I’ve been a writer as long as I can remember. From a young age, I wanted to write great stories. Yes, I was writing for the fun of it, I enjoyed the process, but I aspired to something higher than simple self-expression.
This desire only grew throughout my childhood. I wanted to write something that mattered. I wanted my words to truly say something, to amount to more than the sum of their parts. I wanted to grapple with big questions. This ambition wasn’t about fame or success—it was about artistic greatness. Did this make me an oddly pretentious little kid? You tell me.
I think the desire to write something great is a near-universal phenomenon among writers. Even at the most amateur of levels, even when no desire to be published exists, who hasn’t quietly hoped that their book will turn out to be a literary masterpiece?
As a young writer, at least in my experience, that hope is diminished by an idea that looms over everything you write. At times, it seems like a self-evident truth, a law of nature as immutable as gravity. It’s the idea that a young writer can’t write anything great. Something worthy of entering the literary canon, something that leaves a mark on the vast continuum of artistic expression.
But is this true? And if it is, what should we do with that knowledge? This is still a relevant issue for me—I’m not even 20 yet.
I want to explore this idea from every angle I can, through the lenses of logic, science, history, philosophy, and my own experience. And maybe by the end of this, we’ll have found an answer to the question—can a young writer ever write a great book?
I. Growing Up Between Pages
MY OWN EXPERIENCE
I started out writing short stories and comic books when I was about 5, and I wrote my first full-length novel when I was 7. From that point on, I was hooked. Over the next decade, I wrote seven more novels, four novellas, and dozens of short stories, not to mention stage plays, screenplays, and more comic books. I built an interconnected fictional universe that my books and films took place in. Writing became, at times, more important than sleep—I would stay up late working fervently on the latest chapter of my book. I fell in love with storytelling.
But it hasn’t all been sunshine and roses. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a writer who hasn’t faced serious self-doubt, and for me, being a young writer only made this more intense.
There have been many times over the years when I wished I could give up writing. I wrote, shortly after turning 15, that “Writing, for me, has been a twisted, confusing, and hard path, stumbling in darkness for years with no guide. I don’t understand it. But I can’t stop writing; I feel like I have to. It’s just part of me. Which makes it even more scary to think that I’m not good at it and never will be.”
This self-doubt didn’t come from anything or anyone external, other than perhaps the general sense of never being taken seriously as a young writer. It came primarily from an internal belief that, as a young person, I had no business writing a book. I had nothing important to say, or at least nothing that anyone would listen to. No matter how many novels I wrote, no matter how many awards my work won, no matter how hard I worked, I could never write anything truly great because of one unchangeable fact—I was a kid.
But I’m not one to blindly trust my feelings, so does my actual experience back up this idea?
Well, much as I wish I could say that everything I’ve ever written is literary gold, that’s simply not true. I will tell you without hesitation that much of what I’ve written isn’t very good. I’ve improved a lot since I started writing, and if anything I’ve written has a chance of being great, it’s the novel I’m working on now. But it’s not finished, and I think it’s only in retrospect that I can accurately judge my own work.
So based on my own experience, I can’t tell you if a young writer can write a great book. I don’t think I have, but that’s not to say I can’t in the near future.
And I’m only one young writer out of millions. That’s hardly a sufficient sample size. So let’s explore this question from a wider angle.
II. The Argument
LOGIC
Not long ago, I got a comment that contained this sentiment: “You’re… young and haven’t lived long enough to have anything of value to contribute to the conversation about the world.” Which got me thinking. Is that true?
My first instinct was that, unfortunately, it is. But my inner logician was unsatisfied with settling for such a quick write-off of the artistic merit of everything I’ve ever written, not to mention the artistic merit of every other young writer’s work, so I thought a little harder.
This idea seems to be founded on two premises that are shaky at best.
That age and wisdom are directly correlated. This is patently untrue, and it doesn’t take much work to think of young people whose knowledge and depth of perception far exceed that of many older people. And importantly, the length of a person’s life is no indication of the breadth of their experience. There are ten-year-olds who have experienced far more challenges and joys than some forty-year-olds.
That books need to provide a certain kind of value. What kind of value does a book need to provide in order to justify its existence? Is entertainment value not enough? Is there no inherent value to a book that gives us insight into what it’s like to be a certain kind of person, like a child or teen? A young person can undoubtedly provide either of those kinds of value, even if they don’t have much to say about bigger societal or philosophical issues.
