On Being Too Young (Naive, Inexperienced, Immature, etc.)

[DragonOfTheAerie]

All of you know that I'm probably one of the youngest active members here (that meaning teenaged) but, in hindsight, I really would rather have kept that fact to myself. I want to be a writer. Not a young writer or teenage writer or whatever prefix you can attach.

It's a large source of self-doubt, really. There's the usual people not taking you as seriously as they would an adult, assuming you're a complete beginner, etc...but it's worse. I feel like I'm not qualified to write my stories. I feel like I shouldn't be so ambitious at this age. I feel like I'm doomed to eventually throw out everything I write at this age because I'm not mature yet and I'll feel different about everything when I am, so why try? It's depressing. I feel like I don't have the personal experience to write the vast majority of stuff I write. They say write what you know. I don't know what on earth I would be writing if I did so; I probably would have already run out of material. I've never experienced at least 99% of the things I write about, and that's okay when it's something like teleportation or riding a dragon because literally no one has experienced it. But, there are all kinds of experiences that nearly everyone has that I DON'T have just because I'm not an adult...It's pretty frustrating. For example...how do you do a romantic subplot having *never* been in anything close to a relationship? The same way you write a fight scene if you've never been in a fight? But far more people have been in a romance then have been in a fight...I haven't had time to read all the books everyone has read. I haven't had time to do so many things.

I hadn't thought it would be such a problem, but it's actually quite a handicap. Actual, or made of irrational self-doubt? No idea.

It's not productive to sit around and wait to get experience and wisdom before writing the things you want to write. I could wait until I'm older, yeah, but these stories are on my mind and heart NOW. My main characters are older than me, my stories are more mature than I am. How do you manage that?? How do you write about becoming a father if you've never had a child yourself? How do you write about having a close family member die if you've never lost anyone extremely close to you? Heck, I've never broken a bone, there are a million foods I've never tried, I've barely traveled outside my own region of the country... You can imagine, you can ask, you can research, but it will only take you so far.

Would an older person be wondering this? Or is it mainly a thing that's been planted in my head because I know I'm young? Just being young can give you a feeling of complete inadequacy.

Ok--at risk of making this awkward--this is mostly about the romantic subplot(s) I'm planning. I mean, this whole problem of inadequacy due to youth has been weighing on me for a long time, but more so recently because of the directions my writing is going. As I said--no personal experience WHATSOEVER! With being attracted to people, yeah, but nothing past that. But, my characters are older than me, practically adults toward the end of the story. Which means I will end up writing a bunch of things I have NO IDEA ABOUT. The emotions aren't that hard, but whenever things get physical a banshee-like voice harangues me in this fashion: "THEY KNOW! THEY KNOW YOU DONT KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT! THEY'RE LAUGHING AT YOU!" "They," in many cases, being my future self. I can hardly stand to read ANYTHING I wrote 3-4 years ago, it just makes me sweat it's so bad, so I can only imagine what *this* will be like. Uuuuuuggghhhhhh.

And, yeah, sure, I could avoid everything I don't know anything about, but I don't *want* to be restricted, not necessarily because I want to write these things and HAVE to, but because I want to be *JUST A WRITER* who can write whatever she wants and not a Newly Hatched Baby Writer. *Collective 'Awww!' from the MS community.* It kinda feels like a video game where you're on a really low level and tons of gear and stuff is unavailable to you for no reason other than that you need more xp.

I know a lot of you say write what you know is BS, but it seems to reach a limit. I lurked on here for several weeks before making an account and read through tons of old threads, some from years ago. Someone had a question about what throat kissing felt like (or something, I don't remember) and the general consensus was "don't write what you don't know; they can tell." *"THEY CAN TELL!" echoes the Naughty Scene Police Banshee.* I wish the voices would just shut up...

The handicap isn't just that I want to write things I don't know, but that I want to do it *well.* When I'm describing a fight or a journey through a forest or a particular injury I'm like "This is good, but...It could be *so* much better if I knew what I was talking about..." I mean, it's okay to not know what it feels like to be stitched up without anesthesia (this happens a bunch in my WIP...I put my characters through a lot...) but when you're describing something much more universal, it's a much worse sin.

