I agree. Considering the age, they were pretty well thought-out. The characters were interesting, there were plot twists, and a new world certainly was created out of it. It appealed to young readers and, despite the young author, reminded me of Anne MacCaffrey. It wasn't the ultimate best, but it showed what the author could do. If only the film hadn't have sucked royally... I feel as though the film killed the series rather quickly. BTW--I have seen some incredible writing out of 10th graders that blows my mind. If we truly are writers, then we should be willing to believe that some people really can have talent at an early age and stop restricting our ideas concerning who is allowed into the "good writers" club. Teenagers should be empowered and encouraged to grow, and heck yes, publish if their writing is quality enough to warrant it. And if they win a few extra readers for being a "novelty" writer at the age of 16+ then so be it. I'm not going to say it's the route for everyone, but there's no reason not to pursue it. It's a lot harder to break into the market later on, I would imagine, not that I'm trying to dispute Melzaar's decision. It clearly worked for him. All I can say is that when a good teenage writer is published, it only inspires the next generation to think bigger and better. And isn't that what we need from the upcoming generation of writers?
Age is a great advantage because with age comes experience. But there are plenty of young writers out there who have done well. Has anyone heard of Veronica Roth? She's my age (23) and just published her first novel, Divergent. It's excellent. She's not a teenager like a lot of the famous younger writers, but she's still very young. I started seriously writing when I was 10 or 11 and I know I never could have published anything I wrote back then and I probably won't have anything I can publish for awhile. I think a lot of writers my age are in the same boat, but there are always the exceptions. I enjoyed Eragon as well.
I only dislike Eragon. Such a childish, basic, cookie-cutter story. A boy who rides a dragon and fights an evil sorcerer. Not very deep.
Well i hope being 14 and hating Eragon for it's unoriginality is already a first step for me proving myself. I hate overused stories with no unexpected twists.
I think Matthew Riley was 18 when he wrote Ice Station, which was a good read though a touch simplistic. A story written by a young person doesn't mean it will be bad per se, but it has a much greater chance of being a good story if it is centred around the experiences or perspectives of that person, rather than an attempt at high science or complex politics, as a younger person simply won't have a detailed level of experience.
I don't think that people should turn their noses up at young writers. They are the future of the storytelling industry, why discourage them by treating their works differently than anyone else? The issues I've seen growing up are the troubles of not having a good creative writing support system, or even a way to truly hone the talent at all. I know writing is not a thing one is naturally gifted with, that it's accomplished with practice. But that statement is also contradicted by the fact that I've probably written more words and stories in my 21 years of living than my parents probably ever wrote. Yet according to some people on this site, the first novel I would offer up for publishing would be terrible compared to my 55 year old father publishing a novel. We've both had varying life experiences, but I'm sure mine would be better than his, at least in grammatical structure and flow. Truly, I think it has almost nothing to do with age and more to do with life experiences, lots of reading, and constantly writing. It's the individual, not the age. It's like any art. You have astounding musicians at 12 and 80 years of age. This is through innate talent, lots of practice, and the understanding of musical structure. Writing is the same, at least to me. The medium, emotions, and experiences fueling said art-form differ, but all-in-all they are the same.
