I wonder if teens should write just because of the criticism world. As a general rule, they have a hard enough time dealing with rejection. Start compounding that with how harsh critics can be…

Let’s just say I’m not sure anyone (of any age) should go into putting any art on display unless they are ready to deal and have the maturity to determine legitimate criticisms (and learn from them to improve) vs pettiness.

(also, moving this topic to “writing”)

I say the majority of his points are valid, though it would probably be safer to refer to “inexperienced authors” rather than “teenagers”

I agree that this would’ve been more appropriate.

Also, I hope you don’t mind if I don’t go out of my way to use current slang and such

And we would be bothered by this because…?

1. The Bad News: Right Now, Your Writing Sucks.

I don’t like the assumption that all writing by teenagers is aweful. Probably most is, but not all. You can suck or be amazing at any age.

Most teenagers lack the experiential vocabulary and grammar for writing well

Yes, this is true of most teenagers, but that’s because they don’t pay attention in English or read enough. Most teenagers who seriously want to be writers probably have a substantial vocabulary and good grammar.

You are not likely to have my influences, but you almost certainly have influences of some sort, who you love and to whom you look as models and teachers.

While I do read the advise of writers I admire, I don’t try to write like them or immitate their style. Another assumption. I don’t know what other teenage writers do, but just because he did it, it doesn’t mean that everyone that age does.

Where teenage writers are at a disadvantage is that you’re not always aware when you’re genuinely being good, or merely being clever.

Well, since we don’t know, maybe you could give an example of clever vs. good.

This is like saying that playing professional baseball is only slightly more difficult than hitting a beach ball with a stick.

I like this analogy.

and then comes the day that you write something that really doesn’t suck. You’ll know it when it happens

How will we know when it happens? What if a teenager thinks they write wonderfully right now, then how will they know when they actually write well? (I don’t think I write amazingly, I’m just saying this as a hypothetical.)

If this bad writer can sell a book or magazine article, then you should have no problem, right?

Enter Smeyer, giving hope to teenage writers everywhere.

People who write books where the main character is a young, questioning writer should be shot out of a cannon into a pit filled with leeches.

Haha.

First, that it can be worth it to deal with the high school newspaper editor, even if he or she is an insufferable dweeb

This is funny because our editors (yearbook anyway) are all popular and have pretty bad grammar.

I thought this article was good once he moved on from “Why You Suck” to actual advice.

Dude, im a teenager and my writting is advanced than any teenager as I write with the expertise of an adult writer. In other words im one of the few who are good.

Facepalm This comment isn’t even well-written.

Heh, I liked it. It made me smirk.

Also, finding “Paolini” in the comments is all kinds of satisfactory hilarious.

The points Scalzi makes, however, have more to do with a lack of experience, both in writing and life. Maturely accepting criticism is certainly part of that, but that has less to do with the actual quality of our writing and more with our ability to improve it.

Very true with both, but experience is one of those things that’s kind of nebulous. I’ve known some teenagers that have done more and had more experiences in their lives than some in their 30s. So I’d probably adjust his advice to less about teen writers and more about writers just needing to get out and experience the world.

Edit: He also had a followup. Which contains one of the greatest lines ever!

6. You say our writing sucks because you don’t understand what it’s like to be a teenager.

Contrary to popular opinion, most adults worldwide did not achieve that advanced state of being by skipping the intermediary step of being a teenager. We understand what it’s like to be a teenager just fine. Also, and contrary to what the media would like to suggest, being a teenager is largely the same today as it was 10, 20 and even 30 years ago. There are minor cosmetic differences (teens today have much stronger thumbs thanks to all the text messaging, for example), but at its core it’s pretty similar.

Yea, the followup article is pretty hilarious. I’m surprised at the restraint he showed regarding point 3

3. There are lot of teen writers who are published, like Christopher Paolini.

Actually, there aren’t a lot of teen writers who are published outside of specifically teen-oriented markets or assignments (for example, a “teen” section in a newspaper). And as far as Christopher Paolini goes, his particular path to publication is so unusual that he’s an absolute rarity for any writer, much less a teenage writer.

He has effectively in some of the comments, usually something along the lines of Paolini not being the best example to use to disprove him.

4. What you’re saying about teenage writers might be generally correct, But my writing doesn’t suck.

How nice for you. By all means, get yourself published and rub my face in it. I await an autographed copy of your book with the words “HA! HA! HA!” above your signature.

I want to do that now for a laugh.

Stage 1: write.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/12/10/emo-older-than-you-think/

I love him. XD

@ Fenix

That’s an interesting conspiracy theory. What if all the major webpages are flashing subliminal messages at us? Of course, I’d say that your desire to read Scalzi’s books probably has more to do with the fact that he’s an interesting guy and a good writer. But then I could be part of the conspiracy as well.

I think the article’s cool.

Yeah, I kept expecting him to say:

“Yes, and Paolini sucks. Thanks for proving my point.”

haha me too! it would be so hilarious if he did, though.

that article is made of win. I only wonder what would Inheritance look like if Paolini only bothered to do at least ONE of those things. Plus, I cannot take offence for it, as I am not a teenager anymore XD

You are old, Empress Falcon,
And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head —
Do you think, at your age, it is right?

Yay, Alice in Wonderland reference!

Quick, someone publish a book!
*looks at lccorp*

We all think/thought it at some point. XP

He wrote three huge brick books.

