Age And Publishing, Your Thoughts?

It's not a question of whether you're too young, it's a question of whether your work is too young. If you can write a polished and publishable novel at sixteen, then, hey, why not market it and let the market decide?

I think the trouble agents and editors have been having is that with phenomena like NaNoWriMo, they're getting flooded with first drafts, raw work. Of course, not all raw work comes from young people. It can come from anyone who hasn't yet learned his or her craft, 8 to 80.

I agree with Phaeal. You seem to write pretty well, from what I've seen, but that advice surely applies to a lot of young writers who have not yet begun to hone their skills. (And most never will.)

However, even if you write very well for a younger person, are you good enough to compete with the adults? Because that's what you'd be doing.

In addition, it's not just writing but experiencing enough of life, of various people, places, situations, etc. that the writer must bring to the table. Unless they've lived extraordinary lives, most teenagers can't write complex, convincing characters or convoluted plots wholly from their imaginations.

If I were a teen now, I'd be writing my fool head off, completing outlines/synopses for future works, jotting down ideas as I got them, and reading, reading, reading, but not yet submitting. If the work is good, it'll still be good in five years, when I've got loads more living and writing under my belt, and if it's bad, I'll know how to rewrite to make it better.

I spend some time most days at other writing sites, and the vast majority of teens seeking feedback are presenting bloated, cliched, and/or illiterate writing samples. So look how far ahead of the game you are already!

Maryn, not intending to discourage

We have three resident AWer's 16 and under with MAJOR agents.

Jordygirl said:

So I just finished reading this post over at Ally Carter's blog on reasons why young people (teenagers, specifically she was talking about 12-15yr olds I think but she did mention pre-teens and teens) shouldn't be trying to get their novels published.

Click to expand...

I think you've misinterpreted the post.

Ally Carter isn't saying YOU shouldn't be trying to get your novel published. She's saying MOST PEOPLE in this age range shouldn't.

I mean, honestly - wasn't Eragon by a 14 year old? It happens. It's just not normal. You need to know beyond all doubt that you are not the normal young writer - because (bluntly speaking) the normal young writer can't write, never finishes anything, and will never be published.

I was a normal young writer. I wanted to write. It was what I wanted to do. I was no good at it, never finished anything, and I've only been published in crap markets (small local magazines). My total income from a lifetime of writing is $825.

Of course, my income from a concurrent lifetime of software project management is significantly higher. I'm not a professional writer. I'm a professional software project manager. I still write, I just don't get paid for it.

And that's normal. The vast majority of young people who want to write will end up this way; there's nothing wrong with it. It's a pretty good deal. There's a lot of pressure at your age to decide what you're going to do with your life, and a lot of it comes from you. The key factor is to understand that what you do with your life should meet three specific criteria.

1. You should be good at it. Better than most other people who do it. Not just better than most people - most people can't write, and anyone who seriously wants to write will be able to write better - but better than most people you meet who seriously want to do the same thing.

2. You should like doing it. To the point that when you're doing it, you simply forget to eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom. If you've never pushed yourself away from your desk and immediately had your brain say "I'm starving, I'm exhausted, and I have to pee right now" - maybe this isn't the right career for you. If it happens to you all the time, that's called "destiny".

3. You should understand how much money you are likely to make doing it, as in what the average person doing this for a living makes... a mediocre writer selling mediocre work to an undistinguished market... and you should be okay with that. Don't let anyone tell you that you need a certain number; all the numbers work if you try hard enough. It's largely a question of how hard you want to try.

There are four things I really seriously thought would end up being my career when I was your age. Skateboarding failed the first test; I'm just not that good. Writing failed the second; I find it tedious. And baking failed the third; I simply couldn't make enough money. Programming passed all three tests, so that's what I do. Over time, I migrated into management.

I still skate, and I still write, and I still bake. It's okay to do things just because you love them, and it's okay if you never make them your career. It's even okay to be almost forty, riding a skateboard, and still not know how to do a kickflip.

But I make the best cheesecake in the world.

It's really very simple. The article you read is about all the questions writers constantly hear from people who have no business trying to be writers. People who will never be writers of any sort, because they're just in love with the idea of writing. They have this romantic notion of what their life will be as a writer, and it's usually some strange period piece they saw in a movie or on television. They don't know how it's really going to be, and once they find out, they'll drop it like a hot rock and run do something else.

