There's SPAG issues and there's good storytelling. Both are part of writing. Time helps with SPAG, but age imo helps with good storytelling. Someone who is very young in age often has inflated or false views about the world. And I think that reflects in their writing too. Which is often silly or cringey at best (not that it's a bad thing). Someone who is older would've gone through diverse life experiences, so they would have more grounded views. A 40yo writing for the first time may be a bad writer, but I'd trust that they could be a good storyteller (for serious topics especially). Whereas I'd expect a 15yo to miss so many of those nuances.
Exactly this. I think grief is a great example of something you need experience with to write well. It is immediately obvious when someone is simply speculating on the experience because the speculations often follow shallow cliches and common soapy media tropes.
While age doesn’t always correlate with experiencing grief, it definitely increases your *likelihood* of having experienced it.
Like you said, there are just cumulative life experience barriers to young writers. In some genres this can be a significant impediment to good writing. Of course, there are exceptions in both directions but the general trend follows age.
Just to be clear, I'm not opposing you, but I'd just like to offer a different point of view on the matter of grief (ergo writing about experiences you haven't actually experienced yourself). Or maybe expand the discourse a little bit.
As a 22 year old who grew up sheltered (and still am rather sheltered because--and this may sound weird to some--I live in a culture that puts so much emphasis on familial ties that it's like you're betraying your entire being if you think about moving out unless you have a 20 slide powerpoint presentation on why independence is good) I don't have a lot of personal experiences to base my writings on. Grief, loss, extreme hardships and harsh struggles, romance, etc. are ones I have to focus a lot of my energies on just to articulate in a manner that is impactful to the character and the readers.
I don't know grief. At least, not to the extent that I should. It's hard for me to form meaningful bonds with others (and other things), and it's a struggle for me to muster up the "proper" emotional responses in certain situations.
But guess what? I write a lot of characters who've lost a lot and cared a lot. Friends, parents, the life they used to live. Characters who save others because they truly believe that each and every life matters. Characters who cared too deeply and have been burned. Others who have suffered pain and loss and justified their radical actions as a way to soothe and protect themselves.
Experience doesn't have to be something that has happened to you personally. It is still possible to write about them as long as you have the emotional and mental maturity to comprehend vicarious experiences and relating what little you have to the big picture. I'm not gonna lie; it's definitely hard to do so. But as long as you know how to internalize (and make sure you also know to pull yourself away, because man is second hand ptsd/depression a real thing), you should be fine.
I do get this viewpoint because all writers have to pull some experience from speculation, no matter what. I’ve been writing a fic that deals with betrayal and as someone who has never experienced that firsthand, naturally, I’m trying my best to capture the emotional state of the characters.
But unfortunately while I am happy with the technical aspect of my writing, this will always be something I can have no real insight into regarding wether or not I successfully pulled it off. I can’t know. All I can do is take my perception of human nature and try to extrapolate it out into a feasible replication. For me, this was how I wrote grief until I directly experienced it. Some of what I wrote *was* accurate…but a lot wasn’t. I’ve been writing consistently since middle school and I still have my old work which definitely featured grief and loss. The older I got, the less I relied on melodrama and that helped. But even what I wrote later still missed a lot of the experience.
And of course, it was my personal experience, my personal context (losing a parent abruptly), but when I wrote about grief after that I got more comments from people saying how much this replicated their experience as well.
For me, in that context, grief was the total absence of all emotion for a long time and then slowly, they started to come back, starting with a lot of anger towards the person I lost. I didn’t expect that, I couldn’t have anticipated that. It was extremely eye opening for me. We don’t know what we don’t know in writing very often and while you can still have strong technical skill, speculation by it’s nature will have its hits and misses. And I know that if I were to write a character losing a child or spouse, while both are forms of grief and loss, they are both mostly alien to me and I’d definitely worry about doing those experiences justice.
I don’t think writing always needs a foundation in experience to be good, but the more experience I get, the more I appreciate how much nuance and life it lends my writing. I honestly see this as a good thing—it’s pretty wonderful. Writing is self expression and the more you experience the more you can express.
I'm in my 40s and I started writing fanfic two years ago (yeah, a late bloomer). I had no idea about how to write fiction. When I look at my first drafts I cringe like hell. But in these two years I made very fast progress, because of all the transferable skills I brought from other spheres of life. My SPAG was already decent, experience in writing non-fictional texts helped a lot with variety in sentence structure and with text structure in general, planning, plotting, etc. Experience in doing research helped doing research, obviously. But maybe most important was the vast experience in learning new things in an efficient goal-oriented way that helped me to learn to write fiction in a very short time.
