Hpw Big is Too Big an Age Gap in YA?

well it's legal and that's all that really matters once she turns 18.

It would only be if she was under 18 that I would find it inappropriate.

It's okay, but I would lower him to 23, if it were my story. Not a huge difference between 23 and 25, but it makes him a little more relatable and accessible to a YA reader. Lowers that age difference just a bit, too.

Becca C. said:

It's okay, but I would lower him to 23, if it were my story. Not a huge difference between 23 and 25, but it makes him a little more relatable and accessible to a YA reader. Lowers that age difference just a bit, too.

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Yeah true, I don't see too many ya readers relating to a 25 year old.

I'd lower him to 23, too, though I also wouldn't flinch at a gap that big. 25 and 19 is not too big a gap even in modern times, let alone in high fantasy. I feel like most 16+ yo people would understand that too, but even then, if he doesn't have to be 25 it might just be easier to put him at 23.

I agree with changing his age to 23 simply from personal reading experience. I had trouble relating to characters in their mid-twenties when I was only 15-16, because it seems like your whole life would be settled by then (ha).

The age difference doesn't bug me, but a 19-year-old YA heroine is gonna be a hard sell, I think.


An appropriate age gap in general depends on the age of the MC. If she's 15, going over 18 is probably no go. An 18-year-old might be able to go as high as 25. A 19-year-old maybe up to low thirties.


But, that's the age gap that might be acceptable, not whether the individual characters will be acceptable for YA at those ages.


Even 23 might be too high for a YA audience, although Stephanie Perkins had a contemp with a 22-year-old love-interest, but he got dumped for an 18-year-old.

I would also lower it a bit.

I just read a YA historical fantasy in which the heroine was roughly 17 and her love interest was 22 or 23. You can get away with more in high fantasy or historical, since these are cultural mores that shift depending on time and place. Still, if I were writing it, I'd have the MC 18 and the 'boy' no more than 23, as others have suggested.

Since it's high fantasy, things are a little more flexible here. I wouldn't think anything of a 19-year-old MC in a YA high fantasy as long as the story feels like YA. You don't have things like high school and college in a fantasy world.

Also, I don't think the love interest being older is an issue. If this is a vaguely medieval world, it wouldn't be at all odd for an older man to marry a younger woman.

Of course, I'm more of a fantasy person than a strictly YA person. Maybe it would bother some readers.

rwm4768 said:

Since it's high fantasy, things are a little more flexible here. I wouldn't think anything of a 19-year-old MC in a YA high fantasy as long as the story feels like YA. You don't have things like high school and college in a fantasy world.

Also, I don't think the love interest being older is an issue. If this is a vaguely medieval world, it wouldn't be at all odd for an older man to marry a younger woman.

Of course, I'm more of a fantasy person than a strictly YA person. Maybe it would bother some readers.

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Wrong. The medievl world did have colleges, and the average marriagable age for both males and females was in their 20s. Late teens wasn't uncommon either, but men were not routinely drastically older than their wives. It wasn't considered proper.

OP: 25 for the LI doesn't seem to bad to me as she is a legal adult, but I agree with those who say that since this is meant to be YA you should lower his age to 22/23. If this wasn't going to be aimed at the YA market 25 would of been perfectly fine in my personal opinion.

I agree with other posters. Definitely lower it.

At least, for YA market, perhaps.

I know it's legal, but it feels different in your twenties, especially after college. I'm in your male character's age range, and I have a co-worker who's in third year of college, and I would feel icky about dating him. I was around when he was finishing up his high school courses, ew. (To me, at least, it would be ew.)

Thanks for asking the question. I was actually wondering the same thing about the age gap between my characters.

I'm writing a Fantasy as well, with some romance in it. I've been debating with myself whether it's YA or not, but I've been leaning that way lately since the protagonist is 16-17. The thing is, the romantic interest is 26-27. Now, in the real world I would find this pretty gross. For the characters I've created however, it works.

There are certain things that have to happened in my LI's life in order to shape who he is, these things take time. Essentially, even though he's much older there have been a number of factors in his life that have prevented him from settling into what his culture would consider normal adulthood. Additionally, with cultural/world differences and the resulting miscommunication, initially both the MC and the LI misunderstand what the age gap between them actually is.

Food for thought! Based on the responses here, if I want to go the YA route I'll have to figure out how to nudge the age gap down a bit...

I don't know much about what the YA market expects, but didn't the Divergent book have an age gap? I can't remember the exact age, but wasn't Four in his twenties, while Tris was in her teens? I think they may have adjusted the ages for the movie, though?

Edit: I checked a wiki, and if it's correct, the movie version has him in his twenties, while the book version had him at 18.
Ookay...A bit weird for me, but I enjoyed the movie before I knew this. It's a little bit awkward, now that I'm aware of this, lol.

In Tamora Pierce's Wild Magic series I think the MC is around 16 and her LI is in his late twenties. So...it's been done before and Tamora Pierce is a pretty popular YA fantasy author. I remember reading those books when I was a teen and not being bothered by it. If it's right for the story, I say keep it.

