30, I was dating a 50 year old. I think the only people who thought it weird were my parents, because they were closer in age to my boyfriends than I was! :D
 

kkbe

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I have resolved that there will be a three year age gap. If she is twelve and he is fifteen, would that be too Icky?? My other alternative is eleven and fourteen, but I think she would be too childish then.
Twelve and fifteen? IMO, that age difference is no biggie. Girls generally mature at an earlier age than boys anyway.

As for eleven being too childish an age for the girl, I shall not say what I was thinking at eleven. :)
 

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It's quite fortunate this thread caught my eye in the little "Last post in..." box, given that I don't visit this corner of the forums very ofter (read: ever), and I've been dealing with pretty much the same age gap as the OP.

The two girls in my WIP are twelve and sixteen, and while there's little at this point that would convince me to change that gap (short of being offered a six figure advance on that condition), I am curious to hear whether or not it squicks people.
It is a sexual relationship, but as far as the narrative is concerned, it may as well not be. I'm certainly not going to be writing sex scenes between them, and I doubt I'll even fade to black, but the sex is there, even if it only happens once or twice.
Plus, the older girl does go through bouts of "Shit, I'm a paedo", and the only other person who's aware of their relationship very much does not approve.

Thoughts? I am genuinely curious to know if the squickyness goes down on account of their being girls. It seems like it shouldn't, but y'know.
 

Viridian

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Twelve and sixteen isn't an enormous gap. But, personally, it would squick me out. I would seriously question the... sanity, intelligence, whatever... of a sixteen-year-old who sincerely wanted a sexual + romantic relationship with a twelve-year-old. Reading through this thread, though, makes me wonder if I'm a prude. :D I can definitely imagine a little kid having a crush on an older kid, but the other way around just seems like... eh.

I have a couple protagonists who grew up together. 4/5 year age gap. The little one developed a crush on the older one when they were eleven and sixteen, respectively. Began "wooing" the older one the best he could. At seventeen and twenty-one, the older one caved. Before that, though, it just seemed too unbalanced to me.

Thoughts? I am genuinely curious to know if the squickyness goes down on account of their being girls.

Not even a little bit.
 
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Keyan

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Thanks for all the responses.

In answer, she is the daughter of a country squire and he is a servant on the neighboring estate. They have known each other all their lives and the two of them, along with the legitimate son of the gentleman from the neighboring estate, are always in each others company.

My heroine is very precocious. Her father is a lenient sort of buffoon and her mother is dead. She does mostly what she wants in a spoiled, scarlet o'hara sort of way.

When the hero is accused of a crime and must flee, the heroine helps him and he promises that one day he will come back for her.

The six year age gap was something I wanted when they are both adults. Also it would explain why when he comes back, she is still unmarried. If she were 28 or older, it isn't plausible she would be unmarried and also making her a widow wouldn't work.

I have resolved that there will be a three year age gap. If she is twelve and he is fifteen, would that be too Icky?? My other alternative is eleven and fourteen, but I think she would be too childish then.

I'm tripping over the idea that he thinks he has any chance of marrying her. Unless her father really doesn't care, it would affect his social position to introduce this man as his son-in-law.
 

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This is a good question to ask and you've gotten some great answers. All I have to add is that I read a novel where there was a 10-year age gap between the kids. From age 5 up, the MC was cared for/babysat by the LI starting at 15. It honestly didn't matter how perfectly "chaste" the relationship was; when the MC reached her teens and the romance developed, every previous tender interaction from the LI reveals itself, in retrospect, to be predatory grooming.

Sadly, this was not the author's intent, but there was no escaping the "ick."

Here is how some people reacted.

Is a large age gap the only possible way to make the LI unrecognizable to the MC? Could he not begin as a portly kid with a buzz cut who grows into a buff young man with a beautiful afro and beard, or something?
 

StarWombat

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I agree with DL. If the point is to have characters be unrecognizable to each other, then there's probably a way to do that that doesn't require a large age gap.
 

