Pet Peeve

[sg_lab2]

It drives me nuts when in a fic. the writer differentiates between two characters by age when there's only two or three years difference between them. Like when referring to Sheppard being the older and Lorne being the younger. A line like "The older man walked up to the younger man" When there's less than five years difference between them I think one should find a better way of differentiating between them.

In fanfic for Due South I've seen fic that has Ray Vecchio, Stanley Raymond Kawalski and Benton Fraser. All three actors who played these characters are within months of each other in age, but I've seen the younest of the three being referred to as the younger man and the oldest being referred to as the the older man.

If there's ten or more years between them I could see that, but when they're within the same decade please don't differentiate them by age.

Comments

[koalathebear.livejournal.com]

How about the browner haired man walked up the other :D I suppose it's difficult to find ways to distinguish between people especially if they're roughly the same age and racial type.

[sg-lab.livejournal.com]

LOL, I don't think I've seen that one. Personally I think it should be kept simple when differentiating. I don't think a writer needs to come up with something different each time the two are being reffered to.

What set this off today was I a fic differentiating between Lorne and Mckay. Mckay was referred to as the older man.