True. But there's a bit more to it than that. I'm nearly 17 years old (FYI: Year 11, Australia) and study both Literature and English at school. I'm an Arts/English (media) nut, and so analysing texts (especially film as I work in a video store) comes pretty naturally. However, there is a dramatic difference between what you could define as 'normal' English, and Literature (the more classical texts). Literature looks at texts which have deeper meanings and connotations. It is dramatically more enjoyable than English, despite having equally exceptional teachers. But sometimes, texts of a classical nature do not cut it. Sure, they have themes which can be brought into the context of our modern society, however there aren't any true direct correlations. You can grab the theme of 'love' or 'compassion' from a text of any century and still somehow link it together. And not everyone is interested in themes. I'm making a generalised statement here so forgive me, but I've noticed that a lot/all of the males in my class have no interest in what we study in our English class. They simply aren't interested. And to be honest, I don't think you could force them to like it. Even if you studied the Jackass movies, you still might find them disengaged and losing the point of the tasks. Eh, just my two cents.
Hey, I'm 12 and live in Australia, Here, I am surprised to find that many children I have seen have turn to reading other than the T.V. Writing, on the otherhand, is another matter. Most of my friends think of writing as not a nerdy thing, nor do they find it very interesting, but they think of it as something you can like or dislike, such as a type of sport.
I Agree with hellomoto, at my school writing and being good at it is nerdy and geeky, which I do consider myself but it still doesn’t help much. I'm 13, yipee!, but yeah... I turn 14 in like 19 days...
I'm 16, from Australia, and I must say, that when people reach the teen years where they begin to drink and do drugs (been there, done all of that), they lose interest in a lot of things they may have enjoyed previously. Not everyone gets into drugs, but around that "experimental" time in life, I must say, most of my friends drifted away from all things intellectually satisfying. I did myself, for a while, and came out of it more sour than I went in. Of course, there is no changing people, but no one will ever enjoy being literate less than illiterate. I honestly think the average level of intelligence is dipping, sad to say. When I look at teens these days, a lot of them have not only no interest in intellectualism, they have no skills in it either. I think a lot of people slowly conform to what the general populace around them deem as "normal", regardless of how edifying it is for them. They fool themselves into enjoying it more and more, and eventually lose all motivation for things they formerly loved doing. Just my two cents, I hope it actually makes sense. But for me, the majority of the youth around me has no interest in writing or reading.
I can sort of agree with both arguments here, where I am I can plainly see people that have absolutely no interest in reading or writing and other people who love it. It does seem to me though that less people go to the library and get a book because its not cool enough because of the sort of stigma attached to being a bookworm. It also seems that less people now buy a book, because they can go see the movie instead and socialise with their friends or they can spend their money on a game, sweets, clothes etc There's more choice of what to do with all the games consoles and movies and things that are about now. And there's more freedom with what a young person can do. IF you take me and my sister as an example... At 14 I was just allowed to start going to the cinema by myself if I had a lift into town and kept in contact with my mum and somebody picked me up. My sister is just 14 and has been catching the bus into town herself for a couple of years, meeting her friends to go to the cinema, and to just hang out in town - something I was never allowed to do. With more choice about what to do, maybe there's just less time for reading when it doesn't seem as interesting.
I used to be the same way. Back when I was in middle school I had a strong interest in writing. However, I was somewhat embarrassed about it. However, I've grown to realize that an interest in writing is the same as an interest in art/drawing, photography, sports, etc. It's a hobby like anything else. As for young people being less interested in reading and writing, I'm not sure if that's true or not. From my experience I'd say there are quite a bit of "young people" interested in both read and writing.
You know this also dependent on parental influence. When my son was eight, I gave him the book Call Of The Wild...and a Star Wars Lego set. No he didn't read the book. He played with the Lego set. A couple months later I bought him The Dangerous Book for Boys. I think the title itself is the only reason he read it, but he did read it, and that sparked his interest. He is ten now and is constantly reading and last week I discovered a journal under his bed. I about cried. (No I didn't read it.) What kind of mom do think I am! I also believe it important that your children see you reading and writing, after all, live by example. By the way, who cares what your friends think. Be proud of you are...a writer!
That's very true, penhobby. It is a lot about parental influence. My mom used to read to me until midnight when I was five. She'd read books like The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, The Secret Garden, etc. I still remember how excited I got just listening to those stories. I always attribute what my mom did to my love of reading and writing.
Yeah, part of it depends on how it's taught in school, but part of it also depends on what the parents are willing to do and the resources you have. Just to give you two examples, I spent some time working at an elementary school in which grades three to six were taught language by the same teacher. She was very enthusiatic and found ways to make it interesting and fun. Instead of everyone reading the same book for assignments, she divided them into groups by letting them pick the books that was either the best for where their reading level was, or that would most interest them. They all had fun with it when they were doing their story-writing and writing letters to their penpals in a different school. As for resources and parents, sometimes kids are not motivated to read because their parents don't encourage them too, or as much as their parents try to motivate them, they just can't find books they like. You're much more likely to find a good book for everyone in a community that has lots of bookstores and libraries. In the town of that school, depsite that fantastic teacher, a lot of people there didn't like to read, and they only had one library and one small book store. In some of the surrounding towns, the only libraries were in the schools.
