I honestly wouldn't buy a book by a kid (well, teen). I have a hard time reading books YA books (tried when I was working at a school library) so I doubt that books written by a "young adult" would speak to me. I might've been a teen, and maybe not THAT long ago, but I can't identify with them for the life of me. I think that is my problem with the former, and fears about the later books. Though when it comes to writing - of course they should! If they aren't writing as kids/teens they'll have to go through the learning and getting better phase as adults. Just, wait with the publishing, maybe?
See, I think there is a distinction here. Could a teenager get to the point of technical competency that they are capable of competing with an adult? Yes. A teenager could easily be as competent with a guitar compared to someone two or three times their age. Ditto with artistic skill, the ability to create a lifelike image, and meeting a "publishable" standard of prose, lacking grammatical errors and demonstrating a good understanding of ideas like pacing, tone, foreshadowing.... These things are technically possible with enough practice, or enough innate talent to be able to easily pick these things up. But there is a big difference between technical competence with writing and the ability to create believable characters with believable backstories and believable locations and situations. That requires a wider experience of the world, a wider experience of different people, different places, different situations - and more so than a cursory glance through a book or a chat with someone, when you're still operating from a limited set of personal experiences. Particularly since teenagers have a different understanding of the world compared to adults - it's more emotionally charged, more turbulent, everything seems to be of massive importance when in reality it doesn't really matter at all. That, I think, is the main difficulty for teenage writers.
I think so, yes. It's more likely to happen later on in life because we usually (hopefully) learn and improve our skills through life, but that doesn't mean that a teenager couldn't already be very skilled or talented. And sometimes, I feel that younger voices can be more honest with their characters than older voices. Or actually, I usually prefer to read from very young writers or very old (sorry) writers. I also like authors in middle-age but often, I find them less touching than more 'extreme' ages. So yes, why not? It's also possible for a very seasoned adult to write amateur novels
There is no reason on earth why a young person can't study the art of storytelling, and learn to tell a story well. Of course they also must have a good grasp of SPAG issues—but by the time they are teenagers, they should anyway. Maturity of subject matter and character development might take a while longer to achieve, but everybody's circumstances are different, and some people grow up a lot faster than others. If a teenager has an original take on the world and a good imagination, isn't just copying what others have produced, understands the mechanics of what makes a story exciting to read, and isn't afraid to finish stories and do the revision that all writing requires—then why not?
I'm not sure what it's evidence of, though... I mean, if those are all the teen authors that have been published, I'd say it's evidence that it's really rare for a teenager to write a publishable book... Maybe it shows the kind of books teens are writing? But I'm only familiar with a few of the titles - does anyone recognize a significant number of them?
No, I don't. But I was astonished by the ages here. Much younger, some of them, than I would have expected. I'm trying to remember a bit more, but wasn't there a very young author not all that long ago who got shortlisted for a major book prize? I can see her face, but I can't remember anything more about either her or the book.
Absolutely! Can't believe this is even a question. Not saying that to be argumentative. But absolutely!
I think there are important voices in every generation. I imagine half the BFA applicants are better than most aspiring writers twice their age will ever be. And I believe they're all teenagers. It probably helps to be well read more than anything else. If they can comprehend works, I say absorb as much as they can from great literature. I believe that can make a big difference. It can also help a lot if they have a mentor. But aren't there much better things for teenagers to be doing?
Like others here, I started writing when I was about 12. I was convinced I would be published by 14 or 15, and I worked on my novel with more passion than I'd ever felt before, and honestly haven't quite found since. I churned out draft after draft and quickly fell into the black hole of endless revisions. The problem was that as I grew, I kept finding the juvenile aspects of the previous draft and tried to make it better. Eventually, I gave it up and told myself I'd get back to that story at some point (I was 15 then.) I kept writing, still convinced I'd be published as a teen. Life happened, I never submitted anything, and I grew. Now, when I go back and read that first novel, I am acutely embarrassed by how juvenile the whole thing is. The language wasn't bad -- not sophisticated by any means, but pleasant to read anyway -- but my plot and characters were childish and weak. I am tremendously relieved this isn't out there in the world to define me as an author. I realize my evidence is purely anecdotal and not at all representatives of all teens. I'm just sayin...sometimes not achieving our teenage dreams is more helpful than achieving them. Paolini wrote garbage. Now he's grown up, and I can't say I'd ever want to read something he turns out as an adult simply because his name was branded as a child with his childish garbage. I don't know if I could break that connection, personally.
