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

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Also, I've been thinking about the fact that I *can't* experience firsthand every possible human experience. There are some things I'll never know about no matter how old I get. I'll always be female, but does that mean I can't write from the point of view of a male? I might never lose a close friend to suicide. I might never have a limb amputated. I hopefully will never kill someone. (Those things happen to my characters.) No matter how old I get. I might never have children. I might never experience things that LOTS of people experience. Does that disqualify me from writing those things? I don't know, but I don't care. I can research, I can try to understand the experiences of others, but at the end of the day I just have to write it regardless of my doubts.

 

[FifthView]

Also, I've been thinking about the fact that I *can't* experience firsthand every possible human experience. There are some things I'll never know about no matter how old I get. I'll always be female, but does that mean I can't write from the point of view of a male? I might never lose a close friend to suicide. I might never have a limb amputated. I hopefully will never kill someone. (Those things happen to my characters.) No matter how old I get. I might never have children. I might never experience things that LOTS of people experience. Does that disqualify me from writing those things? I don't know, but I don't care. I can research, I can try to understand the experiences of others, but at the end of the day I just have to write it regardless of my doubts.

Yep. Also, everyone regardless of age has a past and a wealth of experiences no one else has. Attempting to "catch up" by having those same experiences that others possess would take multiple lifetimes and even then might be impossible. (Heh, I can't truly imagine, with absolute fidelity, what living multiple lifetimes would be like. And intellectually I doubt that I can truly know the full scope of the experiences others have already experienced.)

I'm a little caught between two contrasting views. I'm 100% in favor of throwing doubt and caution to the wind and allowing myself to imagine other lives, utilizing my own experiences to this point in my life to extrapolate those fictional lives. But I also believe in the idea that, at any given point in my life, I might be unready to write some things.

I've experienced that realization that I'm not ready to write something. So for me personally, I can't deny that adding years to my life has been necessary before tackling a story. But ultimately, I believe making those decisions is a personal choice; no one else can tell you where you fall, whether you should wait or charge ahead and write a given story.

Maybe charging ahead is a more trustworthy approach when you feel doubt. At the very least, you might learn whether you are now ready to write the story or are unready. If you stop before trying, you might never know. In my own life, I have come to think that maybe the doubt is itself a signal of being unready to write a story. At the same time, I've chastised myself often enough whenever I've come to suspect that my doubt was merely a delaying tactic because I didn't want to discover my limits.

 

[Ronald T.]

It's easy to see that you're already an accomplished and thoughtful writer, Dragon. If you don't let doubt and depression stop you, who knows how far you might go with your writing career. I only wish I had been wise enough, and educated enough, to start writing at a much earlier, just as you have.

But I went to almost twenty schools during my educational period (three schools in one year, twice), and often what my last school was just beginning to teach me was already covered in my new school. And because I was an extremely shy kid, I was afraid to ask questions and ashamed to admit to my new teacher and a room full of fellow students that I didn't know what they were talking about. So I wasted much of my early education.

I mention this to let you know that you are so far ahead of where I was at your age, I am deeply impressed with what I can see of your abilities as a writer and your desire to be proficient as an author. I just wish I had started at such a young age. You have so many years to grow your skill level, which already shows great promise.

It wasn't until I reached my mid-thirties that I developed a desire to write novels and to create unknown worlds, just as my favorite authors did.

I wasn't even a reader until after I was married. My beloved wife encouraged me to become a reader, and introduced me to the magic worlds of SF/F. I spent years immersed in these stories, and stood in awe of authors that could tweak my emotions with such great skill. I wanted to learn how such magic was achieved. But I realized I needed to increase my knowledge. So, that was the beginning of my self-imposed education on how to become a great writer. And even if I couldn’t reach greatness as a great writer, at least I could become an adequately good one.

I studied Northern Mythology with a passion: The Niebelungenlied (also called Ring of the Niblung); Sigurd the Volsung; the Poetic Edda; the Icelandic sagas; tales of The Round Table; and endless other resources, including books like The Devine Comedy and so many other fantastic historical and mythological texts ― many on which Tolkien based his classic “Lord of the Rings”.

In other words, nothing is free. So never stop doing research, never stop reading the work of other authors, and never stop writing. The rewards grow exponentially.

I'm 68 years old, and I will admit I have a lot of experience and ability in areas not related to writing. But little of what I write is based on personal experience. I’ve never used a sword to kill anyone; never beaten anyone nearly to death with my fists; never faced a conjured assassin-specter; never fought a dozen stone-sculpture warriors.

But I can imagine doing so. And that’s the magic of good writing. However, the most important part of imagination is in making it feel genuine. Which means you must have the ability to access the depths of your heart and soul. You must be able to feel what a character is feeling at a particular moment, in a particular event, and have the talent to make a reader see and feel what you see and feel.

My point is this. If it required personal experience to write about a particular subject, then how could stories such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Guardians of the Universe, Blade, Ben Hur, Miracle on 34th Street, and so many others, exist?

Life experience can be valuable, but it’s not the “end all, be all” to being a great writer. A good writer has a particular gift, and that gift is their ability to place themselves in any situation by using their imagination. It need not be something the author has actually experienced, but it must be genuine. A reader will almost always sense false emotion in the characters…in the story itself.

Knowing what certain physical acts feel like is only a small part of life. How those acts make you feel emotionally is far more important. The physical aspects of life fade with time, like how we eventually forget how painful something was. But it’s not the same with the emotional side of the equation. If that weren’t true, after a woman gave birth to her first child, she would never go through it again. In truth, she seldom forgets the emotions surrounding that birth.

What I’ve learned about writing is this: it’s based 98% on four things; technical skill; a strong voice; a great ability to use your imagination; and how good you are at observing the world and the people around you as they go about their lives.

Observe, retain, and reflect.

Observation of our world and the people in it has given me more tools for creating characters than any book I’ve ever read.

But I want to say this, Dragon. You’re already far ahead of most writers who are many years older than you. For your age, your skill level is amazing. And it’s easy to see you’re desire to be a great writer is strong. Just make sure you don’t push yourself so hard you burn out. Patience is a virtue worth developing.

Keep reading, and studying, and practicing, and before you know it, your dreams will start to come true. It just takes work and time.

I wish you all the best in your life and in your writing.

 

[Jackarandajam]

Read everything, always.
Write down why you loved books, and why you hated them. Don't be afraid to hate a book that everyone else loves, and don't be afraid to recognize the beauty in a book you hated.
Read them as a writer, because that's what you are.
Reap from a thousand different sources what you're trying to say, and how you're trying to say it.
Then say it.
Then try again.

Being a writer isn't a hobby; anyone can string words together.
Being a writer is a psychological disorder, and you have it.

Write everything. Write sci-fi, fantasy, poetry, and non-fiction. Write absurdity like Carroll, and Nihilist dogma like Palahniuk.
There are workouts, and there are competitions; no athlete is successful without practice or studying the greats that came before.

You have time, you have no time.

You have time to become a master. They say it takes 10,000 hours to master something.
Keep going.

You have no time to capture how you feel about things right now. You have no time to document yourself.
You have no time to start, and you already have.
Hell yeah.
Keep going.

Write.
Learn.
Repeat.

Being a writer isn't a destination,; it's a lifelong struggle of joy and self-doubt and frustration and celebration.

This is our life.
A belated welcome to you.