The one thing I take issue with outright is #3. Look, I'm in business, and business is a ruthless... um, business. You're never ready. You can never handle it. But the sooner you start wrestling with it, the better you'll be at not getting crushed under it. Children who go into real business competing against adults at an early age are better businessmen for it, and nothing you can do except going into business will prepare you for business. So just ignore that one.

The first two, she's right: be a better writer, finish what you start. Take that as your motto and you'll be fine.

Jordygirl said:

So I just finished reading this post over at Ally Carter's blog on reasons why young people (teenagers, specifically she was talking about 12-15yr olds I think but she did mention pre-teens and teens) shouldn't be trying to get their novels published.

And I'm a teenager. And I'm looking for an agent. And I'm wondering... am I making a mistake?

Click to expand...

I'd say: Go for it! Even though I agree with everything Ally Carter said in her very thoughtful post. Here's why:

1. You actually have finished the book/s. Whether they're publishable, only the market can say.

2. A teenager brings a certain perspective and voice that probably is going to be different in a few years' time. I don't know what you're writing, but this teenage voice could have value in itself.

3. Assuming you're in a reasonably good home situation, the financial side of it isn't a really crucial issue for you for some years yet. You're flying with a safety net.

4. Writing brings some satisfactions (the writing), some triumphs (publication, good reviews, favorable publicity), and many disappointments (the 333rd rejection slip, trivial advances, bad reviews). Teenagers are at a place in life where some fabulous things and some mortifying things are happening in many areas of their lives. You're more resilient than you might be later. (This is the general "you." Only you - or your family - can tell how resilient you yourself actually are.)

5. You don't have to (and shouldn't) give up your day job: Being a student. In fact, if you get published, it will probably help you get into a great college.

6. You have a lot of time and space to figure out whether you want writing to be a career or a paid hobby, or an unpaid hobby.

So good luck!

I wouldn't necessarily say Eragon is a good product. You can tell the writer was young when he wrote it.

Let me tell you, the hardest part about writing (for me) is looking at stuff I wrote five years ago and thinking, "Wow, who wrote that junk?" And then when I look at stuff I wrote ten years ago, I just can't believe I thought I was any good. And fifteen years ago--uh, let's not go there.

What hurts is that five years from now I'll look back at what I wrote today, just now, and I'll wonder why I thought I was any good...

SPMiller said:

I wouldn't necessarily say Eragon is a good product. You can tell the writer was young when he wrote it.

Click to expand...

Good is subjective. Published, best seller, optioned, filmed, millions of dollars made (although at his age, he probably saw a lot less of it than he should)... that's objective reality.

Even if you say Eragon was basically crap (waves hand), you have to admit that it's successful crap. I don't see the article as advice on whether to write, but advice on whether to publish, and publishing is not about good. It's about money. It's the writing that's about good, and the market doesn't actually give a flying leap.

CDarklock said:

Good is subjective. Published, best seller, optioned, filmed, millions of dollars made (although at his age, he probably saw a lot less of it than he should)... that's objective reality.

Even if you say Eragon was basically crap (waves hand), you have to admit that it's successful crap. I don't see the article as advice on whether to write, but advice on whether to publish, and publishing is not about good. It's about money. It's the writing that's about good, and the market doesn't actually give a flying leap.

Click to expand...

From what I understand of the story, the issue involves how much of it the young man himself actually wrote.

Not only that--although I personally believe he wrote all of it--but he had a tool most young writers don't have, and that's a foot in the door. Therefore, I don't think his work, "good" or not, should be touted as an example to teenagers.

So I say, find a better example. I'm sure there are others.

Jennifer Lynn Barnes published her first at 19. SE Hinton was 16, I think Gordon Korman was young, and there are several others.

I personally was not ready at such a young age, but after I read some stuff by our own Shady Lane, and was like, whoa I wish I'd written that, I realized some younger people can write amazingly well, and they should put it out there to inspire all the other young writers (and to make us older folks jealous )

Who's Ally Carter?

I was in a similar situation as a teenager. I always knew I wanted to write. I wrote my first novel in junior high. I thought I knew who I was and even what I wanted to write (which was, surprise surprise, young adult novels). I didn't think that would change when I grew up. Guess what? It did. I became an adult and began to deal more and more with adult issues, and that became reflected in my writing. The genre I wanted to write in took a major turn (from mainstream young adult toward horror/fantasy aimed at adults).

