Small Mercies Author, Richard Anderson on Writing Older Characters

Small Mercies centres around a married farming couple: Dimple (Dillon) and Ruthie. I have been amused by references to the story of their relationship as the love story of an ‘older couple’ because of course I didn’t write them as an older couple. To my mind they are a bit younger than I am which is simply perspective, isn’t it? I’m 57 and when I complain to my 88-year-old father about another birthday he says he wishes he was my age.

I recently did some work with a TV production company on an original story treatment and they suggested I drop the ages of my characters from their 40s to their 20s because there was more interest and more attractiveness in the 20s age group. In a TV context I get it but in books I’m not sure  Something like a third of the Australian population is over 50. Aren’t they interested in people their own age? Do people over 50 not know about love or (shudder) sex? And now I sound like that person you never want to sound like: you know the older one who insists on their sexiness. I can hear my adult children throwing up.

And yet. And yet.

It seems to me there are many book readers in the (growing) age group of over 50 and maybe not so many in the 20s and 30s. Wouldn’t those 50s want stories about ‘older couples’?

Maybe it’s just me. Isn’t it kind of encouraging to read about people who are past the peak of their physical beauty? I’m not being frivolous. I promise. I have a novel a wrote about an elderly man and a woman who are driving to a country wedding. These two had a fling sixty years ago and have both recently lost their lifelong partners. The response from my early readers was lukewarm, but I couldn’t help thinking that my readers didn’t enjoy it because they couldn’t relate to older characters. Sometimes we think of people older than us as slightly lesser human beings.

Which brings me back to my older couple, Dimple and Ruthie. I think their age is appropriate because they have seen their share of life which puts them  in a position to take a good hard look at what the future might really be like. In the story the future — and a crucial decision that must be made — is important. But maybe, to make things more attractive, I should drop their age to 35?

Don’t worry. I’m not going to. My characters will continue to be what my tiresomely energetic imagination tells me they are. Bless.