Do writers have an age where their talent peaks?

[Arthmail]

I would have said Stephen King reached his peak years ago, but his latest book (his last couple, actually) proved me dead wrong.

Then that can only mean hes balls deep in white powder again. Logic my man, logic.

Does the name Carter Ruck mean anything to you?

:wideeyed:

Not until i googled it. But i'm sure that my aside is going to go mostly ignored and disappear into the internet.

[Gormenghast]

Without derailing too much from topic, I think Erikson's analogy of "prod and pull" is quite fitting with long series. On one hand you have to keep "prodding", pushing things forward, writing the books, moving characters and plot onward. And on the other hand you need to "pull", rein in the beast, control things so they don't slip out, avoid making mistakes, make sure that what you write is good enough.

Imho, the problem that GRRM is facing is one about doing so much "pull" that he gets bogged down. Detail defeats GRRM and "detail" is, again imho, the part that will grow as a problem the more he gets older (not the writing, or having "ideas").

I do believe for example that GRRM is definitely better and more consistent than Erikson at "worldbuilding", and page by page. But I also do think that the "pull" type of work GRRM is doing is what is crippling his series, as it gets melted in that attention to detail, to the point that the more it goes on the more it slows.

[Axiomatic]

I don't know about peaks, but the Brain Eater phenomenon is well known among fantasy and science fiction writer. Unfortunately, as far as I know, there is no known cure, and you do not get over it.

It's not so much a question of the books just not being good enough, it's that it seems a lot of writers just go bugfuck insane and decide the world is in terrible danger and can only be saved by revealing the truth in their latest novel of the Muslim Tribble Conspiracy.

[Calibandar]

It's a very interesting topic and one that I have thought about a couple of times before this article was posted.

By and large I think the author of the Black Gate article is right. If we separate the facts and this article's other content from the fact that the man dislikes GRRM's recent work, his suggestion that authors have an age bracket between 35 and 55 where they generally produce their best work is fully in line with what I have always said.

This could go on until the cows come home, but the essence of it breaks down to a set of years that ‘most’ great writers produce their best work, which is typically sometime between age 35 and age 55, a very comfortable twenty year window

I will say that I think his lower limit is a bit high; I think guys like Abercrombie, Rothfuss, Lynch and some others have shown in recent years that you can release very good books or instant classics even in your late twenties. I'll certainly conceed that that seems to be the lower limit though. But the point is that he is right to suggest that at 55-60, authors are generally in decline, and significantly so.

Let's fill that out with some more facts. Staying within genre.

Jack Vance: Wrote most of his best work in his 40's and 50's. Dying Earth, Demon Princes, Alastor, Tschai Planet of Adventure series. Did have one remarkable comeback with the Lyonesse series in the 80's, but the rest of his later work showed serious decline, as per consensus.

Ursula Le Guin; Wrote pretty much all that she's famous for while in her 30's and 40's. Left hand of darkness, Dispossessed, Lathe of Heaven, Earthsea trilogy, her prodigious short story collections. Since the late 80's/ 90's her output has decreased significantly in reception ( which is not to say she isn't a Grand Dame of the genre, but that is beside the point).

Robin Hobb: Farseer/Tawny Man and Liveship were written while in her 40's. She's now 60, her output the last couple of years has been significantly less well received from what I have gathered and read myself. Not to say we'll never see another great Hobb novel, but the trend suggests that chances have simply diminished.

Gene Wolfe: A late-bloomer but still wrote his magnum opus The Book of New Sun while in his 40's, as well as Fifth head of Cerberus. Wrote Soldier of the Mist in his 50's. To be fair, he extended it late into his 60's with the Book of the Short Sun and Book of Long Sun, but after that he's seen a decline, even though his output kept coming.

Stephen Donaldson: Wrote the First and Second Chronicles of Covenant as well as the Mordant's Need duology and the Gap Cycle all in his 30's and 40's. His recent work is generally perceived to have declined.

Marion Zimmer Bradley: Wrote Mists of Avalon and the Darkover series while in her 40's. Her later work was not perceived to be on the same level.