In the town I live in, we have 3 or 4 large bookstores, an enormous sized public library and my school has a decent sized library aswell. Still, few people that I know of, like to read books. Surely they cannot say that there are no books that they like? There are thousands available to choose from. Maybe they're like me though, they enjoy reading but don't tell anyone about because they're frightened of people's reaction.
it was quite different for me, im 15 now love reading and am interested in writing but i have a really unenglishy family who are all into computer math science area. i get support from them but im not sure thats where my interest comes from... i was actually suprised by the number of young people writing, turns out a lot of my friends write too. I think that as writing is not deemed 'cool' young people still write but keep quiet about it, when we did our creative wring coursework in english the was a suprising amount of enthusam and some really good pieces!
There are a lot of people around my age (I'm 17) from were I live that simply dislike reading and writing as well. For the most part, there are also plenty of people who enjoy a good book, but it's still despairing to see the number of teens forsaking reading all together. A large part of it, I suppose, is the fact that as children today, people are exposed to television, pop culture, and videogames as the predominant forms of entertainment. From a young age, people are catered to and sculpted to stay with those forms of entertainment throughout their life. Parents need to stop letting their kids sit in front of the TV for hours on end because they're lazy, and give them something better to do. And that's my two cents. Looking back it sounds insanely hippyish and such, but perhaps I'm a bit of a hippy.
My parents were always trying to get me to read books, i never did mainly because the books were boring and i liked watching tv. So one day i see my mum reading Harry Potter and we also have lotr on the bookshelf, as soon as she put the book down i snatched it and read it. A couple of years later they're trying to stop me from reading all the time. Personally i think parents always have to set the right example if they want their kids to do something, if the parents don't read i don't see the kids reading either.
I'm 14, and have been reading for 5 years now. I liked watching my brother play The Legend of Zelda for the N64 (which sparked my interest in swords) and Final Fantasy VIII for the PS1 (Loved magic!). My first books were the Captain Underpants series. Those books made me like reading. So: Love for Swords, magic and books = Fantasy genre books! Since then though, I have read more branches: Classics, sci-fi, mystery, horror, war, espionage, history and folklore... And hey, I have like 60 years to keep reading and improving my writing! (I hope so.. xD)
My mom read me the Chronicles Of Narnia when I was 5 or so, which had a big impact, and I read the first Harry Potter and the Hobbit when I was in 1st-2nd grade. Since, then I've found what kind of books I like, and what kinds I don't. My friends know I write and read. Most consider it a waste of time or just somewhat weird, but it doesn't matter. I do believe that their's been a decrease in young readers+writers in this age of technology. In my entire school system, I only know one other writer.
It disapoints me that there aren't many people my age at least where I live that are interested in writing everybody seems obsessed with being a sports star which is fine by all means but it just feels wierd knowing I am one of probably only 5 people in my grade who enjoy writing and wish to be authors. I do wish more people were interested
Writing's difficult when you don't really have anyone to share it with and talk about writing in general, which is my situation. I'm one of the only few people in my school that write fiction and the only one that does it seriously, so I don't have anyone to talk about it with. Luckily, I've got you guys.
It's not often that younger writers are published (meaning novels, etc.) and obviously, being younger would mean less life experience than older writers. I was just wondering what you think about younger writers?
I'm young, and I don't mind others like me. As long as you don't have too terrible grammar and punctuation I'll read any piece that's somewhat short and interesting. I don't have all day to read an entire novel...
There's no reason that a young writer can't be of publishable standard. The problem is that a lot of young writers haven't, by dint of their fewer years, had the necessary experience and practice to build up and improve their writing. The life experience does come into it, but the main element to me is that they just haven't had the time to learn how to write. I say this as someone who started writing at a very young age (probably around 10-12), and managed to get some short stories published young (19). When I look back at some of my early writings I shudder at how bad they are. They weren't bad at the time, because they were good for my age, but I've advanced so far now that I'd be embarrassed if any of them had been published. Young writers being published does happen, on occasion. The only example I can think of off the top of my head is Christopher Paolini, which probably isn't a good example as his writing is poor and derivative, and he was only actually published because his parents owned a publishing house (and subsequently played off his age as a selling point- that he was incredibly talented because he could write a novel at 15. He wasn't. I was writing novels at least as good at 15, only I lacked the parents working in publishing). I'm sure that other members will be able to suggest other writers who were published young, and it'll be interesting to see how they bear out.
I don't pay much attention to author bios when I'm looking for reading material, so I guess the age wouldn't bother me in that context. Working with them can be a much different matter, however.
Like Banzai said, a young writer may be very good for their age but not be a very good writer compared to what is being published. Just keep writing and developing your craft and you'll soon become a good writer. But don't expect your style to develop overnight or to instantly get acceptances from publishers. I'm 22 and have been writing for a decade. In that time I've written almost two million words, and I've not quite grown into my own style yet. It's a game of patience, so don't get downhearted if you're not winning rave reviews. Keep reading, keep writing, and you'll have stood yourself in good stead.
What is there to "think about young writers"? I once was one myself, but I didn't have any ambition to write for publication. I agree with Banzai that most of them probably aren't unpublished because of lack of life-experience or imagination, but because of a lack of writing practise and time to improve their writing skills. That's all I think about them.
