- Joined
- Feb 7, 2015
It is not plausible for a skater from one of the major skating countries to start ice dance so late and become successful. In real life, unlike a Cutting Edge sequel, the competition is too fierce. There are examples of skaters who switched at a relatively late age, but typically they represent smaller countries where there is considerably less competition for assignments - which allows them time to develop.
To give you some idea of the timeline for such a transition: Sara Hurtado and Adria Diaz, both former singles skaters, switched to ice dance in 2008 at the ages of 15 and 17. As Spain's first ice dance team ever, they were sent to international junior events within months. The results were not pretty at first, but they kept at it and got better. Hurtado/Diaz finished 13th in Sochi and moved up to 5th at this year's Euros. They have medalled at smaller events, but never at the GP level or higher.
As for top dance teams: in Sochi, the gold and silver medal dance teams had been together since 1997. Bronze medalists I/K had a shorter partnership, but both had a solid ice dance background. P/B who finished 4th and B/S who were fifth had been together since 2000.
What you're proposing is to give your skaters two challenges (late start, small height difference). For people not into skating, this won't even register as an issue, so it's not interesting. For skating fans, it makes your setup implausible. I understand that you are attached to both of these things, but I don't think they will serve your story well.
Almost every skater has dance training, lots of it in some cases. It would not make anyone stand out and cannot replace the skills you develop in terms of skating. What you could do is give one of your characters a background in roller skating, like Matteo Guarise, in which case I'd recommend making them pairs skaters and dropping the height difference part of it. A roller skater would not have the skating skills to be competitive in ice dance.
This is as much advice as I'm willing to give; if you don't want people to give you their opinion, do your research on Wikipedia. But to be very clear - if you want to write a novel with skating in the background, it doesn't matter what you do. If you want it to be a believable part of your story, do more research before you get into the plotting because you clearly know very little at the moment about how skating works. Karne isn't telling you not to write at all, she is telling you to do your homework before you do. Though I do not share her appreciation for the US men, karne is a knowledgeable skating fan and she and other posters in this thread have been trying to steer you in the right direction. Be grateful that people are trying to help you out.
Yeah, but that's what the point of posting on a forum like this- it's doing homework. I'm not claiming I'm super knowledgeable.
So I think what I'll do is have them both have backgrounds in ice dance- at the very least, I already know Ira will have a strong background in ice dance. The challenge might be for Noelle to catch up, having only done pairs, singles, and ballroom dancing. However, I could change that. But I think it could be plausible for them to get into elite ice dance by age 20 or so. Maybe I just need to have it so they both have backgrounds in ice dance. There still will be a challenge of Noelle catching up though, since she hadn't skated competitively in a few years at the beginning of the story (that's kind of why the story begins).
I do know at this point that they will start skating together at ages 15-16, and will have as much as a 3" height difference.
I do want people to give their opinion... I have been thanking you guys. I appreciate it. But you have to understand it's kind of hard to put yourself out there on a forum you've never been on, and then have a kind of bombardment of answers that seem kind of annoyed you're posting here in the first place. It's not the most fun experience.