Writing Mature Female Characters – Let Grandma Be Cool!

I write contemporary romance, but this particular pet peeve applies across all genres. Fictional grandmothers (or women old enough to be grandmothers) are stuck in a time trap. Stuck in Mayberry, if you will, where grandmas wore gingham aprons and always had a batch of their famous chocolate chip cookies coming out of the oven.  

All the other characters from the so-called idyllic 1950s (that’s a topic for another day) have changed with the times. Today’s romance heroes are hi-tech billionaires, detectives using facial recognition software, or farmers using GPS to plow their fields efficiently. Our heroines are also all of those things—they don’t need rescuing any more, thank you very much. Fictional child and teen characters are more likely to be doing TikTok challenges in a book than carrying a bamboo fishing pole to the creek. 

But Fictional Grandma? In far too many books, Grandma is still in that gingham apron, calling everyone “dearie” and baking cookies from scratch. Chances are she doesn’t like these new-fangled cell phones and can’t turn her computer on, much less log onto social media. The sweet grandmother is as common a device in fiction as the wise-cracking sidekick. But at least the wise-cracking sidekicks have evolved with the times (they’re often a geeky tech whiz). Not Grandma, though. She’s stuck in a cotton dress and those sensible shoes, like Auntie Em on her Kansas farm.

The issue here is authenticity. Your main character’s grandmothers are likely in their sixties and seventies. People that age were marching for civil rights and protesting the Vietnam war in their youth (or fighting in it). They wore miniskirts and hot pants while they burned their bras. And if they weren’t doing those things personally, they were watching it on the news every night. Culture was changing before their eyes.   

I’m a grandmother. My friends are grandmothers, or old enough to be. When we get together for a ladies lunch, we don’t call each other “honey” or “sweetie” unless we’re doing it sarcastically. Many of us are likely to be dropping F-bombs, or flipping our middle finger at someone across the table. We definitely can cook, but a family meal with the grandkids is just as likely to be take-out as it is to be home-cooked. And cookies from scratch? Puh-leeze. Maybe at Christmas, but frozen dough works just fine.  

Why are there so many Mayberry grandmas in fiction?  I suspect it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy thing—that’s what we keep seeing when we read, so it’s what we expect to see, so that’s how we keep writing our grandmas. Look! It’s Grandma! Give her muffins to bake!  

There is nothing wrong with writing (or being!) a sweet grandma who spends all her time in the kitchen. But if that’s the woman in your story, think about telling the reader why she’s that way. Because in real life, many grandmothers are career women. They’re sexually active, with some…accommodations. Fictional Grandpa might actually be her third husband. She might be married to another Grandma. Or she may not be married at all—living alone or playing the field. After all, there are multiple dating apps directed at seniors! 

Technology is another area to watch with your older female characters. They might hate technology. But it’s equally likely that they’ve embraced it. From dating and cooking apps on their phone to using the GPS maps on their car, seniors are more tech-savvy than they’re often written. My mom is 94 years young, lives alone, and uses Facebook almost daily to stay in touch. She does a lot of online shopping, including ordering food deliveries. 

When I started my Rendezvous Falls series with its meddling senior book club, I wanted to honor the reality of being a mature adult in the twenty-first century. My romantic couples are usually in their thirties or forties, and each has a point of view (POV). But I also give a member of the book club their own POV in each book. This means they are more than a bunch of old people being viewed through the eyes of the lead characters. They were fully-developed, with their own jokes, experiences, and complex relationships. My August release from that series, Barefoot on a Starlit Night, features the POV of Maura, the heroine’s 70-year-old grandmother who’s battling breast cancer while trying to maintain her independence and her matriarchal role in the family. 

One of the biggest challenges of growing older is worrying about losing control—of our health, of staying in our homes, of our family relationships. If your fictional grandma has more than a cursory appearance in your book, try to show that fear, or perhaps some outward defiance of it.   

Pay attention to the seniors you see in real life. Do your senior characters feel authentic and three-dimensional in comparison? Just as villains aren’t 100% evil all the time (they’re the heroes of their own story), fictional grandma shouldn’t be 100% sweet, either. Give her a chance to show some spice. She’s seen stuff. She’s probably done stuff. Tell a little of her story to make her character pop. She was cool in her day. She still is, if you write her that way. 

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Author bio: Jo McNally lives in upstate New York with 100 pounds of dog and 200 pounds of husband – her slice of the bed is very small. When she’s not writing or reading romance novels (or clinging to the edge of the bed…), she can often be found on the back porch sipping wine with friends, listening to an eclectic playlist. If the weather is perfect, she might join her husband on the golf course, where she always feels far more competitive than her actual skill-level would suggest.

Bridget McKinnon would do anything for her feisty ailing grandma Maura. She’ll even stay close to home and serve up green beer in the Purple Shamrock instead of pursuing her own culinary dreams. But money’s tight. So when a stranger with a sexy brogue asks about the apartment she’s renting out, Bridget hopes she’s landed a little piece of Irish luck…only to find she’s knee-deep in a crazy plan that’s turning her life upside down.

College professor Finn O’Hearn needs this job in Rendezvous Falls—his visa may depend on it. If he can convince his beautiful but tightly wound landlord to be his pretend fiancée, his boss will be happy—as will Bridget’s matchmaking grandma and her meddling book club. Finn and Bridget fool (almost) everyone with their sizzling glances and toe-curling kisses…even as they tell themselves it’s only make-believe.

Playing a part has never been so easy. But when love is real, it’s time to find the courage to start playing by heart…

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips