Are there any young fantasy Authors?

[Xanados]

Hello, everyone. I'm making this thread because the following question is on my mind: Where are all the young established Authors? I've just been searching through a list on Wikipedia and it seems that most Authors that are still living were born in the 60's. This worries me because I'm eighteen and it seems to me that writing may come to an end…because no one from my generation is interested in it. I was born in the wrong generation.

I'm trying to think of Games Journalists that are young and I can only think of a few. I'm not even sure as to the purpose of my writing this but I feel that if there were younger Authors today I would feel happier. I'm not even sure why, right now. It may be that I have chosen a career path that no one my age, as far as I'm aware, is interested in anymore.

 

[The Blue Lotus]

I'm not published but I'm an 80's baby... does that help?
There are LOTS of young writers but most of them are not published (yet)
Here is a link to a site where you can find some of the teen authors or wannabe authors. http://figment.com/forums/5-The-Writing-Life/topics enjoy!

 

[Kaellpae]

I was born in '89. I am not published. If I could get something published in a book for before 30 I would be happy. Published in a magazine is my first goal. That would be a major boost to making me think I could actually go somewhere with writing.

If there really aren't many of the 80s and 90s generation writers you could search for some and make a little club. Tolkien and Lewis had a literary club, right?

 

[Codey Amprim]

I was born in '93. I'm interested And I'm a few days shy of 18 Oh and I write, if you didn't know But far from established.

 

[Kelise]

Most current fantasy authors say you need to be near your 30s before you have the life experience and writing talent - which you get from years and years of practice - before you can 'expect' to be published.

Whether I agree with that or not, I'm not sure. I don't think you should think your writing should come to an end while you're still so young, though. There's heaps of time yet, and the popular trend in books is always swinging around to focus on something different. Currently it's paranormal romance. In ten years it could be something else entirely.

 

[Xanados]

That’s quite interesting, indeed.

Yes, Tolkien and Lewis did have a literary club and that sort of inspires me. What if someone was to start something like that?
I have quite a technological background: Creating 3D Game Assets for online game design teams, making small websites, video production and all that sort of stuff. The idea intrigues me and I may start up something like this for all serious and mature writers 16 and up, or something.

 

[The Blue Lotus]

That’s quite interesting, indeed.

1) Yes, Tolkien and Lewis did have a literary club and that sort of inspires me. What if someone was to start something like that?

2) I have quite a technological background: Creating 3D Game Assets for online game design teams, making small websites, video production and all that sort of stuff.

3) The idea intrigues me and I may start up something like this for all serious and mature writers 16 and up, or something.

1) there are plenty of these sites out there if one takes a few moments to look...
2) (N.C.)
3) "Serious" and "Mature" are not attributes usualy found in teens. They are unfocused (usualy) and not very skilled in the more eloquent forms of writing. I am sure there are a few but for the most part not so much...

 

[Xanados]

1) there are plenty of these sites out there if one takes a few moments to look...
2) (N.C.)
3) "Serious" and "Mature" are not attributes usualy found in teens. They are unfocused (usualy) and not very skilled in the more eloquent forms of writing. I am sure there are a few but for the most part not so much...

Why am I reading your post in a negative tone? You've come across this way. I was merely musing.
I agree with your third point. I am not your typical teenager, but we shall leave it at that.
I suggest a forum Moderator/Administrator now close this thread.

Thanks.

 

[The Blue Lotus]

Not negative... Sorry if it comes across that way.
Just pointing out some facts.

Before someone decides to start a new forum which is costly (I am assuming) and a time eater they should know there are established ones out there already.

As a business owner cost vs demand are the first things I notice. That is all nothing more.

Yes you do seem to be the exception to a generalized rule of thumb, but having said that in 20 years you will look back at the work you do now and have a strong dislike for the early mistakes we all make.

Whats the point of getting old if we don't grow while we are at it?

 

[Dante Sawyer]

I was born in '93.

Yeah, me too. I turn 18 in October. I'm not published yet, but I have written a novel and I do hope to send it off to publishers by Xmas or so.
As for the real topic of the thread, I think Brandon Sanderson may be one of the younger fantasy authors currently writing.

 

[Telcontar]

Couple of problems with asking about 'young, established fantasy authors.'

For one, it takes time to become 'established.' By the time you really are established you're probably not that young anymore. Self-defeating definition.