You could potentially make a more specific and sound argument about one young writer, assuming you have something more substantial to say than just “young writer bad.” But such a sweeping generalization as this one falls apart upon closer inspection.
Now, all that this argument proves is that a young person can write something of value. It doesn’t necessarily prove a young person can write something great in the sense I’ve been talking about. Writing an entertaining book and writing a Pulitzer-Prize-worthy book are two very different things.
Logical syllogisms are nice and all, but hard evidence, or the lack thereof, can be more revealing. For that, let’s examine this question through the lens of history.
III. Precedent
HISTORY
If it’s possible for a young writer to write a great book, you might expect historical precedent. So have any young writers written great books?
This largely depends on how you define a ‘great’ book. In looking at this question with a historical perspective, I’ll define this purely in terms of influence, books that have made a lasting mark on the literary world.
Perhaps the most prominent example is Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley at the age of 18. It’s often considered one of the seminal works of science fiction, and deals with some big philosophical questions. Though it was published over 200 years ago, the story has retained a remarkable prominence in pop culture.
The Outsiders was written by S.E. Hinton while she was in high school. While not quite as well-known as Frankenstein, it was made into a film by Francis Ford Coppola and even a Tony-award-winning Broadway musical this year. The book’s mature content has been the cause of discussion and debate, and it appeared on the BBC’s list of the 100 most inspiring novels in 2019. So did Frankenstein.
Though it wasn’t originally written as a book, The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank is another example of an impactful piece of writing by a young person. She started writing it at the age of 13, and it became one of the most well-known and important accounts of a life during World War II.
Now, three examples is not a lot. Beyond these, few books written by people under the age of 20 have had similar influence and staying power. So I’ll leave it to you to decide whether these are exceptions that prove the rule, or demonstrations that young writers truly can write great books. It’s also worth saying that, for all we know, some of the greatest unpublished books may have been written by young authors. But that’s pure speculation. And whatever artistic merit such books may have, if they haven’t seen the light of day, they can’t be considered great through the lens of history.
IV. Young Brains
SCIENCE
One could argue that young writers are at an intellectual disadvantage since their brains haven’t fully developed yet. This is true, but if you’re going to bring up neuroscience, you would be remiss not to acknowledge that young writers actually have an advantage in that same department. Kids’ brains are more creative than adults’. They’re more neuroplastic, too, since they’re still developing. In layman’s terms, that means kids’ brains are more flexible and able to form new connections.
And you don’t even need to get scientific about it. Just think back to how imaginative you were as a kid, or how wildly creative kids you know are. Sure, kids’ ideas may not be as useful or logical, but I’ve rarely heard of a novel praised for its utility. At least, as anything other than a doorstopper.
Since we’re, at least primarily, talking about fiction books, creativity is one of the greatest strengths a writer can have. One of the worst things a novel can be called is ‘uninspired,’ but inspiration is one thing kids have in spades. When I was younger, I had more ideas than I knew what to do with, and that’s still true, albeit to a lesser extent, now.
Creativity is only one part of writing a great book. It takes skill to refine raw creative ideas into a substantive, meaningful narrative. But young brains are better equipped than most to produce that raw imaginative material, to build unlikely connections between ideas, to think outside the box.
One thing you may have noticed about the three books of historical significance written by young writers is that they were all written by young women. I don’t think this is a coincidence, and neuroscience can help explain that. On average, female brains develop about two years ahead of their male counterparts. Thus, you’re more likely to find young female writers with an ideal combination of youthful imagination and more mature cognitive and emotional capacities. That maturity, of course, helps a great deal in writing something intelligent and emotionally resonant. Sorry, guys. To be fair, we’re speaking in averages, so this isn’t true across the board.
So now that we’ve gone deep into the small-scale workings of the brain, let’s zoom out and take a much higher perspective.
V. Answers
PHILOSOPHY
I think one of the best things about being young is that you don’t have all the answers, and you know it. Well, some of us know it, at least.
Subjectively, this isn’t always a great feeling. We’re so new and inexperienced that the world often seems terrifyingly vast and unknown, as strange and dangerous as outer space. But by the same token, the world is also a place of mystery and wonder.
