any "serious about writing" teens out here?

Howdy! Please let me start with - I'm an old fogey.

However I have a couple thing's I'd love to share with you.

1. I am currently in the process of writing my very first novel. The plot, if I may say so myself, is amazing. But it did not start out as my plot. I have 2 sons, 8 and 12, and the 12-year-old, Alex, has an unbelievable imagination. He loves the same video games as I, many of the same movies, and when I started talking to him about books I've read, he got excited. He started spewing off ideas faster than I could blink and I had to make him screech to a dead halt. I whipped out a blank Word document, and started taking notes. The notes turned into outlines; the outlines turned in to summaries; the summaries turned into a full blown and quite detailed plot.
   • Alex and I spend hours every week in what I'm calling "design sessions". (Or at least we did for a while, I got temporarily side-tracked) I would be the one to actually do the writing, then I would call Alex in and I would read it so he could focus on visualizing it. Then we'd get out paper and pencil and he'd draw all these bad guys and magic spells and we'd just fire ideas back and forth.
   • Right now in my case, Alex is not ready to participate in any way, shape, or form in the actual writing process, although we're still in this together.
   • We have begun to butt heads a bit. I have learned already that sometimes decisions have to be made so that the story is more marketable, although he may not like the idea as much.
2. I started getting side-tracked around Feb 16th. I started to learn how very much there was out there to learn, and I got SUNK depressed. I have since recovered. I know this is going to sound like a sales pitch, but if you have time, check out my blog. I write about some ups and downs as I learn (and make no mistake, I'm only a month into this) and I actually just recently posted about keeping a good attitude. I also list some blogs I have found helpful.

So - the story about my son was just to show support and encouragement that no matter your age, you can have a rockin' idea and the drive to see it through. You're no comparison as you're willing to put in the work and do the writing yourself, which puts you worlds ahead of Alex in that regard (and of course you're much older than he). I applaud your determination!

Secondly, I found that in order to continue writing, I HAD to learn some writing basics - but writing in the context of publishing (which is not entirely the same as writing for leisure). I don't know your situation, you may already know these basics. For me, I have to learn them, I've only started to.

Personally, my best tips so far have been centered around:

• Self-Editing is imperative
• You need to define your vision - whether it's a "moral" or if it's a certain character you want to develop, or a certain "goal" or learning thing you want them to achieve. Not a laundry list of events that happen, but a bit of a hook as to why they happened. We have to give the reader reason to care WHY they should care about the laundry list of events.
• Time sensitivity - if heroes don't do X before Y, then Z bad thing will happen (not a hard rule)
• Keep one point of view per scene (chapter) - as in don't hear the thoughts of the girl AND the guy in the same scene
• "Show don't Tell" - I think Jennie Nash explains this well because you will hear this all over the place but there's some debate on how best to apply this. (Ex: "The moon was shining" is 'tell' but "I caught the reflection off of the broken window" is closer to 'show' but I think I mis-quoted this)
• The reader isn't in your head and doesn't know what you know
• Backstory/flashback has certain "best practices" and can be tricky
• Some wordsmithing stuff like removing wordiness, shying away from certain words, removing fluff, etc.

I found Jane Friedman's blog to be a GREAT place to start. If you already have the writing basics, she has blog after blog on how to publish and how to attract a literary agent.

But what I personally think is most important is not to lose heart, because that will interfere with writing. Right now, just write. And if you're done, then you can learn some self editing tips and painstakingly go over your manuscript over...and over...and over. Don't try to rush it.

BEST OF LUCK TO YOU!!!!

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/sho...for-Teens-issue-6-When-do-we-get-to-be-heroes

I know it can be a bit daunting trying to find people in the same age range as you to communicate with. The only writers I knew in High School were in the D&D club, which I joined because half my friends were in. Other than that there were fanfic writers. Perhaps there's a club in your school or local writing group that allows younger folks in.

There are teen/young adult writers on the forum, and I've known several over the years, but it's short age range and people age through it. There's many more "adults" (some are breakfast cereals and dogs and cats) because it's a bigger age range, so it can be a bit intimidating, but I really wouldn't worry. We're not very ageist around here.

Are you just getting discouraged by lack of similarly aged people you communicate with, or with something else in writing?

I just want to congratulate you Sweetix, for getting such an early start. I wish I would have.

I have a daughter about your age. She's written two novels through Nano, though she won't let me read them.

I don't know if she'll stick with it or not - she's also a musician and devotes a lot of time to that.

I hope you find your writing buddies. When you get discouraged, just know that we all do.

And don't let that stop you. I have a hunch that you won't. Best of luck in all you do.

Ha, funny thing is, when I picked that username I'd never heard of the movie.

People like you and my daughter are inspiring. This world belongs to you.

No, she's not on here. I'd put you two in touch, but it's not like she listens to me.

Sweetix said:

Hello!

My name is Aurelie, I am 17 and like many of us, my goal is to publish my book. I may be young, but I am determinate and willing to do anything to reach this goal. I am taking this very seriously, and I must admit, I often get discouraged. That is why I wanted to know if there were any teens here, or young adults, who are in the same case as me? And if you are, would you like to get to know each other so we could become writing buddies, friends, and help each other?

Thank you and have a good day ☺

Click to expand...

Fortunately, you'll outgrow your discouragement once you reach 21 - it's all clear as a bell from there. No second-guessing, no self-doubt, no running into a wall at Chapter 12 and staying up until 3 AM beating your head against the monitor because your perfect, wonderful scene just isn't working and the supposedly clever hero has just become the stupidist stupidhead in all the stupid, stupid world of stupidity... who on Earth will ever want to read this utter insult to the English language, you talentless idiot?... why the heck didn't I take up knitting - and stop nagging me, plot bunnies, you're not getting into this book, you'll have to wait for the next one...

Er... *ahem* Yeah.

In other words, discouragement and writing frustrations (and, yes, occasional loneliness in a pursuit spent largely in our own heads talking to ourselves) are ageless, unfortunately. As previous posters mentioned, there are other teens/YAs around... not to mention plenty of former teens and YAs. Stick around - there's plenty to learn here.

As for my personal advice: read widely. Start with the genre you're writing, then branch out. Pay attention to what works and what doesn't. Don't do what doesn't work for you in your own writing. (It's strange, but true: we often wind up doing things in our own work that we don't like to read in others, and we don't even realize we're doing it until we learn to look for it, or until someone points it out.)

Hi Aurelie! I'm another 'serious about writing' teen There aren't a lot of teens on the forums from what I've seen, but there are definitely some around. I'd be happy to chat if you'd like, and if you're interested I can PM you a link to a Facebook group for teen writers which I'm part of.

Welcome to AW! Nice to meet you!

I'm 17 and always ready to talk about writing, if you like.

I was a "serious about writing" kid, who got talked out of it as a teenager. I wish now I had persisted back then when I actually had the time to devote to writing! But I let other people get into my head. It's much harder to find time to write with a fulltime job, mortgage, and kids! So I encourage you to persist toward your goal - you're on the right track trying to surround yourself with similarly focused peers.

I'm also fairly young and actually I was serious about writing as young as about 11-12 (but obviously I knew I was pretty bad back then, so these years have been spent building up my writing skills so that anything I happen to make isn't completely and utterly awful). Discouragement is something I think most writers probably go through at some point or another. You're not a writer without having felt rejected or unwanted at some point. So if you ever feel like this, know that it's just part of the process and you've actually taken steps to becoming a real writer!

Do you have any ideas about what you want to write in the future? (In terms of genre, any specific plots, perhaps any character types you have in mind, etc.). And what's the current book about?