Roger Zelazny: Sadly never lived to be an old man. But his best work came from his early 30's and his 40's ( The first five Amber books, Lord of Light, Creatures of Light and Darkness, Jack of Shadows, the short story collections like Doors of His Face). His work in the last 10 years of his life was less well received.

Dan Simmons: Wrote his best books in his 40's and 50's. Hyperion, Ilium, Summer of Night, Carrion Comfort, The Terror. His recent work has been less well received.

Added to all of the examples in the Black Gate article, and that is just sticking to genre and the authors that come to mind. Again, this is not to say there are not exceptions to the rule. A lot of it depends on how many ideas an author has. Ray Feist, Scott Card and Terry Brooks are still writing but they write the same book all over again and never get the same acclaim anymore as they did when they just started. It's a rare author that just keeps churning out good books over a long career, and if they do, it's often part of the same series. I don't think there's any denying that for most authors, once they hit the 55-60 bracket they go into serious decline.

What does this mean for GRRM? At 63 and turning 64 this year, he's now in the elderly statesmen category. To me, if you put aside the plotting issues of the last two books, the writing has not diminished and we could see a fantastic Winds of Winter. But having taken so very very long for the last two books, he's now approaching what is for most people retirement age, and does he have the energy and discipline left to write another big book of exceeding quality , and then yet one more leviathan as he starts book 7? All very doubtful, but hoping for the best is the only thing that makes sense. The pattern is pretty clear, and shows that writers are just like other people.

[theusualuser]

It's grim, but actually starting to think about GRRM's age has made me a lot less excited about his series in general. Hard to get excited when the question of whether or not it will ever be finished starts to float around in your brain. I didn't have this problem with Robert Jordan, mostly because I didn't spend as much time on the internet back then. Here's hoping that he doesn't run into any more Meereenese knots anytime soon.

[Cirdan]

I think that the article linked by the OP is wrong and simplistic. Not to say that the whole logic of his argument is wrong since he is just looking for confirmation and not to possible falsifications. There are many famous authors that prooves him wrong. Any artistic carrer is diverse, any singular individual in the world is diverse. Creativity is an irrational thing of life and you cannot describe it in rigid and simple terms. Honestly, it just seem to me a lot of effort to razionalize his hate of AFfC, wich, btw, is what comes to any review at the end, professional or not. You just rationalize irrational feeling of pleasure or grief that are not allways caused by the material you are reading.

That's why AFfC and ADwD are better on re-reads imho. The first reaction to those books (that was mixed and not utterly bad as many seems to think) has a lot to do with the anxiety and the anticipation due to the long wait for those novels. Infact, if you look at the new fans who have started to read ASOIAF after the HBO series, the reaction are more positive on average. They have not to wait ten years for a Jon or Dany chapter.

Having said all of that, I agree that AFfC and ADwD are probably the weaker books in the series. But that has a lot more to do with structural problems than the age, the creativity or the productivity of GRRM. He has made some bad decision about his master plan and now he is struggling to overcome the difficulties. Imho, he should have not cut the 5 year gap and he should not have enlarged the cast so much. The Greyjoy, the Martell and most of the secondary charachter that were introduced in the last novels were not needed to tell the story of the song of ice and fire. And the 5 year gap would have been usefull for the charachters the readers care most about. No one would have complained for a flashback or two. Simply put, the growth of povs and the necessity to setup the story for the final has sacrificed too much plot advancement.

Still, we are talking of two books I enjoyed a lot (a lot more than most fantasy I read) and that were written (in term of prose) a lot better than the previous books.

[Axiomatic]

AFfC and ADwD just seem weak because they come after ASoS, which is a complete mind=blown.

[Narwhal]

I wonder if authors don't have so much a "peak age" as they have a "peak idea." A scientist or entrepreneur will often has a single eureka moment that defines their career. An author who pours all their best insights and muses will decline thereafter by default simply because, if you use up all your best stuff, there is really no where else to go but down. Age's main role in the decline has less to do with causing it and more to do with preventing the author from having the time and energy to "recharge" their stock of good ideas.

