10 Things Teenage Writers Should Know About Writing

[Mercy]

Alright, so I was bored while doing an anatomy and physiology lab and I began wandering around Google. I found this article about writing and I thought I'd post it because I thought some people might want to give it a glance, especially those who are new to writing.

10 Things Teenage Writers Should Know About Writing (http://whatever.scalzi.com/2006/04/27/10-things-teenage-writers-should-know-about-writing/)

I'd post an excerpt, but they all seem pretty good and it's hard for me to decide what to post. ^^;

[jordanisonfire]

I already knew most of this, but that's only because I've been on writing forums for over two years now and I've heard this from more senior writers. It'll be useful for newbies, though.

And it''s always nice to hear a successful writer assuring you that their work sucked too when they were a teenager. ^.^

[Mercy]

Thanks for commenting. =)
Yeah, I knew most of it, too, but it never hurts to reread stuff, I guess. x3

[Shaun]

Read that a while ago. It's not 100% true, but pretty much it's true of teen writers. Get used to it :P.

[aj.e]

I've read this last year, and I agree. I follow some of his advice and it's working for me. Just don't know about you guys if you feel the same. It was somewhat "profound."

[nagarjuna]

#1 is my favorite. ;)

[Callie]

I guess I'm the only one (so far) who's offended by this? I read the entire article, but I really do think his first point is wrong. Teenage writers don't "suck" as an absolute rule. To say so is ignorant. I would agree that, yes, most teenage writing either sucks, or is only "okay", but that leaves room for many, many exceptions. I'm not even talking about my writing. There are several teenage writers who have been published (not that publishing automatically=good, but that's what he seemed to equate it to in his later post.) For a list, try this link:
http://librarygoddesses.pbworks.com/byteens

Now, I acknowledge that there are far more adult authors than there are teen authors. But he completely swept away the exceptions in favor of continuing to tell teen writers that they must "suck" until they get published. Not to mention, there are massive amounts of adult writers who suck. Just as much as his fantasized teen writers. I don't think you can slap an age group on it and tell them they suck. Some of writing is talent, some is education and some is practice. And I think for him to be writing such a die-hard list and sticking to his very-disputed assumption and dismissing opinions of other people is a bad, bad move.

I can definitely agree that teen writers will improve as they age, but improvement doesn't mean you sucked to begin with.

[Shaun]

To be fair, Scalzi has indicated that there are exceptions to the rule, but they are far and few between. Teen writers, as a rule, are at a stage in writing where they still need work. True, there are some good writers, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are ready to be published.

[Starry]

You can read all the arguments by all of the insulted obnoxious teenagers at the end of the article if you want, or read the follow-up post by the author who was sick of it all. Frankly, teen writing does suck as a general rule, and a few exceptions don't invalidate the rule. I think the main reason is just that when you're still a teenager, you're usually still developing your craft, and in fact developing so rapidly that you look back at something you wrote a few months ago and think it's terrible. By the time you finally reach a level where you don't instantly hate your writing upon looking back after some length of time, generally you're not a teenager anymore.

[Callie]

Shaun: I guess I didn't see the part in which he said there were exceptions. Everything he seemed to reiterate (and I did skim a little) was that teenagers suck, end of story, and if you wanted to prove him wrong, get published and you could rub it in his face.

Starry: I agree with everything you're saying EXCEPT that the exceptions don't disprove the rule. If it wasn't universally true, it wouldn't be a rule. It's not logically correct to say "All teenage writing sucks." And then when someone says no, that's a logical fallacy because exhibit A does not suck and they are a teenager, to say "Well, I still stand by what I said."

Like I said, I agree that MOST "sucks", but I don't think that it applies only to teenagers. Most WRITING sucks, though, I will jump on board with that idea. But instead he said that because we're teenagers, we can't relate, our wisdom isn't there... when there are plenty of adults that, by his definition, will have more "wisdom", and yet most adult writers suck. If they didn't, we'd have a lot more classics than we do now.