NRoach

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Twelve and sixteen isn't an enormous gap. But, personally, it would squick me out. I would seriously question the... sanity, intelligence, whatever... of a sixteen-year-old who sincerely wanted a sexual + romantic relationship with a twelve-year-old. Reading through this thread, though, makes me wonder if I'm a prude. :D I can definitely imagine a little kid having a crush on an older kid, but the other way around just seems like... eh.

I have a couple protagonists who grew up together. 4/5 year age gap. The little one developed a crush on the older one when they were eleven and sixteen, respectively. Began "wooing" the older one the best he could. At seventeen and twenty-one, the older one caved. Before that, though, it just seemed too unbalanced to me.

Not even a little bit.

That's pretty much the reaction I'm going for, which is promising to see.
 

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Twelve and sixteen isn't an enormous gap. But, personally, it would squick me out. I would seriously question the... sanity, intelligence, whatever... of a sixteen-year-old who sincerely wanted a sexual + romantic relationship with a twelve-year-old. Reading through this thread, though, makes me wonder if I'm a prude. :D I can definitely imagine a little kid having a crush on an older kid, but the other way around just seems like... eh.

I'm the same way. When I was in my mid teens, pre teens were still children to me. My husband is 3.5 years younger than me, but if I'd known him when I was a sophomore in highschool (15-16), he would have been a little boy to me, and therefore completely uninteresting.

There's such a jump that happens when you hit puberty. Girls grow breasts and pubic hair and start their periods. Boys shoot up in height, and their voices get all scratchy and they get these huge, bobbing Adam's apples on their necks. Some get bristly right away, while it can take years for others to be able to grow any kind of beard. But girls vary in how quickly and how much their breasts grow too. And zits and body odor become banes of one's existence. Girls may mature mentally faster than boys on average, but a 16-17 year old boy is not generally in the same place physically as a 12 year old girl (who is really not physically ready for sex or childbearing, even in our era of early menarche).

One big shift seems to be that crushes and infatuations shift from being puppy love to sexual in nature. I can't speak for all kids, but when I was 12, my fantasies about the boys I fell for entailed holding hands, a little smooching, and spending time together, not having sex. I wasn't sheltered growing up either. I knew what sex was, and my cousin and I even spent some rainy saturdays reading her parents dirty books (and they were really xxx, not just torrid romances), but the fascination was more akin to what I experienced when reading about bizarre medical procedures :D From what I've heard, though, boys start fantasizing about actual penetrative sex earlier (possibly because it wouldn't hurt their bodies the way it would a physically immature girl's).

Again, some kids probably are different, and society is even more hyper sexualized today. Maybe girls start fantasizing about intercourse earlier too now. Maybe they did at some times in history as well.


I do agree that a lot of things that sound off putting in the abstract (when we're discussing them in forums) can work when they're presented in a way that's organic to the situation and characters.

That's pretty much the reaction I'm going for, which is promising to see.

For some reason, I find it less squicky when they're both girls, maybe because there just feels like less of a power differential there. Plus, the things two girls do together will likely not be painful to the younger one or result in either getting pregnant, which is a big issue I have with younger teens having sex, especially in a time or place where contraception isn't available.
 
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NRoach

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One big shift seems to be that crushes and infatuations shift from being puppy love to sexual in nature. I can't speak for all kids, but when I was 12, my fantasies about the boys I fell for entailed holding hands, a little smooching, and spending time together, not having sex. I wasn't sheltered growing up either. I knew what sex was, and my cousin and I even spent some rainy saturdays reading her parents dirty books (and they were really xxx, not just torrid romances), but the fascination was more akin to what I experienced when reading about bizarre medical procedures :D From what I've heard, though, boys start fantasizing about actual penetrative sex earlier (possibly because it wouldn't hurt their bodies the way it would a physically immature girl's).