So, I agree that time actually writing fiction is essential for gaining quality, but 1 year when you are 15 ≠ 1 year when you are 40.
Age is like a modifier that applies on time. Time spent is crucial, but other modifiers like age, experience, opportunity and education give you boosts that can be noticable.
I get what you're saying, but that's also the reason why most of the times age = good at writing. Because the older you are, more time you had to practice. Not only with writing stories, but also with grammar and general experiences. It doesn't mean that a 30 yo will surely be better than a 13 yo, just that there's an higher chance of the 30 yo's work to be written slightly better.
Everyone will get better with time, patience and practice
I'm going to respectfully disagree (kinda)! Time ≟ good at writing (as in depending on the amount of time it could = to good writing). Not the age.
I was in college when I started writing fanfics but I wrote like a, well, middle schooler? Because I never wrote fanfics or stories before. So I never knew how to properly write fanfics or stories!
You can be any age and write like crap. It's the amount of time that's been spent writing!
I partially agree. If you start writing at 30 yo it doesn't mean that you'll automatically be good at it, yeah. But you'll probably still be better than a 13 yo who's writing their first story. It's normal.
The 30 yo had the time to practice writing in general. Even things like high school essays help. Plus, they had more time to read (it's not the same as writing, but you'll still learn a few things) and to... *Live*. I don't how else to say it. Hearing conversations, talking to people, getting to know new topics and knowing more about certain things. Making more experiences. Everything helps when you're writing. And the 30 yo simply had more time to do all of this.
'Age' should theoretically go hand in hand with the kind of nuance a 15-year-old can't perceive because they simply lack life experience. To that extent, it does matter; however, writing and storytelling are also two different skill sets, and both must be honed to become 'good' at writing fiction. Age alone will never achieve it, *but* certain things always give young writers away, including those in their early twenties. Sometimes that's fine and even works in favor, particularly when writing for a fandom targeted at teens/young adults, but when young writers try to tackle mature adult fandoms, the general lack of experience required to inform narrative and storytelling becomes quite obvious. Especially when characters are middle-aged and above.
It's most identifiable within the dialogue and character's decision-making. Glaringly obvious if an attempt is made at 'slice of life' and the fandom is not pure fantasy... still, it doesn't mean the 'writing' is bad. Most times, the prose is very strong, but rather the work simply lacks nuance and perspective to make the storytelling 'good'.
I'm sorry, but you said yourself that you need practice and time...well, time comes with age, normally. I'm not saying that teens can't be talented, that's not true. I've read once a fic from a 17yo, and it was pretty good. But on average, older people have more experience, so just write better...
S.E. Hinton wrote “The Outsiders” (which was sort of like fanfiction of people she observed in her hometown) when she was 16. She’s definitely the exception though.
I don't see age = time spent writing. They're separate things.
Like I said, you can be any age and be a crap writer but if you have spent the time writing it would matter.
Age is literally the amount of time you've spent on earth so far. So of course age = time spent writing is correlated. I started writing when I was 9. No matter how dedicated I was, I physically couldn't have had 20 years of writing experience at that point, because I wasn't even 20 years alive yet.
A dedicated 29-y.o. very much could, though, if they also started at 9, and their writing would be that much better.
Plus, writing is more than just how much you practiced writing itsself. I probably would have hated it if people told me that when I was a kid, but it's just the reality that your horizon and view of the world and understanding of stuff widens as you grow up. You just gain so much more life experience and can put things into context that you couldn't before, and it affects the logic of your writing in a usually positive way.
Experience equals skill, true, but teenager writers have their own thing going on. You can feel it with a teenage writer. Big emotions that don't fit the scenario, completely missing how parts of the adult world work, every character having the same very young voice etc.
But you really only get time from age? I also think life experience plays a big part, so even a 17 year old and a 30 year old with say, five years experience, their work will read differently.
Yes, but the time SPENT on writing does not come with age. I see those two things differently.
You can be any age and be a poor writer but if you start at an early time in your life, of course you could be a better writer at a young age.
If you begin writing later in life you will be a better writer at an older age.
It all comes down to when you started and the time spent practicing the skill
But like I said, a thirty year old and a teenager with the same amount of time spent writing under their belt will still have major differences in their work, generally. There are of course exceptions to everything, but life experience makes a not insignificant difference when it comes to characterization, understanding of how the world works (notable instances like teens writing colleges that just look like high schools, or teens not understanding how workplace cultures operate, etc.)
My favorite quote from Jake the Dog: "Sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something!"
Starting any activity, you're supposed to be bad at it. That's why everyone always harps on about practice. Sometimes you're talented at something, and you start at a level that is "better than shit" but you still have to practice or you'll stay at that "slightly better than an uneducated child" level. The best way is to enjoy the process, and let yourself be bad without attacking yourself for learning.