Here's a post where apparently Tamora Pierce addresses the age gap:

http://tpwords.wordpress.com/2009/04/29/dainenumair-and-reactions/

I think your bigger worry is that 19yo MC is a little old for YA ... It's one thing if she was an immature or slow-to-develop 19-yo, but with an older love interest, normally such girls/women are mature for their age, not childish.

MaryLennox said:

In Tamora Pierce's Wild Magic series I think the MC is around 16 and her LI is in his late twenties. So...it's been done before and Tamora Pierce is a pretty popular YA fantasy author. I remember reading those books when I was a teen and not being bothered by it. If it's right for the story, I say keep it.

Here's a post where apparently Tamora Pierce addresses the age gap:

http://tpwords.wordpress.com/2009/04/29/dainenumair-and-reactions/

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Despite it being done before, I still would lower the gap. Pierce is also perpetuating the false notion that marriage/romance that young was normal or even in some cases allowed. Truth is that it wouldn't have been or would have been frowned upon.

That's an interesting point about Diane and Numair (Tamora Pierce's characters). What made it work for me, as a reader, in that situation was:

(1) I actually didn't realize how big the age gap was. Diane's age is explicitly stated, but I don't think Numair's age is. I naively thought he was 22ish, not 28ish.

(2) His attraction to her makes sense. It takes time. He doesn't initially see her in a romantic light; it's only after they've been friends for quite a while -- and become equals -- that his interest develops. And when his interest does develop, he refuses to pursue her due to her age.

(3) Diane has survived alone in the wilderness for months, faced battle, developed an entirely new kind of magic, met gods and befriended dragons. She reanimated dinosaurs to destroy a city, once. It's difficult to imagine her as anything other than a competent adult.

Just some thoughts.

ViridianChick said:

That's an interesting point about Diane and Numair (Tamora Pierce's characters). What made it work for me, as a reader, in that situation was:

(1) I actually didn't realize how big the age gap was. Diane's age is explicitly stated, but I don't think Numair's age is. I naively thought he was 22ish, not 28ish.

(2) His attraction to her makes sense. It takes time. He doesn't initially see her in a romantic light; it's only after they've been friends for quite a while -- and become equals -- that his interest develops. And when his interest does develop, he refuses to pursue her due to her age.

(3) Diane has survived alone in the wilderness for months, faced battle, developed an entirely new kind of magic, met gods and befriended dragons. She reanimated dinosaurs to destroy a city, once. It's difficult to imagine her as anything other than a competent adult.

Just some thoughts.

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I agree that it depends on how it is done and the individuality of the characters. If it's just a "love at first site" type of relationship, it may come off as a bit weird.

Also - are the characters themselves going to address the age difference? Are they going to discuss it/be worried about what others think? Is that all part of the story?

I also agree about what others said, about 19 being a bit "old" for YA. Maybe if it was a series and the MC started off younger it'd be okay, but otherwise it does seem older than average.

I'll echo those who said this gap is acceptable because of the genre. A 25-year-old love interest in a contemporary would raise my eyebrow (though even then I might accept it).

As far as other examples go, in Howl's Moving Castle, Sophie is... I think 17 or 18? And Howl is "well into his 20s."

Side note, I find it funny how people will accept massive age differences without batting an eye if one of the characters is an immortal being who has the appearance of a teenager. (Currently facing this situation in my own WIP.)

Ditto the others. The age gap (6 years) is fine, but in YA, it seems it would fit better as 18/19 and 22/23. This made me laugh, though, because my parents got married when my mom was 19 and my dad was 25. Must have worked out though, because 38 years later, they're still going strong!

As long as the character is over eighteen there shouldn't be an issue as to the age of the partner should be fine

Just my opinion, I'd lower the guy's age to 23. It might play better that way. It also depends on how mature both of the characters are. You'd assume that the guy would be emotionally mature enough by that age...not always. Ditto for the young lady.

As for having her at eighteen, it solves the legal issue, so that's a big yes.

As an aside, in my freshman year at university, one of my classmates began an affair with her English professor. She was nineteen at the time, he was around forty-two and in the process of separating from his wife (this happened before he and my classmate met, I later found out). It was a bit scandalous, but thirty-five years later, they're still married.

I think a 6 year age difference is fine in YA High Fantasy. Tamora Pierce's Wild Magic has already been brought up, but I'd like to mention Trudi Canavan's The Black Magician series where there's a significant age gap.

I think it depends all on how you do it-- the two cases mentioned started with the FMC's underaged and the LI not becoming a LI until they had grown up. Your case is quite different though, so I guess it depends on how mature your MC is.

I grew up reading fantasy with huge age gaps and I wasn't bothered at it at all, in fact I remember looking up the ages online and sort of going "Oh, wow. That's quite a few years but their personalities matched so well so whatever."

On principle, I don't think there's anything wrong with it but it's all about how you write it.