[Starry]

I think he mentions that at some point, that about half of his argument is about inexperienced writers in general (thus, not well-trained at any age) and half about being inexperienced in life (which is more a teenager thing). Like, yes, most writing sucks, but there is a much higher percentage of suckage among teenagers than among adults (quite possibly because so many people give up as adults, and good riddance, really).

And sorry, but exceptions do not invalidate a rule, because there are no absolute rules. As a classic example, take grammar (English is particularly screwy). But scientific laws as well are never absolute either, and when you go into the humanities things get even screwier.

[Callie]

I would totally back down if I could actually find evidence of his "inexperienced writers in general" argument, but I can't. Would you quote it, so that I know?

And I just think it should be said that I don't like this guy in general, because of the things he says like this:
"8. It’s just your opinion that teenage writing sucks.
Sure. However, it’s also the opinion of someone who has been a professional writer for sixteen years, who is a bestselling and award-winning author of a dozen books and thousands of newspaper and magazine articles, and who has been a professional editor. Which is to say the opinion is not an uninformed one."


Stephenie Meyer is a bestseller, too, and I don't think I'd take her advice on writing. He's extremely condescending and is alienating the people he wanted to "help".

But anyway! If you can quote that for me, I think the "discussion" is over because I agree. I mean, I still think targeting teenagers was stupid of him, and that he's essentially an egotistical jerk who has an overinflated sense of self-importance... but that's another idea all together.

[Starry]

Ah, wading through thousands of comments. Oh well, I don't have anything better to do anyway.

I think there's a better instance of this somewhere else, but this will do for now:
“when you address this to teenagers, you’re implying that its relevance plummets once a person reaches the age of twenty.”

Some of it does, particularly the parts addressed to school and to teen social interactions; some of it is useful more universally. It’s addressed to teens specifically because that’s the age I find most people who want to become writers start stretching their writing muscles. I do think being a teen is a special situation, because teenagers are in a unique place in terms of development, mentally and socially. This place does not map precisely to years, as you note, but it does well enough for what I’m doing here. Needless to say, if people who aren’t teenagers find this advice useful, that’s fine by me.

And yeah, he's being totally condescending in this post. No one is denying this. But that doesn't mean he's wrong. And you know, it is his blog, so he can really say whatever the hell he wants.

[Callie]

Err.. I guess I see where you can get the "exception" from that, and I do believe you saw him write it... but that was in the comments, you say? Because that just says to me that he wobbled into the "adults can be bad too" idea as opposed to really accepting it as a fact.

And yes! He definitely can say whatever he wants. I was just saying that I disagree with him, and that his tone is probably winning him more teen-enemies than friends... and as an author of several "best selling books" you'd think he'd know about the tone he's approaching it in, you know?

[nagarjuna]

I thought his tone was more lighthearted and self-deprecating than anything. He acknoweldges that even his own writing sucked as a teenager. And overall, his intentions seemed to be helpful rather than meant as derogatory or self-aggrandizing. I actually disagreed with him as well, even though in the vast majority of cases he's probably right, but then how would we as teenagers be objective judges of our own writing?

As blogs go, don't you think he was awful careful and gentle about the approach he took to it? He even had an entire preamble clarifying the tone he was going to assume. I didn't take it as insulting. I thought it was pretty matter-of-fact, to tell you the truth. Most teen writing *does* suck. Duh.

But maybe I only feel this way because I'm every bit as self-inflated as him. :P I love articles like this that aim to humble, because an asshole like me totally needs it.

Edit: Smile!

[ReccyV]

I would totally back down if I could actually find evidence of his "inexperienced writers in general" argument, but I can't. Would you quote it, so that I know?

And I just think it should be said that I don't like this guy in general, because of the things he says like this:
"8. It’s just your opinion that teenage writing sucks.
Sure. However, it’s also the opinion of someone who has been a professional writer for sixteen years, who is a bestselling and award-winning author of a dozen books and thousands of newspaper and magazine articles, and who has been a professional editor. Which is to say the opinion is not an uninformed one."


Stephenie Meyer is a bestseller, too, and I don't think I'd take her advice on writing. He's extremely condescending and is alienating the people he wanted to "help".