I know I'm extremely critical of myself anyway. I hate posting things on here, I get the unbearable urge to delete it all every time. I hate sending stuff to people; I end up re-reading it and cringing in horror that someone actually saw this mess. I just don't know if to trust my feelings on this. Typically I ignore my feelings. Having anxiety makes you leery of your own emotions' advice.

This makes me feel not only that I shouldn't or can't write many things, but that it's pointless to write things. I've been rewriting my WIP since I was 12 and it's now an entirely different story. My inner narrative goes something like this: "You're still changing and growing and your writing and ideas will grow and change too, and you won't be able to stick to one idea for as long as it takes to write such an ambitious project. Also, everything you write now will seem horrible to you later because you'll be so much *older* and wiser. So why bother?" In short, I feel like everything I do now is pointless because later I won't like it, it won't come to anything, and it will be terrible because I'm a teenager and will have totally different interests and perspectives when I'm an adult. Ok, that wasn't much shorter than what I said first. But it is my feelings. My parents are like "Maybe this story is preparing you for another story you'll write later!" And it breaks my heart to think that a story I put my heart and soul into is doomed to just be a means to an end because of my age. It also breaks my heart that I won't be able to develop these stories to their full potential because of my age. Or that I'll have to wait so long to be able to write them in the way they deserve.

There's no good answer.

 

[Heliotrope]

Oddly enough, I'm in my thirties and I still feel like this.

But I keep telling myself that if I keep going, by the time I'm sixty I'll have been writing for almost forty years, so I'll be pretty kick ass by then.

 

[Saigonnus]

I didn't start writing until I was in my 20s, though I did GM D&D campaigns when I was a teenager, which did require a bit of writing and a lot of creativity.

Thus, I have no frame of reference of being a young writer with limited experience. I have being a middle-age relatively inexperienced writer.

My advice: "Don't let a lack of experience stop you from writing."

Anything you write now; even if it is never published, still gives you valuable experience finding your voice, finding your style and as you have life's experiences, it will simply add to what you have learned. Don't be discouraged!

Perhaps you might work on short stories instead if throwing yourself into a multi-volume epic, stories set in your fantasy world and with familiar characters, all of which could add more depth to the novels that will inevitably be set in this world. It will also be good practice.

I hope this help alleve at least some of the stress and anxiety you seem to be feeling at the moment.


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[Heliotrope]

Also, Gordon Korman, a famous Canadian Author wrote his first novel when he was 12, and had it published by scholastic by the time he was 14.

Gordon Korman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Macdonald Hall #1: This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall!: Gordon Korman: 9780545289245: Books - Amazon.ca

 

[MineOwnKing]

It's hard to put rough drafts on the shelf, but in time you won't even remember writing them.

It's awesome that you're writing at all.

The fact that you're actively writing and seeking advice at such a young age means you have the potential to only get better at everything, including real life stuff.

I would take a deep breath and give yourself a break. If a person listened to classical music everyday for twenty years, they might understand and appreciate music enough to become an authority on the subject, but the world would not expect them to then start composing symphonies.

Once you master your style and plotting technique, which takes practice, you can then write generically about love and loss and still be successful.

Having experiences in relationships doesn't help you mature enough to write better if you're not with the right person. Compatibility is key. Having said that, it's good to be with the wrong people as long as it doesn't last long enough to ruin your life, that way to know what you don't like in a partner. Loss of loved ones and other disappointments leave scars, but those are common experiences that might bore a reader if overplayed. We read to be swept away not to dig trenches and wallow in gloom.

It's more important to study the techniques of contemporary masters of fiction.

My advice is to write stories now that you have no intention of showing people. If you write a story that interests you but it doesn't work with your developing style, try writing about something you're less familiar with as an exercise. Continue to read as many books as possible in the genre you like, but make sure you're reading more quality work than not.

If the internet existed when I went to college, I would have dove into writing immediately. For me it was like standing at the bottom of the ice wall in game of thrones with all the tools I needed way up at the top guarded by the men in black.

Write to have fun regardless of your experiences or you'll bore the reader.

 

[Vaporo]

When I was five years old, I wrote my first story. It took about three or four months, but I eventually finished "Superhero Freddy." It had taken every ounce of writing knowledge that I had at the time to finish it and, being five, I thought it was pure gold. And, of course, when I went back to look at it three years later, I saw that it was horrible, so I wrote some more stories, certain that I could do better now that I was older. Three years later, I looked at those stories and thought that they were horrible. Again, three years after that, I saw that the stories I poured my heart and soul into back then were terrible.