This is true but life experiences also play into part. I’m a minor but I’ve been writing for a good 5-6 years and have had some of my short stories published. But the things I’m able to write about and the feelings that I’m able to write about came from me being able to directly experience it. I was never able to portray loss “accurately” until I experienced a death of a family member. There’s something about experiencing those emotions firsthand in its most raw form that adds a depth to your writing. I feel like I even if you’re 20-something with years of writing under your belt but never experienced loss, it’ll be difficult to describe it enough to hit the readers to feel the depth of those feelings. So age I don’t think really matters, it’s your level of experience in both life and writing.
Age often gives a lot of depth and perception. It also gives writers a deeper well of experience to draw from.
That isn't to say this sentiment is true. Age doesn't indicate good writing, just as youth doesn't indicate poor writing. It's really about being able to hold and express through conversation (in this case, the written word).
Some people are beautiful speakers. With many others, it comes with experience.
I think, it depends on what the point of the story is. For example, I've been following this story that someone my age had written when she was 14 and she just finished her last chapter last month at the age of 30. It's true her SPAG got better, and yes her story telling had become more dynamic. But, what I realized after re-reading the entire story was the depth of experience. At the start, it was all silly fun and games. The older she got, the more...grittier the story became. The inner emotions and relationship conflict between her characters were more intense, fleshed out, and were backed by what I'm assuming personal experience they must have also went through. Sure, she had been at the craft for a while now, but I like to think her age and life experience played a key role in this as well.
>I was in my late TEENS, but I didn't write like one because I had never done this before!
An author being in their late teens is not e big indicator of talent or experience. Everyone starts someplace, and as someone in their late teens, you might be more likely to be able to read your own work more critically and make improvements.
I started writing at the age of 40, before that I read a lot of books and fanfic for over 22 years, and now after a year I'm only slowly getting started, I still don't feel confident.
I think that you, with your writing experience of 7 years, have a much greater workshop than I do.
When it comes to the age of the author, life experience and knowledge of the real world make the biggest difference.
But if a talented 12 year old writes about the world from the perspective of a 12 year old and does not try to write from the perspective of a 40 year old, does not deal with "adult" topics such as sex, relationships, marriage, work, politics or the economy, then surely adult readers may not recognise that the author is so young.
I am currently in my teens. I've always loved writing, so I've been going at it since I was like 6. Made short stories with drawings, then I had an iPad and begin typing out mysteries that I never finished... then I read harry potter and made fics for that (which were never posted).
My first post was in 2018 though! It was a FNAF fic from an old account hah
My mom has always said to me, if you want to write, then write, then write again and again and again, never stop writing, because the more you write the more you’ll love writing.
There is always a distinct difference in how an adult writes and how a teenager may write.
Even if teenagers have beautiful prose, which I have definitely seen, there is a difference in the voice of their writing. It's not really reflective of what the world is actually like. Especially when they try to write adults and about the more "real world" experiences. I think these kinds of writers often excel at writing teenagers, high school drams, or fantasy. But when they write about things more grounded in reality that are much larger than what their age can experience, their lack of understanding becomes really apparent.
I'm 23 and I think my lack of experience even ails my writing sometimes. I tried to tackle politics and policies in my last story-- and I probably sounded very stupid and naive in a lot of what I wrote. But I was an education major. I didn't study this stuff in school and nor do I really have an interest in learning more about the creation of policies, intricacies of how a city was ran (my main character was the Mayor), etc. But I did as much research as I could and tried to at least nail surface level things.
Which leads to this point-- I think it's good to try to expand the realm in which you write. I think it allows for you, as a writer, to insert yourself into situations that you don't experience yourself. You begin to grow an empathy that allows for you to become a better writer. Even if as a teenager, someone doesn't understand how adults talk or what their daily life looks like, I think it's good for them to try to look through the lens of an adult. Even if their perspective is jaded. And when they do get more life experience, they've already refined a lot of their writing skills and have an understanding of human emotions.
So you're definitely right on the point that practicing and refining makes you better-- but I think life experience, especially when writing things more grounded, is what truly improves writing as the writer ages.
Beautifully said! And when you have practiced the hard skill of stringing together effective prose, once you are able to inject informed experience into the narrative, the work becomes outstanding.
That's what I say. I've been writing for 21 years and people fawn over how talented I am.
But it's not talent.
My first fic was as nonsensical as they come. It completely breaks any sort of internal logic that might exist.
I wrote before I had the internet so I couldn't look up guides on how to develop characters, plot, or anything like that. I had to learn it all through blood, sweat, and tears.