For two, young writers usually don't write that well. Even the ones who write well for how young they are. I submit to you this humorous essay by John Scalzi. He explains it all pretty well.

 

[Xanados]

That’s an interesting article.

I really do not wish to be saying this, as I'm not usually one to promote myself in such a way, but my writing is leaps and bounds beyond that High School essay of his. I don't think he mentioned his age, though. I realize that it is quite a foolish thing to submit this http://mythicscribes.com/forums/showcase/954-beginner-writer-writing-practice-1-a.html, a small practice, but I feel it is far more sophisticated and I have only been out of school for one year and am currently working.

If there is one thing I try not to be it's this: someone that is blind to their own work. I know that it could be better. I'm a novice. My point still stands that I see it as being more sophisticated.​

 

[Jian]

Have none of you heard of Christopher Paolini who wrote his book at 15? I'm not much of a fan of his writing and series, but yeah, that's pretty young. I'm 13, and I'm at page 303 in my Mature Epic Fantasy book.

 

[Ankari]

Mature Epic Fantasy

Don't advertise it as such. Usually, when I see stuff like this, I assume it's the opposite. I once read a blurb on a movie case jacket that said "Lord of the Rings Meets Beowulf." For some reason, I rented it. For some reason, I invited friends to my house. For some reason, I mixed the two together. Now, I'm known as the worst person to pick movies.

Moral of the story: Just say "Epic Fantasy." You can even say "Dark Epic Fantasy."

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

Don't advertise it as such. Usually, when I see stuff like this, I assume it's the opposite. I once read a blurb on a movie case jacket that said "Lord of the Rings Meets Beowulf." For some reason, I rented it. For some reason, I invited friends to my house. For some reason, I mixed the two together. Now, I'm known as the worst person to pick movies.

I must know what this horrible abomination of a film is. TELL US!

 

[Chilari]

Jian, yes we've heard of Christopher Paolini. And granted, his books are popular. I gave up reading after Eldest. It was just a bit boring, a bit rehashed, not merely unoriginal in plot but also in approach. I think its success probably depends on how well it translated to film. It's a great story for a movie, lots of epic shots and cool effects, and I suspect without the film, the series would have faded quickly into obscurity.

Read the article linked above, the advice to teenage writers. That pretty much sums it up. I remember being a teenager - I was about 12 or 13 when Eragon came out and I loved it, mostly because it said to me: you might be young but you can get published too. And I wrote and I went on writing forums and I showed what I'd written to my parents and to my friends and my English teacher even. I was so proud of it, and I basked in the praise of my classmates. But it was awful. It was terrible. It was cliched, the characters flat and/or Mary Sues, the situations so manufactured, more what I thought was cool than what was realistic, because I simply didn't have the life experience at that time to understand how people felt about things. I tried writing about things I did not understand, things I had no experience of, had done no research of, just stuff I'd read in other fantasy stories. And what I produced was utter rubbish.

What I'm writing now is a hundred times better than what I was producing a decade ago, and at least thirty times better than what I was writing in my late teens five years ago, but it is by no means perfect. But how did I get better? Four things: by reading other genres of fiction; by writing all the time; by experiencing life and love and complicated family relationships and meeting new people and having new experiences (ie by living in the world); and by studying ancient history and archaeology. In the latter I learned critical thinking, how to research, and an awful lot about pre-industrial societies which fed into worldbuilding (my teenage worlds were all stereotypical underresearched medieval worlds with magic; my post teenage worlds have had so much more variety - I've used as inspiration Bronze Age Greece, Bronze Age Israel, Iron Age Scotland, late archaic Corinth, Etruscan Italy, Anglo-Saxon Shropshire, and more). I thought I was so smart bck then. I filled out one of those fantasy writers questionnaires and saved it on my computer and I read it more recently and I was so infuriatingly smart-mouthed and smug about what I thought I knew about writing and history, and I was so wrong, so ignorant. When I was right I was brushing the surface and thought I knew as much as I needed to know, but knew almost nothing.

Jian, that's not to say you can't write brilliant stuff now. There are always prodigies - Mozart wrote Twinkle Twinkle Little Star when he was 8 years old - but mostly, writing requires experience and hard work. It requires an understanding of human emotions and desires and actions you most likely haven't grasped yet, or your characters will be flat, one-dimentional, archetypal. It requires research and patience and knowing how to approach things and finding a method that works for you, and that comes with experience. (I've been writing since I was 10, I'm now 24, and I think I've just found my method, but it will take a whole novel to test it and I'm only 4000 words in; I have tried numerous other methods/approaches before, including various levels of planning, methods of planning, approaches to editing as I write or just writing, sticking to detailed plans or winging it, setting out scenes before writing, and so on).

