Forum: Story Discussion and Feedback

I have begun reading Summer Lake by Ekalise because of a recommendation on a thread in the SOL forums.
Early in the story, a character tells a joke about guys with AIDS, saying their most difficult task is "convincing your wife you're Haitian."
I got the joke because I'm old enough to remember the days when people suspected but nobody knew for sure what was causing AIDS. The joke is from that time period.
And that prompts my question. As an author, how careful do you have to be that something you write at the time will become outdated and you run the risk that younger people might not get it.

As an author, how careful do you have to be that something you write at the time will become outdated and you run the risk that younger people might not get it.

How does anyone predict today what will or won't be outdated in 10 or 20 years? Let alone outdated then years later resurrected as 'retro and cool'.

As an author, how careful do you have to be that something you write at the time will become outdated and you run the risk that younger people might not get it.

There are authors that try to write stories that are timeless, that deliberately avoid providing any temporal setting to the story.

However, so much changes over time in the real world that in my opinion, such stories are outdated before the ink is dry.

I got the joke because I'm old enough

I'm certainly old enough (80 last birthday) but I don't get the joke. Maybe it didn't get to Australia :-)

Ian

Did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle worry about this?

His Sherlock Holmes tales are still popular with people who have the ability to read, despite being full of unusual words with more than the usual amounts of letters in them, as well as "outdated" ideas.

Who has a gasogene on the sideboard?

(What's a sideboard?)

What's a valetudinarian?

What's the best way to get to Queer Street?

Of course, you could try to appeal to a younger, stupider audience if you wish; there's certainly no lack of people who "graduated" despite being unable to spell the word. Might need a "rap" dictionary for that.