That’s still an accomplishment. No, you don’t have to remind me of the quality, but doesn’t the fact that he had the, um, motivation and willpower to write that much?

In other news, I realized that you have to click the circle next to “Textile” to get the “modifiers.”

He wrote three huge brick books.

That’s still an accomplishment. No, you don’t have to remind me of the quality, but doesn’t the fact that he had the, um, motivation and willpower to write that much?

I cannot deny the effort he put into finishing them. However, finishing the books as such is not that much of an achievement. Finshing books that dont suck, on the other hand, is. I wrote three books as well, and fairly long ones. Are they publishing material? Fuck no. At least the first two are not and will be facing severe, merciless rewrites. And to be honest, I dont even feel like I finished them, when I think about them, all that runs through my head is work, work, work. So no, I dont have any sense of accomplishment for finishing them, because they are far from finished.

And I AM old – I have so much white hair I save a lot of money on a hairdresser, seeing as I dont have to go and get highlights:P

I’ve never finished a novel, so I don’t know. I was very proud of myself for finishing JulNoWriMo, and I didn’t even get halfway through my plot.

@Snow White Queen – Was the book unfinished or the plot just unresolved?

It was really short, but it sucks. It is unsalvagable crap.

It wasn’t even rewriteable?

See, that's my point. No one here can claim that they've written a story that's both complete and good. I've written some stuff, and I think it's pretty solid, but I haven't ever been able to finish. Paolini sucks, I'm not denying that. What I am saying is, we can't really refute what Mr. Scalzi says until we've actually proven him wrong. The potential for a genuinely good teenage author exists, yes. But there's no evidence for it that I can see.

@windmere: I didn’t finish the actual plot. And then the ending of the plot is unresolved. :D

No one here can claim that they’ve written a story that’s both complete and good.

I can. They aren’t novel length stories, and they’re unpublishable because a younger me, ignorant of copyright laws and such, handed away the rights to them, but they were both good and complete stories. The oldest one that I’m still extremely proud of I wrote when I was twelve, so you could say that I’m a teen writer that doesn’t suck. :P

You might think they’re good, but do you really think Paolini thinks he writes tripe?

A mostly fanfiction website (now defunct, but they still have my writing posted last I checked, writing which I was dumb enough to submit under my given name) which I shall not reveal.

Can you get them back?

Jim Theis is the greatest author who ever lived. Too bad his perusal of longevity was stunted in 2002.

Tee hee. Is it still printed, by the way? I wonder if they have a copy at the library…

It’s on II, with Sly’s spork interspersed.

Well, II is where I actually found the text. I’m sure it’s all over the Internet.

Thank you very much. Later, I will stain my mind with this literary impurity/awesomeness (not that my mind was really clean and innocent).

Hey, let’s not complain. That way, there’s no room for a sequel.

I can’t think of a ending worthy of the Eye of Argon, sorry.

It wasn’t even rewriteable?

Meh… it might be, but that would require a lot of effort, and most of the plot would have to be completely re-done. I might go back to it if I’m ever supremely bored with nothing better to work on. It was good to finish though because it proved that I could write something that long. It was the longest thing I’ve ever written by far.

About 40,000 words. My word count said a little over, but subtracting chapter numers and the titile page, probably slightly under. It was 203 pages, excluding the title page, in 12 point Courier New.

^^Congrats to you too then. Was it a completed story?

I wrote mine in like six months, maybe a little more. I ran out of plot very early on, and then I had to just add random crap to make it longer. So, it was like 10,000 words of decent story, and 30,000 of random crap/filler. Plus, I think I quite purple. I might post some of it someday. It probably would’ve made a better short story, but maybe I can salvage it later and turn it into something good.

Well, your plots are probably more involved than mine. I usually think that I have a lot of plot to get through, but it always seems to turn out that I get to the ending before I even get to the middle of the book, so then I have to tack on all this extra crap that just doesn’t fit very well with the original story.

Last year’s NaNo, I had everything prepped: outline, characters, world, plot, etc. And then, two days in, my hard drive crashed and I lost everything including what I had written of the story. Needless to say, that was a complete motivation killer.

Moral of the story: back up everything. E v e r y t h i n g.

Oh, Kyrollac, that sucks!

I really want to do NaNo, but I’m not sure I’ll have time. I’ll be writing, just not that massive amount everyday.

One of the reasons I enjoy sharing my work with people is the “back up” potential.

If something goes wrong and I lost all of “Nagasaki Moon” today. I can pop onto here or ping a bunch of you to send me all the downloaded copies I hope ya’ll have.

Remember: art is to be shared! Especially because that makes it harder to be lost.

Hey, I’m from the semi-south and hold it against English the lack of a plural 2nd person. I’m hoping someday “ya’ll” will be an accepted remedy for that. ;-)

bwahahaha, it spreads….

Maybe were YOU live, but here in the sane areas….

Wait, the number 4? So we should spell it y4ll?

I assure you sir, I never joke when it comes to correctly spelling regional slang. pushes up glasses

No, duh, you’re all stupid. It actually comes from the Icelandic words “yar” (an exclamation implying contempt or some other strong emotion) and “d’iall’” (plural form of “ial”, which means a foreigner or stranger). Thus, it should properly be contracted ya’all, or ya’iall’ if you prefer the traditional spelling.