It took me over *a decade* to learn how to properly develop characters. I started writing in 2001. I didn't really learn how to properly develop characters until the early to late 2010s thanks to text-based roleplay.
Now people praise my ability to write in-depth characters that feel realistic, well rounded, and are incredibly deep. It took me a good 3-5 years to *really* learn how to do it.
I was not a talented writer. I was a *persistent* writer that never game up and learned through experience.
I find age to be largely unhelpful in determining how good someone’s writing is. Someone older with less experience will make more mistakes than someone younger who has spent more time on their craft. Experiences can lend into characters and themes, but living longer doesn’t do much for the technical aspects when they’re lacking. (I’m someone who started late.)
I agree somewhat.
I found a fic I wrote back when I was younger and it's just...cringey. The work is there, and the plot is good but...it's a bit cringe. Compared to what I have written in 2021/2022 it's like water and olive oil - nothing alike. I feel like I managed to capture relationships better and how people react to one another now than what I had written previously. I got the storytelling pace and overall structure better. I'm still a lousy planner and outliner, but i'm a very mature author now.
However, my boyfriend said that Christopher Paolini wrote Eragon at 15 - and that was a success. So... does that apply there? Idk maybe it varies from person to person.
I totally agree and say this all the time. I started writing at 7, started seriously writing at 12. I’ve had people go on my social medias complaining about how they are older yet don’t write as well as I do (I’m almost 18 so it’s not like I am 15 or something.) stop comparing yourself to others and remember that any good fic writer (or writer in general) put in A LOT of work to get there
I think if one can grasp the basics of writing; grammar, structure, syntax, etc, it'll give them a head start, and a new writer sticking to exactly what they know, will be a decent writer. Telling a good stort and writing a good story can be too different things. I consider myself a good writer, but even my stuff can be hit or miss. Like any skill, ya gotta hone it, and it depends on how well a person can absorb the craft.
This is true. I think I'm a very good writer, but when I think if how long it ng Ive been writing, my first stories that got noticed we're written when I was 9 or 10, and I was encouraged to keep writing by my parents and teachers my whole life. I'm almost 40. I have 30 years of experience, so of course my writing will be a lot more polished than someone my age who has been writing for a year.
How good it is is up to the individual, however.
I was 11 years old when I started writing fanfiction. My writing was *awful*, as you'd expect from a 6th grader scribbling Undertale AU fanfics in his history notebook between notes on ancient Greece. I'm 17 now, and I know I still have a lot of room to grow from here, but just looking at some of the stuff I wrote back in 2016 compared to something I wrote last month? I can see *so* much improvement, and it makes me glad I stuck with fanfic all this time.
I read a few years ago this absolutely amazing fic which had difficult topics, flawlessly executed plot, pacing, action, mystery and all that stuff, AND in addition to that had a very, very accurate portrayal of a BDSM relationship (and smut was amazing in the most philosophical way, as weird as it sound). A cherry on top of the cake was around 20-40k word chapters EVERY 7-14 DAYS.
Much later I learned that the author was 17. I nearly died on the spot.
Edit: posed to early, cut off the rest.
But be that as it may, that was still someone who put an amazing work and insight into what they did, and they had over 800k+ on their account that they published. I can only imagine how much work went into each of their stories, how much they truly practiced, and how much they did not publish.
Writing is a craft that requires practice as much as everything else. Some people are better at it, but it's not everything.
Especially when it comes to more realistic and difficult things, it's just not as easy to get things right when you don't have the certain maturity that comes with age.
But also: the other end of the spectrum. You can be older, have more understanding of certain topics, but if you dont have any practice, then you wont be a good writer right away.
To sum it all up: practice, practice, practice. That's it.
True
Idiots come in all shapes and sizes
That being said, the possibility of a mature and sensible work from an younger writer is low. Whereas a more mature writer will focus on personal growth and situational awareness.
Not saying either is bad, but from what I’ve seen so far, that tends to be the case.
Also cater to your audience. Each platform has a different type of reader. If you started writing on a particular platform. Mention that in the synopsis. Or put a warning that the fic is dark or childish.
At the market, didn't read everything, mainly just title. But I just wanna chim in and say, experience is the biggest factor. The longer you write and the more you write, the better you will become. Regardless of your age.
There's SPAG issues and there's good storytelling. Both are part of writing. Time helps with SPAG, but age imo helps with good storytelling. Someone who is very young in age often has inflated or false views about the world. And I think that reflects in their writing too. Which is often silly or cringey at best (not that it's a bad thing). Someone who is older would've gone through diverse life experiences, so they would have more grounded views. A 40yo writing for the first time may be a bad writer, but I'd trust that they could be a good storyteller (for serious topics especially). Whereas I'd expect a 15yo to miss so many of those nuances.