I think that you get the idea. I eventually realized that doesn't matter how old I get, I'm always going to look back and say "Wow. I made a lot of mistakes writing back then." So, since I know that no matter what I will look back and think it's horrible, I don't mind pouring everything I have into a story, even if I know that it will not be as good as something I will write three years later. True, It will probably never be as extreme as looking at something I wrote whenever I was five, but it will always to some degree or another.

Now, just because you've reached the end of the story doesn't mean that you have to call it done! You can finish something, show it to your family and friends for feedback, shelve it, then pull it down a few years later and improve it with what you know now. Or even just a few weeks later. It's amazing the amount of perspective you can get just by not thinking about a story for a few weeks before editing.

So, yeah. If you're going to write, you'll have to reconcile yourself with the fact that you'll never be perfect, and if you wait until you're perfect you'll never write anything.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Strong odds this will continue on forever. It's a bit similar to some actors who will never watch their movie again once it's released. The best idea might just be: write it, finish it (as many edits as needed), publish it (or try to), and move on to the next project. Maturing and looking back with an "ugh" is probably a given for a lot of people.

There is some truth in it being hard to write things you don't know, especially relationships. Having lived a relatively easy life, and lost in my own worlds, as a younger person I always felt my writing lacked some authenticity. I've gone through some stuff now: I've lost both my parents (and all that entails), I got married, I've adopted two children, I've seen one of those children laying on a bed with a machine breathing for her due to seizures (she's fine now), I've started my own business, I made lots of money, I lost a lot of money, I've been in some serious ups and downs over the years and they keep on going! There will be no end to "experiencing" until they set me ablaze on my funeral boat down the Missouri River, heh heh. This certainly gives me an emotional fallback in my writing, and I find it funny to see how those things have filtered into the writing, but at some point, you gotta take your best guess and go with it.

Now, I quit the physical act of writing for a couple decades, stories were developing in my head, but I didn't put them down except some screenplays, where I learned a lot. Looking at the quality of pub'd novels, I regret that, if I'd pushed on I might be pub'd a looooong time ago, but, things have a way of working out.

Long answer turned short: just keep writing, just keep writing, just keep writing.

Oddly enough, I'm in my thirties and I still feel like this.

But I keep telling myself that if I keep going, by the time I'm sixty I'll have been writing for almost forty years, so I'll be pretty kick ass by then.

 

[cydare]

My understanding of write what you know is do your proper research. You're never going to have all the experiences of your characters unless you're writing a memoir. Especially in fantasy, the situations will be...well, fantastical.

You haven't been in a relationship. Alright. Me neither, and I AM an adult, so. (Though I have been in three major fights.) Pick up books with good romance subplots or romance as the main plot. Study them. See what works for you, what doesn't. Look up writing advice on the subject. Think on your other, platonic relationships, to draw blood for your ink from a similar vein. Practice. Someone who's been in love might have an easier way describing things, but not necessarily. As long as you don't assume you're an expert in the subject and dive into it without any attempts to learn a bit more, I do think you can do a good job.

Yes, you're changing and growing. And yes, your ideas are changing and growing too, but isn't that a good thing? Because you're starting early, you're creating a base. Though the structure may turn out to be different from the floor plans you imagined, your base is still there, strengthened by work and time, and built upon. It is crucial.

I think you're confusing age with writing experience. Someone who'd done no writing and then started later in life would still be going through the same thing. It's part of the work.

 

[FifthView]

DotA,

Cydare's point is important, I think, and something I've said before:

My understanding of write what you know is do your proper research.

A lot of people, including Brandon Sanderson, have been fairly dismissive with the idea of "write what you know," and with good reason–depending on how you interpret that phrase.

If I can write about magic, swordplay, intricate political intrigues, and so forth without ever having experienced them, then what the heck is this "write what you know" thing?

But the fact of the matter is...

1. We can research things like swordplay; we can and probably often should research what we don't know until it becomes something we do know.
   
