News on my Journal...

[reviews_and_ramblings]

I have almost 400 pill reviews posted on my live journal and for me it's simple to find what I search (for every review I have added tags for name author and publishers) but for other people is not so simple. Fortunately (unfortunately cause I'm not so good in English to write always what I had in mind...) lately some people have said to me that they read my reviews to choice a book!!! and I have also noticed some friends who have linked me but never comment (so I suppose they only read). All this to say that I have added a section on my side toolbar: "Main Tags". I have tried to find general (main) tags for all the books I have read. There are genre tags like:

Contemporary
Erotica (M/F)
Futuristic
Historical
Paranormal
Yaoi (manga)

And sub-genre tags like:

Angels
College
Cops
Cowboys
Demons
Elves
Firefighters
Ghosts
Military
Pirates
Shapeshifters
Sheikhs
Show Business
Sports
Twincest
Vampires

Demons is the tag more troubled... I have tagged under it also some novels that deal with gods and some other strange creatures (like incubus and succubus). Also Show Business is wide, I have tagged under it also the novels dealing with various artists. Under College there are not only student/student relationship but also professor/professor or student/professor. Finally I was uncertain if create a tag "May/December" but I have a doubt: what is the age difference range to define a book a "May/December" relationship?

So friends, I ask you help: first of all, is it a useful thing or I have lost my afternoon doing it? do you think I have all the necessary tags? Have I committed some "huge" mistake in my classification (I can change, no problem...)

ETA: Added the May / December tag! Thanks Angie and Jules!!!

Comments

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

About the "May/December" relationship, there's no hard rule for the age range. Basically, it's anything that'd make an outside observer raise their eyebrow. Although, of course, different outside observers will have different standards, so....

A good rule of thumb might be that if the older person is old enough to be a parent of the younger person, it probably qualifies. But then you have to decide where to draw that line -- old enough for social parenting or old enough for biological parenting? That is, old enough to marry, age of legal consent (these two can be different), or just old enough to reproduce? If the latter, average or youngest recorded? :)

If you don't mind being pretty arbitrary, fifteen years would probably be a good separation, and you could make exceptions for smaller separations based on what the writer seems to intend. That is, if you read a book where the characters are, say, only twelve years apart, but the supporting characters are always going, "Ummm, isn't he a little old for you, dear...?" then the writer clearly intends it to be a May/December.

And it also depends on the actual ages. Eighteen and twenty-eight might raise eyebrows, whereas thirty-eight and forty-eight would seem perfectly normal.

Oh, and it's more socially acceptable for the man to be older than it is for the woman to be older. So you might find that a 25-year-old man and a 32-year-old woman would make people wonder, whereas a 25-year-old woman and a 32-year-old man would not. Up to you whether you want to make a gender distinction, though. And again, you could just go by what the writer intends.

Sorry for rambling on, but there's really no short answer to this one. :/

Angie

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

thanks Angie, the clue about the "parent" thing is very useful! Elisa

[julesjones]

I think this is something people will find very useful. Don't worry too much about getting it exactly right, as you can always change things later.

I'd agree with Angie that May/December is going to be difficult to pin down exactly, and that it depends on the actual ages as well as the difference between them, plus what the author seems to intend. I'm working right now on the sequel to "Lord and Master" -- and that's a May/December romance if ever there was one, not just because of the age gap, but because the age gap and its consequences are the central plot element. You could have similar issues where the gap was only ten years, but the ages were 18 and 28.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Well. Thanks. So I will tag your Lord and Master undert "may december"! :-) Elisa