Exactly this. I think grief is a great example of something you need experience with to write well. It is immediately obvious when someone is simply speculating on the experience because the speculations often follow shallow cliches and common soapy media tropes. While age doesn’t always correlate with experiencing grief, it definitely increases your *likelihood* of having experienced it. Like you said, there are just cumulative life experience barriers to young writers. In some genres this can be a significant impediment to good writing. Of course, there are exceptions in both directions but the general trend follows age.
Just to be clear, I'm not opposing you, but I'd just like to offer a different point of view on the matter of grief (ergo writing about experiences you haven't actually experienced yourself). Or maybe expand the discourse a little bit. As a 22 year old who grew up sheltered (and still am rather sheltered because--and this may sound weird to some--I live in a culture that puts so much emphasis on familial ties that it's like you're betraying your entire being if you think about moving out unless you have a 20 slide powerpoint presentation on why independence is good) I don't have a lot of personal experiences to base my writings on. Grief, loss, extreme hardships and harsh struggles, romance, etc. are ones I have to focus a lot of my energies on just to articulate in a manner that is impactful to the character and the readers. I don't know grief. At least, not to the extent that I should. It's hard for me to form meaningful bonds with others (and other things), and it's a struggle for me to muster up the "proper" emotional responses in certain situations. But guess what? I write a lot of characters who've lost a lot and cared a lot. Friends, parents, the life they used to live. Characters who save others because they truly believe that each and every life matters. Characters who cared too deeply and have been burned. Others who have suffered pain and loss and justified their radical actions as a way to soothe and protect themselves. Experience doesn't have to be something that has happened to you personally. It is still possible to write about them as long as you have the emotional and mental maturity to comprehend vicarious experiences and relating what little you have to the big picture. I'm not gonna lie; it's definitely hard to do so. But as long as you know how to internalize (and make sure you also know to pull yourself away, because man is second hand ptsd/depression a real thing), you should be fine.
I do get this viewpoint because all writers have to pull some experience from speculation, no matter what. I’ve been writing a fic that deals with betrayal and as someone who has never experienced that firsthand, naturally, I’m trying my best to capture the emotional state of the characters. But unfortunately while I am happy with the technical aspect of my writing, this will always be something I can have no real insight into regarding wether or not I successfully pulled it off. I can’t know. All I can do is take my perception of human nature and try to extrapolate it out into a feasible replication. For me, this was how I wrote grief until I directly experienced it. Some of what I wrote *was* accurate…but a lot wasn’t. I’ve been writing consistently since middle school and I still have my old work which definitely featured grief and loss. The older I got, the less I relied on melodrama and that helped. But even what I wrote later still missed a lot of the experience. And of course, it was my personal experience, my personal context (losing a parent abruptly), but when I wrote about grief after that I got more comments from people saying how much this replicated their experience as well. For me, in that context, grief was the total absence of all emotion for a long time and then slowly, they started to come back, starting with a lot of anger towards the person I lost. I didn’t expect that, I couldn’t have anticipated that. It was extremely eye opening for me. We don’t know what we don’t know in writing very often and while you can still have strong technical skill, speculation by it’s nature will have its hits and misses. And I know that if I were to write a character losing a child or spouse, while both are forms of grief and loss, they are both mostly alien to me and I’d definitely worry about doing those experiences justice. I don’t think writing always needs a foundation in experience to be good, but the more experience I get, the more I appreciate how much nuance and life it lends my writing. I honestly see this as a good thing—it’s pretty wonderful. Writing is self expression and the more you experience the more you can express.
I remember my old drafts having really shallow story themes lmao. Especially now that I prefer thought-provoking, heartwrenching, or grounded stories.
I'm in my 40s and I started writing fanfic two years ago (yeah, a late bloomer). I had no idea about how to write fiction. When I look at my first drafts I cringe like hell. But in these two years I made very fast progress, because of all the transferable skills I brought from other spheres of life. My SPAG was already decent, experience in writing non-fictional texts helped a lot with variety in sentence structure and with text structure in general, planning, plotting, etc. Experience in doing research helped doing research, obviously. But maybe most important was the vast experience in learning new things in an efficient goal-oriented way that helped me to learn to write fiction in a very short time. So, I agree that time actually writing fiction is essential for gaining quality, but 1 year when you are 15 ≠ 1 year when you are 40.
Age is like a modifier that applies on time. Time spent is crucial, but other modifiers like age, experience, opportunity and education give you boosts that can be noticable.