   
2. NO ONE knows everything or even everything about something. If we assume that "know" is absolute knowledge about a given subject, then chances are very good that no one ever has that. A man can be in a marriage for 30 years and still discover new things about marriage, his spouse, and so forth. I know something about writing, but I also know that I don't know everything about writing.
   
   
3. We do know something about many things or, as already mentioned, we can learn something about those things through research and observation. Do we need absolute knowledge about things in order to write about them? (See #2.) No. Do you think Agatha Christie murdered people in all the ways she wrote about murder? Nope. We know something about unreal creatures like dragons because we know something about creatures, lizards, and so forth.
   
   
4. Knowledge about a subject doesn't need to be direct experience. This is fairly obvious, this ties in with all the above, but I mention it separately because I feel that your concern relates directly to the lack of direct experience of things. You've never been in a serious romantic relationship? Well, you've been around a lot of people who have; or, you've seen plenty of movies and read plenty of books that involved romantic relationships. (Those experiences of viewing these things around you are essentially a type of research, even if you weren't consciously researching at the time.)
   
   
5. Subjective knowledge is not necessarily universal knowledge. More on this one in a second.

So on that last point, #5....

How do you write about becoming a father if you've never had a child yourself? How do you write about having a close family member die if you've never lost anyone extremely close to you? Heck, I've never broken a bone, there are a million foods I've never tried, I've barely traveled outside my own region of the country... You can imagine, you can ask, you can research, but it will only take you so far.

The error you are running into is this: The assumption that "having a close family member die" or "becoming a father" is an identical experience for everyone who experiences those. It's not. People experience these things differently, react to them differently, have different thoughts about them, etc. We are not robots walking around with the same program analyzing the world about us and experiencing things identically.

So it's not like you can "get it wrong" because you haven't experienced that identical experience. There is no one experience of each of these things against which you must compare your writing.

That said, there may be some commonalities, some things that are more likely, some things that might seem odd. Heck, in the real world, there are real reactions that seem odd to outsiders looking in. All you can do is try to write it plausibly and let alpha and beta readers weigh in. Don't be embarrassed, but take in whatever observations you receive. And by the way, it's not so bad to have a character react to things in an odd way, necessarily, and might be worse if a character reacts in a stereotypical way. I'd say focus on writing a character who reacts according to the other aspects of that character you've already developed: The emotional character might have a nervous breakdown when a loved one dies, but the stoic character might have a face set in stone (while planning to avenge the death....)

 

[Chessie]

I received my first rejection letter at age seventeen. Many more came after that. I cried for weeks thinking that I was a failure. Therefore, I stopped writing in my 20s (because I couldn't get published) and didn't pick it up again until I hit 30. All of those years creating words was lost because I didn't have not only a good support system (I come from an awful family here), and no guidance. College helped absolutely not at all and I ended up majoring in things that I could care less about. I did a lot of living: partied, finished partying, got married with children, lost my grandparents, etc. I honestly don't think many of those experiences come into play with my writing. The point being, please don't stop writing just because you're young and inexperienced.

It sounds like you have a lot of support from your parents. That's wonderful. Take this time to READ & create. Take this time to get good, hone your craft, find your voice. If you want to be a professional writer, let me tell you that life is no easier on this side. Depending on the route you take (trad or Indie) it's hard, hard work. Self-doubt is a given. Emotional roller coasters come with the gig. One day you hate your work, another day you love it. Except there's no time to delete and start over. There are deadlines, readers waiting for more books, other authors you partner up with to market books, finding editors, getting covers, social media...all the while needing to put in fresh words of an awesome manuscript every day.

The feeling of being a fraud is something all writers share regardless of where they are in this journey. I read about it all the time in my Facebook group. Authors post constantly about their struggles (and successes) but we're all in our adult years. I'm in my 30s and I still feel like a hack on the daily. So...keep writing. Read. A lot. Reading is probably the most important thing you'll ever do in this business. Read what you love to write.

As a sidenote, have you considered posting your work on Wattpad? There are many young writers on there encouraging one another. The comments you get won't be mega helpful but it does provide a larger audience to be read in. That might satiate some of your desire to be published NAO.

 

[Netardapope]

All of you know that I'm probably one of the youngest active members here (that meaning teenaged) but, in hindsight, I really would rather have kept that fact to myself. I want to be a writer. Not a young writer or teenage writer or whatever prefix you can attach.