So I guess what I'm saying is, keep writing but don't be disappointed if/when, in ten years time, you're sitting in an office doing data entry surrounded by people earning at least twice as much as you, still living with your parents, unpublished and still a ways away from it. But don't stop dreaming of a future five years hence when you're attending the London premiere of your bestselling debut fantasy novel. Because it's good to dream, it's something to aim for.

 

[Jian]

Don't advertise it as such. Usually, when I see stuff like this, I assume it's the opposite. I once read a blurb on a movie case jacket that said "Lord of the Rings Meets Beowulf." For some reason, I rented it. For some reason, I invited friends to my house. For some reason, I mixed the two together. Now, I'm known as the worst person to pick movies.

Moral of the story: Just say "Epic Fantasy." You can even say "Dark Epic Fantasy."

Yeah, I was lost for words at that moment. xD

To Chilari, yeah, I realize that. Especially since I remember when I wrote this horrible book when I was about 10 years old. It was really the worst piece of thing to ever be written, to be quite honest. First of all, the protagonist was in a comma for the first half of the book, he was burnt alive, drowned, stabbed multiple times, and in the "boss" battle at the end, he got hit on the head by a rock and got a concussion. Afterwards, I pretty much read all the books I could so I could avoid being as ignorant as I was of proper literature during the time I wrote it. Still proud of it, though.

It was quite horrible, but it made me learn. After about three years, I'm confident in the fact that my skill has improved enough that I can write a good book, but I'm still a long ways from being a MAGNIFICENT author. A handsome one... Yes. xD

Oh, and I disliked Eragon. I just know of it cause my sister told me about it while I was writing my first book at 10, considering Paolini is one of the few people that wrote something at such a young age. His books didn't really inspire me in that way, though... Well, I guess you could say I was rather inspired, in a way. I was inspired to write a better book and publish it before 15. It's a really weird motivator, but it got me past the 90k mark, so it's working, at least. xD

 

[Chilari]

I was inspired to write a better book and publish it before 15. It's a really weird motivator, but it got me past the 90k mark, so it's working, at least. xD

Not a weird motivator, that's what motivated me at that age too. 90K is very impressive; I never actually finished a first draft until I was 20, and that was 78K words, and had about three stories that topped 30K before then. So it looks like you're ahead of where I was at your age (darn you!) as far as writing is concerned, but don't forget the rest. Go out and experience things. I remember how naive I was at that age, probably not helped by going to an all girls school and being a bit of a loner. Ask older people about their jobs, what they did when they were young adults, what life was like for them in decades you're too young to remember. Grandparents are great for that. My mum has her grandfather's WWI war diary and I heard for myself from three of my grandparents what their WWII experiences were like, and Pappi (my grandad) has told me about how when he was young a neighbour's kid died and his father (my great grandfather) who was a vet (in both senses of the word) paid for the coffin because they couldn't afford to; they couldn't even afford shoes for their children. My mum told me how when Pappi got his first car he would drive her and her sisters to the end of the road in the mornings on his way to work and they'd run back and grab their school bags and walk two miles to school, just the three of them, dropping off my youngest aunt at the primary school before going on to the secondary. My oldest aunt was 13 at the time. It's amazing how different the 1930s or the 1960s were to now.

If you ever need help with researching ancient civilisations (especially the Greeks and Romans), drop me a PM and I'll see if I can point you in the right direction. History is a great inspiration for settings, but it can give ideas for attitudes like beliefs about magic too - in fact I wrote an article for the front page of this website on it a little while back.

 

[Steerpike]

Just remember that Paolini's parents started a publishing company some years before the publication of Eragon, and they were the ones who first published, and then traveled around the country promoting it. They did a heck of a lot of marketing and promotion. Then Knopf ultimately picked it up.

If the average fifteen year-old (or fifty-five year old, for that matter) writes a book of the quality of Eragon, I think it is safe to say it would most likely be rejected by agents and publishers.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

I enjoyed the first three Eragon books. Then I started writing my own novel, and this made me hyper-critical about prose. I started reading the fourth Eragon book and couldn't make it more than two chapters, the prose was so awful. I should go read a plot synopsis so that I at least know how it turned out in the end.