Too young to write?

by Mark Rudd
4th January 2012

Here's one that has bothered me for a long time... I am writing (as I always am) a children's fantasy novel that I hope to submit to an agent this year. It's a fairly dark, spooky story in a magical setting, starring an ordinary girl. I only have one problem with it...

I'm only 21.

Is that enough life experience to be writing anything? Can a person's style be sufficiently mature by that age? Will an agent look at the DOB and dismiss the submission? I'd appreciate some thoughts on this!

Replies

'Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.'

Mark Twain

Profile picture for user Adrian
Adrian
Sroka
19900 points
Ready to publish
Fiction
Historical
Middle Grade (Children's)
Young Adult (YA)
Adventure
Adrian Sroka
05/01/2012

Thanks very much for the feedback ladies and gents.

Profile picture for user mark.rud_11053
Mark
Rudd
330 points
Ready to publish
Film, Music, Theatre, TV and Radio
Fiction
Middle Grade (Children's)
Picture Books (Children's)
Comic
Speculative Fiction
Adventure
Historical
Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Philosophy and Religion
Mark Rudd
04/01/2012

I can't see that your relatively tender years would be a problem. After all, a younger writer could potentially have a extremely long writing career in front of them. The only time I've seen things mentioning a writer being young, it's been used as a positive thing, not a negative. Don't wait for some mythical age when you are "mature" enough - as you get older, maturity is a highly overrated thing, anyway!

Profile picture for user hill_cla_4439
Clare
Hill
330 points
Developing your craft
Poetry
Fiction
Romance
Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Comic
Autobiography, Biography and Memoir
Gothic and Horror
Business, Management and Education
Clare Hill
04/01/2012