I do think though that ASoIaF's problems with "having too many balls in the air" could actually help it have a satisfying conclusion. With that many unresolved plots, vendettas, and mysteries, Martin has a smorgasbord of options for the climax. Killing Lord Frey alone would suffice to make the last book a classic. I'd also agree with the previous commenters that Dance and Feast were weak books largely because of structural issues and not a decline in the writing. Comparing the plot progression in the relatively self-contained Griff chapters to the progression in the Dany chapters illustrates that Martin still has it, so long as his plot strings aren't tangled. And we have more or less 4 or 5 years to see if he can do as well with his tangled plots as he has done with the self-contained ones.

[Larry.]

OK. Time to have fun eviscerating this:

Michael Moorcock [born 1939]: Definitive series Elric 1965-1979, Nebula Award Behold the Man, 1967. Prime writing years Age 26-40.

No. His best work, albeit not his bestselling, were Gloriana (1978), Mother London (1989), Between the Wars sequence (1981-2006). Almost all of that after 40 and extending to age 67.

Orson Scott Card [born 1951]: Definitive series Ender 1985 - Ongoing [but can you name a book after Xenocide, 1991?], Nebula Award Ender’s Game, 1985. Prime writing years Age 33-40.

Shit work.

Stephen King [born 1947]: Definitive series [Fantasy] Gunslinger 1982-Ongoing, Bram Stoker Award Misery 1987. Prime writing years Age 30-50 [ending with The Green Mile].

Uneven writer throughout the past 40 years or so, even unto today.

Piers Anthony [born 1934]: Definitive series Xanth 1977-Ongoing [i dare you to name all 36 current volumes!], Award Nebula Nomination A Spell for Chameleon, 1978. Prime writing years Age 32-52.

Utter dreck.

J.R.R. Tolkien [born 1892]: Definitive series Lord of the Rings 1940+ [written], Published 1954, Award International Fantasy Award 1957. Prime writing years Age 40-57.

Yet his latest stages of his unfinished work, worked on during his late 60s-death at 81, is better in prose quality than LotR.

Arthur C. Clarke [born 1917]: Definitive series Odyssey 1968. Hugo Award 1956 ‘The Star’, Prime writing years Age 40-55.

Never a very good prose stylist, but his works were well-received until the 1990s, so 70s-early 80s.

Robert Jordan [born 1948]: Definitive series Wheel of Time 1990-Ongoing [Jordan died in 2007 at age 58], Locus Award Nominee Lord of Chaos, 1995, Prime writing years 40-50 [before the wheels came off Wheel of Time].

Pluh-eze.

Isaac Asimov [born 1920]: Definitive series Foundation 1942, Award Nebula The Gods Themselves, 1972, Prime writing years Age 22-65.

Asimov sucked as a prose writer.

David Eddings [born 1931]: Definitive series Belgariad 1982-1984, Locus Poll Best Fantasy Novel Nominee Pawn of Prophecy, 1983, Prime writing years Age 50-60 [in which he wrote both the Belgariad and the Mallorean]

If these are meant to be held up as "good" writers, then this person wouldn't know quality writing from a hole in the ground, would he?

Sue Grafton [born 1940]: Definitive series ‘is for’ [A is for Alibi] 1982-Ongoing, Anthony Award ‘B’ is for Burglar 1985, Prime writing years 42-55 [ending sometime around ‘M’ is for Malice]

Volume writer.

Anne McCaffrey [born 1926] Definitive series Pern 1968-2001 [before she started co-authoring the series], Hugo Award

Weyr Search, 1968, Prime writing years Age 42-65 [ending around All the Weyrs of Pern].

Again, she's considered to be a "good" writer?

OK, now that I got that snark out of my system for a few moments, I'll just reiterate what a few others have said above. Leaving aside the dubious quality of most of the writers on this list, one might argue it isn't age as much as writing over and over and over and over, killing a few characters, resurrecting same characters, over and over and over and over and over ad nauseam in the same milieu. It is risible that this person (who, as Adam notes, is likely trying to get more going on Martin's work than anything else) tries to extrapolate from the dreck of literature and apply that universally.

Quick glance at some of my shelves:

José Saramago. Won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1998, around the age of 70. Produced some of his best work from the 1980s-2007 (I grant that Cain was his weakest in 20+ years). Began to be a full-time novelist in his late 60s.

Umberto Eco, who turns 80 later this year. Still producing memorable literature into his late 70s (although I value his non-fiction at least as high). I also happen to think that The Prague Cemetery is a very good work.

Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006), 1988 Nobel Literature winner. Wrote some of his excellent work over 30 years after he began to make a name for himself. Produced literature of a high quality up to his 80s.

Milan Kundera (1929). He produced several well-known novels into his 70s.

Mario Vargas Llosa (1936). 2010 Nobel Literature winner. His last novel, El sueño del celta (2010; English translation later this year), was on par with his best novels.

I could name a dozen more, but if one looks at this list, one will see that 1) they wrote excellent prose well past their 60s, and 2) they were known for actually knowing how to write decent prose in the first place. Of course, none of them wrote multi-volume fat fantasies that they had to vomit up 250,000 words of prose every 1-2 years, which perhaps is a stronger indictment of that subgenre of literature than any individual author's age.

[Talleyrand]

I'd say its generally later on in their life. IMO the Road is McCarthy's best and that was done in his seventies I think. Similarly ASOIAF is Martin's best and that's 50's-60's I think. David Gemmell was at his peak when he died in his 50's, Troy and Rigante just stand leagues ahead of some of his earlier work IMO.

[Grogsmash]

I am surprised everyone is taking that article so seriously. It is just a person bitter that the latest two volumes in ASOIAF don't meet their his expectations. It just seems vaguely offensive to me that this person wants to write off everyone older than some predetermined age. I mean, the blogger didn't even read ADWD so judging that it is bad because Martin is old is just silly.

[Calibandar]

Grog

If you put aside his particular dislike about Martin's last two books, I think his point is valid though he is not the first to make it. I expanded on why I agree with the age "limit" above, but as the author of the article also acknowledges, there are exceptions to what is a fairly obvious pattern once you look into it.

[Lord of Rhinos]

It's a very interesting topic and one that I have thought about a couple of times before this article was posted.

By and large I think the author of the Black Gate article is right. If we separate the facts and this article's other content from the fact that the man dislikes GRRM's recent work, his suggestion that authors have an age bracket between 35 and 55 where they generally produce their best work is fully in line with what I have always said.

I will say that I think his lower limit is a bit high; I think guys like Abercrombie, Rothfuss, Lynch and some others have shown in recent years that you can release very good books or instant classics even in your late twenties. I'll certainly conceed that that seems to be the lower limit though. But the point is that he is right to suggest that at 55-60, authors are generally in decline, and significantly so.

Peter S. Beagle's A Fine and Private Place came out when he was 21. It's my favorite book of his.

Jack Vance: Wrote most of his best work in his 40's and 50's. Dying Earth, Demon Princes, Alastor, Tschai Planet of Adventure series. Did have one remarkable comeback with the Lyonesse series in the 80's, but the rest of his later work showed serious decline, as per consensus.

Vance was 68 when the Rhialto the Marvellous came out. Also in his sixties when the final two Demon Prince books came out.

Ursula Le Guin; Wrote pretty much all that she's famous for while in her 30's and 40's. Left hand of darkness, Dispossessed, Lathe of Heaven, Earthsea trilogy, her prodigious short story collections. Since the late 80's/ 90's her output has decreased significantly in reception ( which is not to say she isn't a Grand Dame of the genre, but that is beside the point).

Her work still seems well recieved to me. The Otherwind won the WFA in 2002.

Robin Hobb: Farseer/Tawny Man and Liveship were written while in her 40's. She's now 60, her output the last couple of years has been significantly less well received from what I have gathered and read myself. Not to say we'll never see another great Hobb novel, but the trend suggests that chances have simply diminished.

If she peaked with Tawny Man then she peaked before 55.

Gene Wolfe: A late-bloomer but still wrote his magnum opus The Book of New Sun while in his 40's, as well as Fifth head of Cerberus. Wrote Soldier of the Mist in his 50's. To be fair, he extended it late into his 60's with the Book of the Short Sun and Book of Long Sun, but after that he's seen a decline, even though his output kept coming.

Soldier of Sidon won the WFA in 2006.

Stephen Donaldson: Wrote the First and Second Chronicles of Covenant as well as the Mordant's Need duology and the Gap Cycle all in his 30's and 40's. His recent work is generally perceived to have declined.

First Chronicles was written well before his peak years. Last Chronicles is the only thing that he has written since the end of his peak years.

Marion Zimmer Bradley: Wrote Mists of Avalon and the Darkover series while in her 40's. Her later work was not perceived to be on the same level.

Only wrote one solo series outside her peak.

Roger Zelazny: Sadly never lived to be an old man. But his best work came from his early 30's and his 40's ( The first five Amber books, Lord of Light, Creatures of Light and Darkness, Jack of Shadows, the short story collections like Doors of His Face). His work in the last 10 years of his life was less well received.

Second Chronicles of Amber were written during his peak years. A Night in the Lonesome October was his last solo work and it was nominated for the Nebula (also it's his only solo work after his peak years).

Dan Simmons: Wrote his best books in his 40's and 50's. Hyperion, Ilium, Summer of Night, Carrion Comfort, The Terror. His recent work has been less well received.

The Terror and Olympos are from outside of his peak years. I thought Drood was well recieved.

[Reposado]

Grog

If you put aside his particular dislike about Martin's last two books, I think his point is valid though he is not the first to make it. I expanded on why I agree with the age "limit" above, but as the author of the article also acknowledges, there are exceptions to what is a fairly obvious pattern once you look into it.

Yeah but I'm not sure the point is anything other than "after your peak, you decline." Of course everyone produces worse work after their best, otherwise.....

People's abilities often decline with age. This is true of any skill. The amount of counterexamples provided in this thread make me think that the fact is less true in writing than in other fields, not more

[Calibandar]

Tarant

Prertty much disagree with all your remarks. You're cherry picking. I could explain in detail but since you have chosen to post off the mark one-liners, I won't.

Baelor

Yeah but I'm not sure the point is anything other than "after your peak, you decline." Of course everyone produces worse work after their best, otherwise.....

Well no, the point is that that point of decline often sets in at the 55-60 age, and I think that that is clearly a correct estimation looking at the facts. I don't think there's that many counter examples either.

[Lord of Rhinos]

Eh? You listed a bunch of authors with about two sentences about each one. I made responses of about the same length.

To be more indepth. I think aging probably has a negative effect on writing just like it has on everything else, but I dislike your metrics. Most well known does not equal best. Also, output tends to drop in later years, which effects things. I think other factors tend to be more important than aging. Established writers can get away with publishing books of much lower quality than new writers. The later WoT and ASoIaF books were only published based on the authors' previous successes. Stephen King can churn out whatever crap he wants to and publishers will be happy to lap it up. The freedom to do whatever you want often leads to less commercially popular works, and often worse works in general. That's a symptom of success not a symptom of aging. Similarly, most authors don't change there writing style that much. They might be cutting edge and experimental when they come out but thirty years down the line that same style can be outdated and stodgy. Authors have themes, motifs, character types, and structures they like. At first these may be very interesting but over time they will lose their luster. Joe Abercrombie is the perfect example of this. I love his work but after only seven years people are beginning to complain about how they've seen it before and all barbarians are Logen Ninefingers. Wait until he's in his mid-fifties and people have been reading him for over 20 years. Nobody will care about him beyond his dedicated fan base and people who have hardly read him will be talking about how he's declined.

I think lack of editorial input, lower overall output, and having said what they wanted to say how far more to do with authors decline than aging.

Even taking your list and your criteria doesn't prove much. You listed eight authors. By your own admission Gene Wolfe and Jack Vance don't actually fit your model because they've been producing quality work well into their 60s and beyond. According to the best known works you listed, Zelazny peaked when he was 41 and Le Guin peaked when she was 45. Donaldson apparently peaked at 49. Simmons at 59. Hobb at 51. Bradley 52? I don't see any data there that supports 55-60 as an age of decline.

[Seli]

....

I could name a dozen more, but if one looks at this list, one will see that 1) they wrote excellent prose well past their 60s, and 2) they were known for actually knowing how to write decent prose in the first place. Of course, none of them wrote multi-volume fat fantasies that they had to vomit up 250,000 words of prose every 1-2 years, which perhaps is a stronger indictment of that subgenre of literature than any individual author's age.

New hypothesis.