Again, some kids probably are different, and society is even more hyper sexualized today. Maybe girls start fantasizing about intercourse earlier too now. Maybe they did at some times in history as well.
I'm not quite sure as to the attitude of the younger; in my first draft she was kinda pushy about it all, but I'm starting to feel like that doesn't really fit.

For some reason, I find it less squicky when they're both girls, maybe because there just feels like less of a power differential there. Plus, the things two girls do together will likely not be painful to the younger one or result in either getting pregnant, which is a big issue I have with younger teens having sex, especially in a time or place where contraception isn't available.
That's an interesting perspective. It's less squicky for me, but that's probably simply because the notion of two girls in that relationship doesn't make me think of a sixteen year old me having a relationship with a twelve year old.
 

CassandraW

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How about having him have a beard/facial hair when she sees him again, as well as being larger and more muscular? Facial hair can really change the look of a guy's face.

So can a different hair style. (e.g.., he has longish curls as a boy, but it's clipped short as an adult. It could even darken as he ages, as many people's hair does as they grow older. Many have facial hair in a different shade than their head hair, too. If she first saw him again in a hat, that could really throw her.

And actually -- regency? Any chance he'd wear a powdered wig? Wow, would that make you look different.

Also, if he's been a soldier/sailor, ten years of sun and wind can change a face a good bit.

And maybe this suggestion wouldn't fit your character's image, but he could have his hairline recede.

(FWIW, the guy I'm currently dating (a young-looking 36) showed me his high school yearbook picture and I would have had a hard time picking him out if I hadn't known who he was. IMO, he looks much better now.)

Also -- I would not be grossed out by 14 and 18 in historical romance. Even 14 and 19. (My parents were ages 15 and 19 when they met -- they married at 18 and 23.) Somehow I feel a big difference between 13 and 14 -- I know I looked and felt much more womanly at 14, and so did most of my friends. I wouldn't want my 14 year old daughter (if I had one) dating a guy that much older today, but these are definitely different times, and your readers will certainly understand that.

BTW, in Gone with the Wind, Scarlett was 16 and Rhett 35 when they met. It never even occurred to me to find that gross because it was established pretty early in the book that in that pre-Civil War south world, girls were old maids by 20 or so, and often married much older men.

And I for one would easily accept a gap of 13 and 22 in a work about Tudor nobility, because I know that lots of girls from that particular time and class were married that young (and younger) to men much older than that. Not everyone would know that or be ok with it, though. The trick to pulling it off is to establish your world first so your reader already gets that the gap isn't considered icky in that world. 14 and 18 might be safer. :)
 

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I'm tripping over the idea that he thinks he has any chance of marrying her. Unless her father really doesn't care, it would affect his social position to introduce this man as his son-in-law.

He doesn't think he has a chance when he is young. But when he comes back over a decade later, he is a titled gentleman. (The mystery of who his father is is a big part of the book.)


How about having him have a beard/facial hair when she sees him again, as well as being larger and more muscular? Facial hair can really change the look of a guy's face.

So can a different hair style. (e.g.., he has longish curls as a boy, but it's clipped short as an adult. It could even darken as he ages, as many people's hair does as they grow older. Many have facial hair in a different shade than their head hair, too. If she first saw him again in a hat, that could really throw her.

And actually -- regency? Any chance he'd wear a powdered wig? Wow, would that make you look different.

Also, if he's been a soldier/sailor, ten years of sun and wind can change a face a good bit.

I have him with very light, flaxen blonde hair as a boy, but when he is an adult his hair is golden blonde. Also, after running away, he does serve in the navy for a time and that changes him. Finally, I envisioned that he is one of those guys who is lean and slight as a boy, but in their late teens goes through an amazing physical change - fills out, gets taller, etc.

I can't make him too old when they are young together not only because I need the physical changes while they're apart to be dramatic, but something happens when he is young involving him and another boy that would never have happened if he was older, bigger, and dealt with things like an adult.

Thanks everyone for all the input! I have been waylaid doing edits on the novel I just finished and have had to postpone working on this one until I am finished. I can't wait to get back to it!
 
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