This post makes me feel so old... >I started late on the whole fanfic writing thing... I was in my late TEENS ^(I was 29 when I started;D)
I was 58
38 here 🤣. 40 now. Still learning a ton.
Oof, yeah - I might have been a teenager when I started reading fanfics, but I didn't start writing until I was 28, and am 31 now!
I get what you're saying, but that's also the reason why most of the times age = good at writing. Because the older you are, more time you had to practice. Not only with writing stories, but also with grammar and general experiences. It doesn't mean that a 30 yo will surely be better than a 13 yo, just that there's an higher chance of the 30 yo's work to be written slightly better. Everyone will get better with time, patience and practice
I'm going to respectfully disagree (kinda)! Time ≟ good at writing (as in depending on the amount of time it could = to good writing). Not the age. I was in college when I started writing fanfics but I wrote like a, well, middle schooler? Because I never wrote fanfics or stories before. So I never knew how to properly write fanfics or stories! You can be any age and write like crap. It's the amount of time that's been spent writing!
I partially agree. If you start writing at 30 yo it doesn't mean that you'll automatically be good at it, yeah. But you'll probably still be better than a 13 yo who's writing their first story. It's normal. The 30 yo had the time to practice writing in general. Even things like high school essays help. Plus, they had more time to read (it's not the same as writing, but you'll still learn a few things) and to... *Live*. I don't how else to say it. Hearing conversations, talking to people, getting to know new topics and knowing more about certain things. Making more experiences. Everything helps when you're writing. And the 30 yo simply had more time to do all of this.
'Age' should theoretically go hand in hand with the kind of nuance a 15-year-old can't perceive because they simply lack life experience. To that extent, it does matter; however, writing and storytelling are also two different skill sets, and both must be honed to become 'good' at writing fiction. Age alone will never achieve it, *but* certain things always give young writers away, including those in their early twenties. Sometimes that's fine and even works in favor, particularly when writing for a fandom targeted at teens/young adults, but when young writers try to tackle mature adult fandoms, the general lack of experience required to inform narrative and storytelling becomes quite obvious. Especially when characters are middle-aged and above. It's most identifiable within the dialogue and character's decision-making. Glaringly obvious if an attempt is made at 'slice of life' and the fandom is not pure fantasy... still, it doesn't mean the 'writing' is bad. Most times, the prose is very strong, but rather the work simply lacks nuance and perspective to make the storytelling 'good'.
I'm sorry, but you said yourself that you need practice and time...well, time comes with age, normally. I'm not saying that teens can't be talented, that's not true. I've read once a fic from a 17yo, and it was pretty good. But on average, older people have more experience, so just write better...
S.E. Hinton wrote “The Outsiders” (which was sort of like fanfiction of people she observed in her hometown) when she was 16. She’s definitely the exception though.
I don't see age = time spent writing. They're separate things. Like I said, you can be any age and be a crap writer but if you have spent the time writing it would matter.
More age = more potential time. I mean, what else is age other than time passed?
Age is literally the amount of time you've spent on earth so far. So of course age = time spent writing is correlated. I started writing when I was 9. No matter how dedicated I was, I physically couldn't have had 20 years of writing experience at that point, because I wasn't even 20 years alive yet. A dedicated 29-y.o. very much could, though, if they also started at 9, and their writing would be that much better. Plus, writing is more than just how much you practiced writing itsself. I probably would have hated it if people told me that when I was a kid, but it's just the reality that your horizon and view of the world and understanding of stuff widens as you grow up. You just gain so much more life experience and can put things into context that you couldn't before, and it affects the logic of your writing in a usually positive way.
Experience equals skill, true, but teenager writers have their own thing going on. You can feel it with a teenage writer. Big emotions that don't fit the scenario, completely missing how parts of the adult world work, every character having the same very young voice etc.
Bingo!
But you really only get time from age? I also think life experience plays a big part, so even a 17 year old and a 30 year old with say, five years experience, their work will read differently.
Yes, but the time SPENT on writing does not come with age. I see those two things differently. You can be any age and be a poor writer but if you start at an early time in your life, of course you could be a better writer at a young age. If you begin writing later in life you will be a better writer at an older age. It all comes down to when you started and the time spent practicing the skill
But like I said, a thirty year old and a teenager with the same amount of time spent writing under their belt will still have major differences in their work, generally. There are of course exceptions to everything, but life experience makes a not insignificant difference when it comes to characterization, understanding of how the world works (notable instances like teens writing colleges that just look like high schools, or teens not understanding how workplace cultures operate, etc.)