Writers only known for good prose can produce good books far past 'prime years' because they are simply repeating what they have always done. Writers only known for good ideas or well-wrought worlds will decline after the 'peak', because the creative constructing work will become more difficult (in general).

Which would lead to the prediction that writers known for both style and ideas will at higher ages still produce books that are well received by the 'literary' crowd, but are less popular amongst the 'content' readers.

[Crazydog7]

It depends upon the author but most often I would say the danger arises when a given writer grows complacent in success. Take Tom Clancy for example his first six books were good but weather he uses his ghost writers or graduate students his best days are far behind him.

Even an author stuck in a rut can occasionally surprise you except for Clive Cussler he always sucks.

[Calibandar]

Seli

New hypothesis. Writers only known for good prose can produce good books far past 'prime years' because they are simply repeating what they have always done. Writers only known for good ideas or well-wrought worlds will decline after the 'peak', because the creative constructing work will become more difficult (in general).

I'd agree with this.

Tarant I agree with some of the things you say. Certainly it is true that once authors are established they find it easier to get their stuff published, and this often also leads to lesser books seeing publication. But there is far too clear a pattern of this also being related to the age category they are in, for that age aspect to be ignored.

I think lack of editorial input, lower overall output, and having said what they wanted to say how far more to do with authors decline than aging.

Yeah sure, but why would age not factor into it as the reason for reduced output? It's common among people to see considerably reduced output at an older age, and examples show that this applies to authors as well.

You seem to think I have not listed enough examples. It's not that easy actually, there are not *that* many famous genre authors who have lived to old age where you can draw a decent comparison. If the idea is that there is an age bracket where authors start to tail off significantly after 55-60, then authors like Vance, Le Guin, Wolfe, Donaldson, Zimmer Bradley are famous authors were this is shown clearly, in addition to the examples named in the article.

Dan Simmons is the same age as GRRM, but his later stuff isn't as well received as the stuff he wrote in his prime. Robin Hobb, the same, as I explained above. Zelazny died before he turned 60 but his output past 50 was less well received than the stuff he wrote in his early-middle period. Gene Wolfe also write his best work in his 40's and 50's. He has actually had output since, but largely that has been lesser work ( FYI, nobody cares about the Nebula award, it means nothing, Jack McDevitt has been nominated 10 times already).

What about the examples named by others? Orson Scott Card. Did his best work in the 30's and 40's ( Ender, Alvin Maker series are what he is known for). Recent work has been scourged. Tolkien was unable to compose another novel later in his life, which had obvious reasons, but age certainly could have played into it. Robert Jordan's later work in the WoT series was much less well received than when he started. McCaffrey and David Eddings may have produced dreck in our eyes, but they stands as icons in the genre, and their work also tailed off as they got older.

In contrast, who continues to get better once they hit 55 and 60? I can't think of (m)any. Certainly authors run out of ideas. Ray Feist and Terry Brooks never had a second good idea in their life. But there are also plenty of authors who did have great success, did have more ideas, but nevertheless hit a barrier as they got older. And that's all I'm saying, that at a certain age past 55-60, you're far less likely to see that great new work emerge from the author, because it looks like they don't have much gunpowder left.

[Zoë Sumra]

This very topic was brought up in today's Grauniad, with authors Larry will appreciate discussing.

A nice example occurred at the Hay festival in Mexico, when Martin Amis, musing on the career arc characteristic of novelists – and no doubt thinking about himself as well – observed:

"We're all going to die twice. We're going to die as everyone dies, but before that our talent is going to die. There are no exceptions to this. It's an entirely 20th century phenomenon … Shakespeare died at 52, Dickens at 58, Jane Austen at 41 and DH Lawrence at 44. But now you have the octogenarian novelist, and on the whole they're no bloody good … You can't keep it up and there are various ways you can see novelists disintegrating before your eyes as they move past 70."

The general truth of this has been pretty universally acknowledged, though some novelists have tried to exempt themselves from the process. "Most writers tend to get worse rather than better. I'm determined to be one that gets better," Edmund White said staunchly on the release of his new novel, Jack Holmes and His Friend, which I haven't read, though I hope its content is better than its title. Most reviewers were respectful, though nobody initiated a Hallelujah Chorus in praise of White's capacity, at the age of 72, to overcome the effects of creative degeneration.