But anyway! If you can quote that for me, I think the "discussion" is over because I agree. I mean, I still think targeting teenagers was stupid of him, and that he's essentially an egotistical jerk who has an overinflated sense of self-importance... but that's another idea all together.

Stephenie Meyer wasn't an experienced journalist nor was she a professional editor.

You all really need to stop bitching about this guy ragging on Teenage Writers.
Especially since a lot of people on this site can't even take a negative crit of their work.
He is absolutely correct.

[levi1991]

To some extent I agree with the guy most teenage writers aren't amazing. However I have read some published work written by adults that is far worse than some of the stuff people post on this forum. Aside from that I don't think telling teenage writers they suck is the most useful way to encourage people to write and help them improve. Still it's his blog he can say what he wants and the article was clearly written merely to draw attention to it.

[Demencia]

Aside from that I don't think telling teenage writers they suck is the most useful way to encourage people to write and help them improve.
Here you can be wrong and right at the same time.
Why you're right:
1. Thin-skinned teenage writers won't take this well. Have to admit, first time I read the first paragraph I read I was close to crying. :rolleyes:
Why you're wrong:
1. He tells their writing sucks now, but if they read more they'll find it won't suck forever, as long as they keep on at it. Surely if this doesn't motivate young writers they're not meant to be writers.
2. How motivated is a writer if s/he can't take some criticism? More than half your life you'll be getting rejection slips instead of awards for outstanding novels as it takes time to perfect the art of writing so surely we should know at one point in our lives it sucked.

The best thing about the article is the amount of disgruntled teenagers expressing their views on this by: "Yes but I get all A's in my english exams." The hell does that matter, english lessons give us nothing but grammar and spelling advice.


Callie, Stephenie Meyer, while hating her guts for Twilight, I have to admit has doen well. She wrote for a certain audience (12-14 year old girls) very well. She hit all the right spots and that is why she's published. Too many teenage writers want to be literary geniuses instead of entertaining which, in part, makes their writing suck. I wouldn't follow Meyer's advice on the style of writing, but I would follow it on writing for a certain audience well.

[Shaun]

Talking of rejection: Ray Bradbury had over 800 rejections before getting his first sale. I have over 50 rejections and am still counting. Other authors regularly get rejection.

Criticism is the name of the game. If you can't take it, get out.

I wouldn't recommend listening to Meyers for anything. Good writing is more important than writing for an audience.

[Meghan]

I'm going to have to agree with Shaun.

I also think that teenagers have a tendency to suck at writing because they don't revise. They write something and think it's amazing. It's their baby. So then, when people criticize it, they get hurt. When they let themselves get personally offended by negative crit (which, at its core, is just helpful advice), they either stop writing or go into denial. They tell themselves that their writing is perfectly fine and the other person is just mean/jealous/doesn't know what they're talking about. In these cases, both the writer and his or her work stop developing.

Criticism is A GOOD THING. Even if it feels like a punch in the stomach, it is meant to help you.

Responding to the blog entry, I think he was going for shock value for than anything. If he said "Practice, practice, practice", he would've gotten a similar message across, but most teenagers would've skipped over it thinking, "Yeah, I hear that all the time." He wanted to slap them in the face and wake them up.

[Stella Thomas]

I actually read this article last night and I think he made some good points, but he didn't have to be quite so holier-than-thou about it. Most teenagers will appreciate that their writing isn't all that, and that they have room to improve. I thought the comment about grammar and vocabulary was a bit off though. Voacbulary, sure, I don't know a lot of fantastically huge words, but I don't like it when authors show off their vocabs in writing- maybe that's because my own isn't developed enough or whatever... but the grammar thing? I mean, by sixteen, sure you might make a few mistakes, but shouldn't you, like, know most of the grammar you're ever going to know?

Other than that, I thought it was pretty sound advice- advice that I've read and followed before about relaxing about our writing, finding other interests, other things to do with our life etc. It's all true, and I know they're good tips, but I didn't like his tone :P. It was kinda patronising.

[Angels-Symphony]

xD What a coincidence, Stella. I made that my signature. We were reading this the other day/night or whatever time it was.

His advice is sound, I agree. And the way he puts it cracks me up xD