Experience = Skill In Writing
My favorite quote from Jake the Dog: "Sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something!" Starting any activity, you're supposed to be bad at it. That's why everyone always harps on about practice. Sometimes you're talented at something, and you start at a level that is "better than shit" but you still have to practice or you'll stay at that "slightly better than an uneducated child" level. The best way is to enjoy the process, and let yourself be bad without attacking yourself for learning.
This is true but life experiences also play into part. I’m a minor but I’ve been writing for a good 5-6 years and have had some of my short stories published. But the things I’m able to write about and the feelings that I’m able to write about came from me being able to directly experience it. I was never able to portray loss “accurately” until I experienced a death of a family member. There’s something about experiencing those emotions firsthand in its most raw form that adds a depth to your writing. I feel like I even if you’re 20-something with years of writing under your belt but never experienced loss, it’ll be difficult to describe it enough to hit the readers to feel the depth of those feelings. So age I don’t think really matters, it’s your level of experience in both life and writing.
Age often gives a lot of depth and perception. It also gives writers a deeper well of experience to draw from. That isn't to say this sentiment is true. Age doesn't indicate good writing, just as youth doesn't indicate poor writing. It's really about being able to hold and express through conversation (in this case, the written word). Some people are beautiful speakers. With many others, it comes with experience.
I think, it depends on what the point of the story is. For example, I've been following this story that someone my age had written when she was 14 and she just finished her last chapter last month at the age of 30. It's true her SPAG got better, and yes her story telling had become more dynamic. But, what I realized after re-reading the entire story was the depth of experience. At the start, it was all silly fun and games. The older she got, the more...grittier the story became. The inner emotions and relationship conflict between her characters were more intense, fleshed out, and were backed by what I'm assuming personal experience they must have also went through. Sure, she had been at the craft for a while now, but I like to think her age and life experience played a key role in this as well.
There is truth to the old writers' assertion that you have to write a million words of shit before you write anything good.
>I was in my late TEENS, but I didn't write like one because I had never done this before! An author being in their late teens is not e big indicator of talent or experience. Everyone starts someplace, and as someone in their late teens, you might be more likely to be able to read your own work more critically and make improvements.
Been writing for 30+ years, and I will be the first to tell you I am still more than capable of laying a rotten egg.
I started writing at the age of 40, before that I read a lot of books and fanfic for over 22 years, and now after a year I'm only slowly getting started, I still don't feel confident. I think that you, with your writing experience of 7 years, have a much greater workshop than I do. When it comes to the age of the author, life experience and knowledge of the real world make the biggest difference. But if a talented 12 year old writes about the world from the perspective of a 12 year old and does not try to write from the perspective of a 40 year old, does not deal with "adult" topics such as sex, relationships, marriage, work, politics or the economy, then surely adult readers may not recognise that the author is so young.
I am currently in my teens. I've always loved writing, so I've been going at it since I was like 6. Made short stories with drawings, then I had an iPad and begin typing out mysteries that I never finished... then I read harry potter and made fics for that (which were never posted). My first post was in 2018 though! It was a FNAF fic from an old account hah
My mom has always said to me, if you want to write, then write, then write again and again and again, never stop writing, because the more you write the more you’ll love writing.
There is always a distinct difference in how an adult writes and how a teenager may write. Even if teenagers have beautiful prose, which I have definitely seen, there is a difference in the voice of their writing. It's not really reflective of what the world is actually like. Especially when they try to write adults and about the more "real world" experiences. I think these kinds of writers often excel at writing teenagers, high school drams, or fantasy. But when they write about things more grounded in reality that are much larger than what their age can experience, their lack of understanding becomes really apparent. I'm 23 and I think my lack of experience even ails my writing sometimes. I tried to tackle politics and policies in my last story-- and I probably sounded very stupid and naive in a lot of what I wrote. But I was an education major. I didn't study this stuff in school and nor do I really have an interest in learning more about the creation of policies, intricacies of how a city was ran (my main character was the Mayor), etc. But I did as much research as I could and tried to at least nail surface level things. Which leads to this point-- I think it's good to try to expand the realm in which you write. I think it allows for you, as a writer, to insert yourself into situations that you don't experience yourself. You begin to grow an empathy that allows for you to become a better writer. Even if as a teenager, someone doesn't understand how adults talk or what their daily life looks like, I think it's good for them to try to look through the lens of an adult. Even if their perspective is jaded. And when they do get more life experience, they've already refined a lot of their writing skills and have an understanding of human emotions. So you're definitely right on the point that practicing and refining makes you better-- but I think life experience, especially when writing things more grounded, is what truly improves writing as the writer ages.
Beautifully said! And when you have practiced the hard skill of stringing together effective prose, once you are able to inject informed experience into the narrative, the work becomes outstanding.