It's a large source of self-doubt, really. There's the usual people not taking you as seriously as they would an adult, assuming you're a complete beginner, etc...but it's worse. I feel like I'm not qualified to write my stories. I feel like I shouldn't be so ambitious at this age. I feel like I'm doomed to eventually throw out everything I write at this age because I'm not mature yet and I'll feel different about everything when I am, so why try? It's depressing. I feel like I don't have the personal experience to write the vast majority of stuff I write. They say write what you know. I don't know what on earth I would be writing if I did so; I probably would have already run out of material. I've never experienced at least 99% of the things I write about, and that's okay when it's something like teleportation or riding a dragon because literally no one has experienced it. But, there are all kinds of experiences that nearly everyone has that I DON'T have just because I'm not an adult...It's pretty frustrating. For example...how do you do a romantic subplot having *never* been in anything close to a relationship? The same way you write a fight scene if you've never been in a fight? But far more people have been in a romance then have been in a fight...I haven't had time to read all the books everyone has read. I haven't had time to do so many things.

I hadn't thought it would be such a problem, but it's actually quite a handicap. Actual, or made of irrational self-doubt? No idea.

It's not productive to sit around and wait to get experience and wisdom before writing the things you want to write. I could wait until I'm older, yeah, but these stories are on my mind and heart NOW. My main characters are older than me, my stories are more mature than I am. How do you manage that?? How do you write about becoming a father if you've never had a child yourself? How do you write about having a close family member die if you've never lost anyone extremely close to you? Heck, I've never broken a bone, there are a million foods I've never tried, I've barely traveled outside my own region of the country... You can imagine, you can ask, you can research, but it will only take you so far.

Would an older person be wondering this? Or is it mainly a thing that's been planted in my head because I know I'm young? Just being young can give you a feeling of complete inadequacy.

Ok--at risk of making this awkward--this is mostly about the romantic subplot(s) I'm planning. I mean, this whole problem of inadequacy due to youth has been weighing on me for a long time, but more so recently because of the directions my writing is going. As I said--no personal experience WHATSOEVER! With being attracted to people, yeah, but nothing past that. But, my characters are older than me, practically adults toward the end of the story. Which means I will end up writing a bunch of things I have NO IDEA ABOUT. The emotions aren't that hard, but whenever things get physical a banshee-like voice harangues me in this fashion: "THEY KNOW! THEY KNOW YOU DONT KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT! THEY'RE LAUGHING AT YOU!" "They," in many cases, being my future self. I can hardly stand to read ANYTHING I wrote 3-4 years ago, it just makes me sweat it's so bad, so I can only imagine what *this* will be like. Uuuuuuggghhhhhh.

And, yeah, sure, I could avoid everything I don't know anything about, but I don't *want* to be restricted, not necessarily because I want to write these things and HAVE to, but because I want to be *JUST A WRITER* who can write whatever she wants and not a Newly Hatched Baby Writer. *Collective 'Awww!' from the MS community.* It kinda feels like a video game where you're on a really low level and tons of gear and stuff is unavailable to you for no reason other than that you need more xp.

I know a lot of you say write what you know is BS, but it seems to reach a limit. I lurked on here for several weeks before making an account and read through tons of old threads, some from years ago. Someone had a question about what throat kissing felt like (or something, I don't remember) and the general consensus was "don't write what you don't know; they can tell." *"THEY CAN TELL!" echoes the Naughty Scene Police Banshee.* I wish the voices would just shut up...

The handicap isn't just that I want to write things I don't know, but that I want to do it *well.* When I'm describing a fight or a journey through a forest or a particular injury I'm like "This is good, but...It could be *so* much better if I knew what I was talking about..." I mean, it's okay to not know what it feels like to be stitched up without anesthesia (this happens a bunch in my WIP...I put my characters through a lot...) but when you're describing something much more universal, it's a much worse sin.

I know I'm extremely critical of myself anyway. I hate posting things on here, I get the unbearable urge to delete it all every time. I hate sending stuff to people; I end up re-reading it and cringing in horror that someone actually saw this mess. I just don't know if to trust my feelings on this. Typically I ignore my feelings. Having anxiety makes you leery of your own emotions' advice.