Naiveté is an oft-denigrated quality, and understandably so. But we need it, and it’s easy to forget that. Without fresh perspectives unencumbered by knowledge of how things ‘should be,’ we would lose out on countless creative innovations. We may not have the experience and wisdom of our older counterparts, but we don’t have their calcified beliefs, either.
When thinking about the relative merits of different ages and levels of experience, I find it illuminating to consider, at least for a moment, a larger perspective. A cosmic perspective. Even the oldest people on Earth have barely existed, hardly seen any of what there is to see, experienced practically nothing in the grand scheme of things. All of us are incredibly limited and inexperienced and unintelligent. No human lifespan, however long, is enough to understand everything about the world.
Whether we admit it or not, we’re all remarkably new to this thing we call existence. We’re all just trying to figure out why we’re here, what to do with our lives. From a bird’s eye view, through a philosophical lens, all of humankind is on a level playing field. Which means age shouldn’t matter when it comes to writing a book, contributing to a conversation, asking big questions.
To me, writing is about questions. It’s not about the answers. Because none of us have all the answers, and to suggest otherwise in writing is to deceive your reader, and quite possibly yourself.
Yes, I haven’t lived all that long. My perception of the world is limited—as is anyone’s, to varying extents. But I don’t write to preach a message. I write to explore and better understand this strange world I find myself in. Writing, for me, is a journey with no ultimate destination. It’s about the process itself—the process of becoming a better writer, and a more complete and empathetic person. I don’t believe anyone, no matter how young, should be excluded from taking part in that process.
I’m skeptical of anyone or any idea that tries to be an arbiter of artistic merit. Historically, such people, institutions, or maxims have aged poorly. Many of the world’s most renowned artists were scorned in their time by the establishment, including Vincent van Gogh, Emily Dickinson, and Franz Kafka.
Generally, anyone trying to discourage anyone else from making art is either insecure or ill-informed. And they may be inadvertently depriving the world of something great.
So I take issue, on philosophical grounds, with the idea that no young writer can write anything great. Because even if it’s true, it discourages those of us with lofty artistic ambitions from creating. It diminishes the cumulative artistic output of humanity. It tells young people that their voices are worthless. And, worst of all, it assumes that whoever holds that idea is an arbiter of artistic merit—essentially, some superior class of human—when the reality is, at the end of the day, we’re all on the same level. Just a bunch of people on a rock in space with a lot of questions.
VI. The Long Road
A CONCLUSION… PERHAPS
I want to be great. I want to be the best writer I can possibly be. But I’m only 19. It’s natural that I won’t be monumentally great, an icon of literary history before I’ve even had two decades on Earth.
I can’t tell you whether a young writer can write a great book. I think a strong argument can be made that it’s possible, and one could also argue that there’s historical precedent. I don’t know if I will ever write a great book as a young writer, or if I will decades down the line, or never. I have that goal of artistic greatness to drive me forward, but I can have no guarantee I’ll ever get there. Neither can you.
As young writers, we can choose to see the probably long road to greatness ahead as a slog, or as a shining opportunity. No, I’m nowhere near as good as I want to be, or near my zenith as a writer. But that’s encouraging. That’s good news. I have so much room to improve, so much further I can go. Sucking is just part of the journey.
It’s clichéd but true: don’t compare your Chapter One to someone else’s Chapter Twenty. Despite knowing this, I find myself doing it all the time.
We’re so surrounded by success stories, overnight viral hits, and debut bestsellers that we forget that most great artists spent decades refining their skills and working hard with little reward before making their best work.
The goal of a young person should not be to succeed as fast as possible at all costs. It should be to find something we love doing and build a solid foundation for a lifelong career doing it. This means acting with integrity, investing time in learning skills, and honing one’s craft without expectation of external reward or validation. You need to be internally driven to succeed in the long-term.
I’m not sure if the authors of great books knew when they were writing them the kind of lasting impact their work would have. Greatness often comes from unexpected places, unexpected people, unexpected times. Writing a great book is something you can aim for, but it’s not something you can plan for.
So our job is to prepare ourselves for such a journey. To sharpen our skills. To persevere. To fail and learn and fail again. So that one day, if that great idea comes, when it comes, we’ll be ready.
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– Grayson Taylor
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