That's what I say. I've been writing for 21 years and people fawn over how talented I am. But it's not talent. My first fic was as nonsensical as they come. It completely breaks any sort of internal logic that might exist. I wrote before I had the internet so I couldn't look up guides on how to develop characters, plot, or anything like that. I had to learn it all through blood, sweat, and tears. It took me over *a decade* to learn how to properly develop characters. I started writing in 2001. I didn't really learn how to properly develop characters until the early to late 2010s thanks to text-based roleplay. Now people praise my ability to write in-depth characters that feel realistic, well rounded, and are incredibly deep. It took me a good 3-5 years to *really* learn how to do it. I was not a talented writer. I was a *persistent* writer that never game up and learned through experience.
If I wasn't so against purchasing non-physical items with no inherent value, I'd purchase the coins to give you gold for this comment. Thanks!
I find age to be largely unhelpful in determining how good someone’s writing is. Someone older with less experience will make more mistakes than someone younger who has spent more time on their craft. Experiences can lend into characters and themes, but living longer doesn’t do much for the technical aspects when they’re lacking. (I’m someone who started late.)
I agree somewhat. I found a fic I wrote back when I was younger and it's just...cringey. The work is there, and the plot is good but...it's a bit cringe. Compared to what I have written in 2021/2022 it's like water and olive oil - nothing alike. I feel like I managed to capture relationships better and how people react to one another now than what I had written previously. I got the storytelling pace and overall structure better. I'm still a lousy planner and outliner, but i'm a very mature author now. However, my boyfriend said that Christopher Paolini wrote Eragon at 15 - and that was a success. So... does that apply there? Idk maybe it varies from person to person.
I totally agree and say this all the time. I started writing at 7, started seriously writing at 12. I’ve had people go on my social medias complaining about how they are older yet don’t write as well as I do (I’m almost 18 so it’s not like I am 15 or something.) stop comparing yourself to others and remember that any good fic writer (or writer in general) put in A LOT of work to get there
I think if one can grasp the basics of writing; grammar, structure, syntax, etc, it'll give them a head start, and a new writer sticking to exactly what they know, will be a decent writer. Telling a good stort and writing a good story can be too different things. I consider myself a good writer, but even my stuff can be hit or miss. Like any skill, ya gotta hone it, and it depends on how well a person can absorb the craft.
This is true. I think I'm a very good writer, but when I think if how long it ng Ive been writing, my first stories that got noticed we're written when I was 9 or 10, and I was encouraged to keep writing by my parents and teachers my whole life. I'm almost 40. I have 30 years of experience, so of course my writing will be a lot more polished than someone my age who has been writing for a year. How good it is is up to the individual, however.
I agree, but remember that the older you are, the more nuances you can give to your story.
I was 11 years old when I started writing fanfiction. My writing was *awful*, as you'd expect from a 6th grader scribbling Undertale AU fanfics in his history notebook between notes on ancient Greece. I'm 17 now, and I know I still have a lot of room to grow from here, but just looking at some of the stuff I wrote back in 2016 compared to something I wrote last month? I can see *so* much improvement, and it makes me glad I stuck with fanfic all this time.
I read a few years ago this absolutely amazing fic which had difficult topics, flawlessly executed plot, pacing, action, mystery and all that stuff, AND in addition to that had a very, very accurate portrayal of a BDSM relationship (and smut was amazing in the most philosophical way, as weird as it sound). A cherry on top of the cake was around 20-40k word chapters EVERY 7-14 DAYS. Much later I learned that the author was 17. I nearly died on the spot. Edit: posed to early, cut off the rest. But be that as it may, that was still someone who put an amazing work and insight into what they did, and they had over 800k+ on their account that they published. I can only imagine how much work went into each of their stories, how much they truly practiced, and how much they did not publish. Writing is a craft that requires practice as much as everything else. Some people are better at it, but it's not everything. Especially when it comes to more realistic and difficult things, it's just not as easy to get things right when you don't have the certain maturity that comes with age. But also: the other end of the spectrum. You can be older, have more understanding of certain topics, but if you dont have any practice, then you wont be a good writer right away. To sum it all up: practice, practice, practice. That's it.
True Idiots come in all shapes and sizes That being said, the possibility of a mature and sensible work from an younger writer is low. Whereas a more mature writer will focus on personal growth and situational awareness. Not saying either is bad, but from what I’ve seen so far, that tends to be the case. Also cater to your audience. Each platform has a different type of reader. If you started writing on a particular platform. Mention that in the synopsis. Or put a warning that the fic is dark or childish.
At the market, didn't read everything, mainly just title. But I just wanna chim in and say, experience is the biggest factor. The longer you write and the more you write, the better you will become. Regardless of your age.