One of the interesting things about life on an Internet forum is how cyclical it is. Since new people are always joining, and few of them think to do deep searches when they first arrive in the happy flush of finding the forum, some evergreen topics show up again and again. If you log in to the Progressive Ears forums tonight for the first time and think, “I’ll ask everybody what they really think ‘prog’ is!”, rest assured you’re not the first one. See also, “why are fantasy and science fiction lumped together” on any genre-related space.

Writers’ forums are no different. New writers are a combination of boundless enthusiams and depths of doubt that lead them to ask a lot of questions. Naturally, most of them have been asked and answered before. A favorite one of those, perhaps second only to worries about other writers stealing ideas, is a concern about writing something that feels “dated.” This tweet from Kyra Richardson earlier this year lays it out as good as any:

I’ve always thought that was an odd question to ask, but could never figure out why until just recently when it hit me like a two-by-four: it’s incredibly presumptuous.

Let’s be clear, when people talk about their writing feeling dated, they’re not talking about a current or modern audience. Few people worry that between the time they write the book and it’s published that the references will become dated. Instead, they’re talking about readers in the future, people who are going to turn to the book many years down the road, perhaps when the author is dead. They’re talking about writing for posterity, the kind of impact and success that every artist dreams about, but a vanishingly few actually obtain. It’s like a teenaged laptop musician working on his first track worrying about what he’s going to wear to the Grammys.

Lots of people write books. Even though lots of people also read them, the chances of any particular book being read by more than a handful of people is pretty slim. As a result, unless you already have an audience and think they might carry on for a while, worrying about posterity while writing a book is super presumptuous.

Write the best book you can. Tell the story you want to tell. Is it full of sly jokes about things that are popular right now? Don’t worry. Make it compelling. Give readers characters to care about. If you do all that, they’ll handle the references. If they care about the people involved, they’ll learn. It’s why I’ve learned a lot of very particular British references over the years – to fully understand Marillion (and others) lyrics.

Don’t worry about posterity. If you connect with readers in the here and now, you’re ahead of the game. Posterity will take care of itself.