This makes me feel not only that I shouldn't or can't write many things, but that it's pointless to write things. I've been rewriting my WIP since I was 12 and it's now an entirely different story. My inner narrative goes something like this: "You're still changing and growing and your writing and ideas will grow and change too, and you won't be able to stick to one idea for as long as it takes to write such an ambitious project. Also, everything you write now will seem horrible to you later because you'll be so much *older* and wiser. So why bother?" In short, I feel like everything I do now is pointless because later I won't like it, it won't come to anything, and it will be terrible because I'm a teenager and will have totally different interests and perspectives when I'm an adult. Ok, that wasn't much shorter than what I said first. But it is my feelings. My parents are like "Maybe this story is preparing you for another story you'll write later!" And it breaks my heart to think that a story I put my heart and soul into is doomed to just be a means to an end because of my age. It also breaks my heart that I won't be able to develop these stories to their full potential because of my age. Or that I'll have to wait so long to be able to write them in the way they deserve.

There's no good answer.

Hello, DragonOfTheAerie, this is a fellow teenager here (I'm 17) and I get exactly what you feel. Being our age kind of means we're inclined to be more doubtful of ourselves since we've experienced less, and adding the self-loathing that comes with writing as a hobby only doubles that doubt. But it's natural. When I see the stories of others, I get the feeling that they have a true understanding of writing people that I lack due to my age, and it get's me feeling just like you.

Sometimes I feel like many of my "advice" is obvious stuff that other people know, but one thing I learned to understand is that our age gives us a perspective. Even if it's not a grandiose perspective, it's one that's unique to us and that even older people can learn from. It's all a matter of realizing that everyone is seeking to learn from other people (in both real life and writing circles) and there is no age requirement for giving good posts, advice, or writing. It's all a matter of training, some people need to train more, and others less. I hope this might at least give you a little more faith in yourself, and if it doesn't, at least that you're not the only youngster prowling about these forums.

P.S.= If it helps, know that the fact that we've started writing at young ages only means that we'll have more time to perfect our craft. So if you're not overly confident now, then that confidence will build in our futures!



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[Svrtnsse]

I'm trying to get in shape (again), lose some weight, and stay healthy. One of the things I do for that is I go to spinning class. It's rough. It's a pain and it wears me out. I've done it on and off for a few years and I've come to a realisation. It never gets any easier, you just go faster and harder and push yourself more. No matter how good shape I'm in I'm still just as worn out after a class.

I think the same goes for writing - and for a whole lot of other things in life.

It's kind of the same as I saw a few other people say: it doesn't get easier, you just get better, and you raise the bar.

As for the Fraud Police, or Impostor Symptom, as I believe it's actually called, it's get easier as you come to understand it's happening to everyone. Everyone's winging it. Everyone's faking it. Everyone's worried they'll get found out.

No one who becomes a parent for the first time has ever had a kid of their own before. No matter how many books they read or how much good advice they receive, they're still going to end up in situation they have no clue how to deal with, and then what options are there? You either deal with it or, well, you deal with it.

Makes sense?

I don't know. I've never had kids. I just made it up, but it seems to me like it'd make sense. Anyone?

You don't need to have first hand experience of something in order to write about it. It might help, but what helps more is having experience writing. There are tons of tricks you can use. Some of them you can read about and learn from others. Some of them you will figure out on your own as you go, and they may be new tricks that no one ever used before. They may only work for you, because you're the only one who understands them. That's fine. The point is that if you don't write, you won't learn how to write better.

Example time:
A while back, I had to write about someone enjoying a cup of warm whisky. I do drink whisk myself, but I'm not a discerning taster. I could go on about how it's nice and peaty and smokey and full of undertones of honey end tar or whatever. I don't really have any sense of what that means myself. I just drink it.
What I did instead was I described images that I'd associate with you'd see in whisky commercials on TV, like this:

She move the cup to her nose, closed her eyes, and let the fumes find their way into her. A campfire by a forest lake. Morning mists rising from the valleys. Pipe smoke and sheep and walking over ground covered by fallen pine needles on a warm summer night.
[...]
Touching the cup to her lips she tilted it ever so slightly and sipped the warm liquid. Gold and brown, and moss covered rocks. Fire in the hearth, stew in the pot, and a good friend with no need to talk.

As you see. The above description has absolutely nothing to do with whisky, but it kind of works anyway.