I'm actually glad as an adult that I didn't get published as a teenager, because then I might not have grown to be the same person and writer I am now. Although I still believe that some of what I wrote then was perfectly publishable, it doesn't reflect the statement or the quality that I want as my first entry into the publishing world, while my current novel (the second one that I've written as an adult), does. If my teenage work had been published I might have decided that I didn't have to improve, or I might have been pushed by publisher expectations to keep writing in a genre that I had outgrown. While I definitely agree that there are talented teenagers out there who could get published, I also think there's a benefit to using those teenage years as a time of exploration, to try your hand at different kinds of stories and different approaches and to let yourself experience a life that can then further inform your writing.

Note: Reading over this post I think I shouldn't have used the term "outgrown" to refer to switching from young adult to literature aimed at adults. I really have nothing against the young adult genre in general and think there are some very talented writers in it who write some worthwhile things (case in point: Sarah Dessen's Dreamland). My point was just that your tastes can change as you yourself change from teenager to adult.

I believe the author of Bonjour Tristesse was 17 when it was published. I do not remember anything about how she managed to find a publisher.

The stuff I wrote when I was a teenager was YA. The stuff I write now in my 30's is also YA. Young Adult is a vibrant exciting age group, lots of stuff going on. I think the most innovative stuff is going on in YA, I don't have any interest right now in writing anything else.

The quality for YA has to be just as good (or better) than other genres.

The longer you write and the more you hone your craft the better it will be in the long run, no matter your age when you publish or when you write.

I think Robyn Schneider was another young writer.

If you've got the chops, go for it. I'm reading Joe Dunthorne's novel Submarine right now. He's only 25, and this is a great book. A very unique voice that I don't think an older writer could pull off.

I finished writing my first novel when I was 17. It is now many years later and my first book will be out in the fall. I wish I'd had more drive to get my work seen when I was younger. I don't think it would have been published, nor should it have been, but I would have gotten some valuable critique.

Best of luck to you!

Phaeal said:

I think the trouble agents and editors have been having is that with phenomena like NaNoWriMo, they're getting flooded with first drafts, raw work. Of course, not all raw work comes from young people. It can come from anyone who hasn't yet learned his or her craft, 8 to 80.

Click to expand...

NaNoWriMo didn't start that flood. That's been a bane of publishers and agents since the printing press was invented.

I think that the thing is that every young writer thinks they NEED to be focused on publication, thanks to Eragon and other well-publicized books by people in their teens.

Some people are totally ready for publication in their teens, and they know it. And more power to them!

Other people might be better served by noodling around and writing a lot of juvenilia with no eye on publication.

Jordygirl, only you can know what feels right to you. To me, it seems like you're taking a wise path--you wrote stuff you were interested in, but you didn't stress about publication until you had something that felt ready to go.

It's a marathon, not a sprint. You choose the pace that feels right to you.

I think what Ally Carter is saying is that it makes her sad when she meets careerist 13-year-olds who aren't having any fun with writing. I'm a middle-aged hack, and I feel the same way.

Isamu Fukui, author of Truancy, is currently 17, was 15 when he wrote the book. I had a few stylistic issues with it and I thought he flubbed the ending, but overall I was impressed. Loved the characters. The problems I had were the type of thing he'll probably overcome with experience.

If I were a teen trying to get published, I'd get feedback from adults, and if they said go ahead, I'd go ahead without worrying about my age. Different people are ready at different times (some are never ready). If you've already had a few things published, you already have some external validation that you may be ready.

I used to love the Garden Gang (a picture book series) by Jayne Fisher. She was nine when she started writing them, and she was also the illustrator. Does the author's age show? Yes. But that was the appeal of them.

I don't think it does any harm to try to get published, as long as you make sure to be polite and professional with your submissions. Just don't stop writing other stuff, as you're bound to keep getting better. And have fun!

CDarklock said:

Ally Carter isn't saying YOU shouldn't be trying to get your novel published. She's saying MOST PEOPLE in this age range shouldn't.

Click to expand...

MOST PEOPLE in any age range shouldn't be trying to get their novel published. But they still try. Age has nothing to do with talent, hardwork, and a well-written book. There are just as many adults out there with poorly-written books as there are teenagers.

*goes off to soak her head until she calms down*