"Mary Shelley (30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) ...best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin, after her mother's death, less than a month after she was born, Mary was raised by Godwin, who was able to provide his daughter with a rich, if informal, education, encouraging her to adhere to his own liberal political theories. In 1814, Mary began a romance with one of her father's political followers, she then married Percy Bysshe Shelley. Together with Mary's stepsister Claire Clairmont, Mary and Shelley left for France and traveled through Europe. Upon their return to England, Mary was pregnant with Percy's child. Over the next two years, she and Percy faced ostracism, constant debt, and the death of their prematurely born daughter. They married in late 1816, after the suicide of Percy Shelley's first wife, Harriet. In 1816, the couple famously spent a summer with Lord Byron, John William Polidori, and Claire Clairmont near Geneva, Switzerland, where Mary conceived the idea for her novel Frankenstein." So, she conceived the novel when she was 19, and didn't publish until she was 21. And the above suggests that she had lived a very rich life for any 19-year old!
A point I'd make is that there's more than technical competency to artistry. Listen to a musical talent show and you'll often hear a vocalist with an incredibly mature voice...who frequently sings as if the level of comprehension of English is on a par with a foreign band that has learned to play covers of English-language hits by aping the sounds made on the records they listened to. A classic example of this is Leonard Cohen's song Hallelujah, where the line "...a cold and broken hallelujah..." is, logically, dolorous; yet I have usually heard it sung as a glorious, triumphant line. My point being that it takes life experience before you can truly put meaning into any artistic performance. If a teenager can perform a song/write a book/paint a painting in a way that compares favourably with that performed by a more experienced artist, then it suggests either that the teenager is somewhat prodigious (well-educated, experienced, etc.) or the song/book/painting wasn't serious enough to require more artistic expression than you might find in Janet and John.
That's what I was getting at, yes. I think a lot of people can become technically proficient at a young age - to the point where they can write competent jobbing prose; they'd be able to take a movie script and adapt it into a reasonable novelisation, for example. But I think for the most part, the other elements of writing a novel; the deeper understanding of the world and the people who inhabit it which is vital for creating and portraying these things is in much shorter supply, particularly (though not exclusively) with younger teenagers.
An interesting list. I was also quite surprised by some of the ages. Not to discredit any of the works (only familiar with a couple) but I wonder if the author being a teenager was the main factor of its publication in the first place. A 14 year old author sounds far more intriguing/marketable than a 40 year old author even if the later produces much better work.
I think yes, once in a while you will find a prodigy. I have met some people - and am one - around that age and I believe I write fairly well and have won some contests in my lifetime. I think it doesn't matter the age of the person, or how much life experience they have (don't get me wrong, that is a HUGE part in writing, but there's more to it) but more how much they know overall. I know how to write from the perspectives of nearly any animal, and even in the perspective of humans, of any age and gender. The only reason I know how to do this is reading. I read hours on end, every day, book by book. And these aren't your small 100 page novellas, either. I read from 300-700 paged works. In a matter of days. And because of how much I read, and what a variety of things I read, I have learned how to be descriptive, write from different perspectives, and develop characters. Now I'm not telling you I'm good, that would be pompous - but I'm just saying, people of all different ages can write. Experience plays a huge part, but knowledge of different components in writing through reading or learning et cetera is an even larger part. But I must say, writing talent comes with time! I look at my writing from a few months ago, which was about four pages long, and think "I couldn't even self-publish this". Now, in a day, I was able to rewrite it beautifully (in my opinion) and turn it into 30+ pages and going. I just started reading more of a variety, and more as a whole. If you don't agree with my opinion, I'm sorry, I don't really want to spark anything
I think also it was because of the company she kept. She was in an intense creative circle during that time, it rubbed off on her. And though at the time she was not given her proper place in literature, she was the star of the bunch.
It is. But I think in this case they should stick to "what they know" - so set the world in high school etc.
Write what you know or do a shitload of research - and that applies to authors of any age , the average young writer has less life experience to draw on true , but then thee are adults who live boring mundane lives and might have less relevant experience than some teenagers
In a way kids have an advantage because they go to school every day and are taught in class by their teacher. They are having to do their homework and are constantly practising their writing skills when they do this. But they should be writing because they enjoy it, not because they have to. There are few writing websites that I'm a member of where (to my surprise) a good deal of amazing work has been produced by kids. I can't underestimate how amazingly clever they can be. They are the future and it's amazing the sort of ideas they come up with and the amount of dedication they put into it. Also, some of the most famous writers were in their teens when they produced their great pieces eg. William Wordsworth, S. E HInton was only 19 when she wrote and published the outsiders, and Mary SHelley was 18 when published Frankenstein. Some kids could just be so incredibly intelligent and simply I can't deny
If you stick to writing what you know, it is possible. Taylor Swift became a very successful singer and song writer while in her teens. She wrote and sang about what she knew. It may be unlikely that you will achieve success but not impossible. You won't know until you try. To not try is to never know.