If you keep writing, you'll figure out your own tricks, and you'll build your own experience of writing. Experience of life will happen as you go, whether you want it to or not.

Also, just to clarify, and because I sometimes get these things wrong: the above is intended to be encouraging, not discouraging.

 

[mulierrex]

I agree with Netardapope. Also a teenager here, but again, I pretty much agree with everything they said.

Are authors who write characters who are archers expert archers themselves? Are authors who write queens royalty themselves? Are authors who write about being a wizard wizards themselves? I could go on, but for all of those, including the ones you said, the answers range from probably not to definitely not. It isn't nonfiction. You don't have to have ever had a dreamy, fairy tale, life-altering romance in your life to be able to write a romance subplot. That just isn't realistic! Research can take you far, but it doesn't have to take you "only so far" as you put it. There's plenty to be learned. And it just simply isn't true that people can tell if the author doesn't know what they're talking about, and it's because there's no way to tell. They're just writing something, not doing it. Those are two completely different things.

And again as Netardapope said, you have time, and so do I, and so do they. Everyone here (hopefully) has time even if they just decided they wanted to write at age fifty. You don't have to publish a novel anytime soon, DotA.

I sit here now after reading this comment feeling the same way you do, cringing, thinking about deleting it, but I'm not going to.

EDIT: That's a nice bit of prose, Svrtnsse. I've never drank whiskey either, but I could read that and assume you were right.

 

[skip.knox]

Yeah, they'll know. There will always be things you don't know about. No, that's not quite right. There will always be things about which you know a little but someone else knows a lot. And that wretch will write a review.

There's no fixing this. You an ameliorate it. You can do research, gain experience, get feedback from your beta readers, but in the end, and this I absolutely personally guarantee, you will wind up saying your character made the Kessel run in fourteen parsecs.

You feel anxious. You are sometimes downright embarrassed, even despairing. Welcome to the club. Everyone feels that way. (not quite. Hacks don't. My definition of a hack is not someone who writes badly, it's someone who writes good enough and doesn't care)

I'm not going to say don't feel that way because that'd be stupid. You feel that way. But I do have a question. Just one. I'm genuinely interested in the answer.

Can you stop writing?

 

[Chessie]

You can learn A TON about writing romance just from reading books and watching movies/sitcoms. They all have the same plot structure: hero 1 + hero 2 live lonely without each other, they meet & there are fireworks, they resist temptation to one another but eventually fall, they fight due to insecurities and break up, realize that they truly love each other, one of them seeks out the other to make up, they make up and live happily ever after. That's all there is to it.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I sit here now after reading this comment feeling the same way you do, cringing, thinking about deleting it, but I'm not going to.

Good!
That's another part of gaining experience as a writer (and as a person): Putting things out there for others to see and judge you by, even if you feel it may not reflect an image of yourself you're comfortable with.

 

[Penpilot]

You're never good enough until you are. What age that happens, well, who knows.

There are stories I write now that I know I couldn't write when I was 20, but at the same time, there are stories I wrote when I was 20 that I can't write now.

You can't control how old you are, and you can't rush growing and maturing as a human. So don't worry about those things. Just write.

Don't have the experience in something? Pretend, try and fake it till you make it.

One thing you have over older writers is you have lots of time to fail. I know that's not necessarily an encouraging thought, but if you think about it, if someone starts writing when they're 30, they still have to learn the basics and fail and fall and gain writing experience regardless of their maturity and life experience.

You're a teen. You can get a head start on the falling down. You can get a head start on being technically sound. And as long as you push yourself to do the best that you can, you will learn. And I repeat fake it, fake it, fake it until you make it.

Who knows, you might be really good at faking it and people won't be able to tell.

Have you ever heard of Jim Butcher. His Dresden Files books take place in Chicago. When he started writing the series, he'd never been to Chicago, but he faked it well enough that people thought he'd lived there at some point in his life.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Thanks for all the thoughtful replies. (I'm pleasantly surprised by how many people here actually are my age.)

And, yeah. I doubt these insecurities will ever shut up or go away. I figured it wasn't a unique or isolated experience. Things are especially acute, though, when you're this young. It makes the insipid little voices sound so much more reasonable. You feel like you have a profound lack of authority compared to those voices, you're just not qualified to contradict them. Also, it's so much easier to blame your own faults on your age. I suppose this may be a side effect of being in a community full of people far older and more experienced than you, but hey, i came to learn, and i like diversity.

And, is there a solution to being a teenager...? not really. Soo...what then? It always comes back to "yeah, this is a problem, but CAN you let it stop you, CAN you stop? Or do you just keep on keepin' on?" I can't stop. I know that much. Writing is so much a part of my identity that if i lost it i would lose myself. So, my options are basically "find a solution" or "fail to find a solution and write anyway," At least i'm getting better.

In terms of romance--I figure the best thing i can do is read some good romance, written by someone who really knows their stuff. When i write romance i know i am either being an embarrassment or a really good fraud. Let me put it this way: The other day i wrote a 3-page scene (actually two scenes stuck together if we're being technical, but when have i been technical about anything?) that included a passionate make-out session between my MC and her love interest. Something I, to put it lightly, really don't have the qualifications to write. Moreover, i feel like every other writer does. My best friend was impressed. She said it sounded like i was drawing from experience--she could almost be fooled--i thought, okay, great, but you're no more an authority on the subject than i am...It can't be that hard to fake, can it, though?

I thought back to my WIP...

-getting arrested and put in prison
-knife fight
-prison break
-getting patched and stitched up after said prison break
-humanoid owl attack

Have actually experienced literally 0% of everything in those some 14,000 words (so far.), and i didn't even make a complete list. I don't think anyone has personal experience with a humanoid owl attack. I fake everything, i'm telling you. Fantasy writers in general...

I'm intense about research. Very haphazard and not very motivated, but intense. The way i figure, there are four degrees of research:

1st: actually experience a thing for yourself
2nd: talk to someone who has experienced the thing
3rd: read about the thing in other books
4th: draw from your own experience to cobble together an idea about what a thing *might* be like

Thing is, none are actually better than any other. You can just make something up and be more convincing than someone who has lots of experience with the thing. Honestly, i think we're all working on the 4th level 99% of the time. Knowing how to write well seriously helps. Also, knowing how to engage the READER'S personal experience, making them subconsciously insert THEIR knowledge into the text...that's a great skill to have.

Can I fake almost anything? Quite confident I can. Am I doing it? Ahh, there's the problem...

I've thought before that, having about 5-6 years of writing experience, i'll be as good as any writer with the same amount of experience, whether they're my age or 68. And lately i've been doubting that. like, older person will have more knowledge and experience than i do, so...

I can't stop wondering if there is something inherently lacking in my writing because i'm so young.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Fact is, many of the things i'll end up writing about in projects i'm working on or planning are things i have very little qualification to write, and i fear readers picking me apart like a horde of angry crows. Childbirth, for instance? I'll be writing possibly *two* childbirth scenes but what do you do if you've never given birth yourself or even seen it happen? (I know plenty of people who have done either or both, but it's actually rather hard to drag anything out of them. Awkward subject maybe? Why should it be? My mother just said "it's something you have to experience yourself" and left it at that.) Apparently, researching has as much to do with prying useful information out of unwilling people than anything. (I have, however, completely traumatized myself listening to mother's testimonies about childbirth. Do they compete for worst horror story or something? Is there a prize? I never have been thrilled at the idea of having kids (my friends want kids, i honestly don't understand) and i pray to every force in the universe that the reputed "baby drive" never hits me. Tangent. anyway.)

Given the things i must research, i foresee lots of bloody youtube videos in my future, if i'm serious about it.

Again, an older writer wouldn't worry about this as much, but being my age around much older writers who have gone through things like this, trying to write things like that is very scary because all the other people are Looming, Towering Pillars of Authority and you're down here like *faint peep*.

 

[mulierrex]

Unless going into detail for those two childbirth scenes is really going to be that important to the plot, I don't really see why you have to know so much about childbirth. Do those scenes have to be drawn out? Is it important that your MC experiences them deeply and intimately (unless it's her giving birth either time, then my advice here is useless)? Because personally I don't think it'll be necessary to go into extreme detail over two childbirth scenes. Just describe in general what's happening; there's no need for the gritty details. Obviously I don't know the importance of the children being born but the aftermath seems like it'd be more important.

Also, I like your four stages of research.