Very young writers, less than 12 or 13, are writing stories that are for an audience much older than them.

This is one of the main problems that arises with the quality of the content they produce.

Believe me, when I was 9 I began writing and at that time I used to think that I have an equal amount of potential and skill to produce a bestseller.

[By they way you can stop laughing now. I really used to think that even though why is still a bit beyond me].

So you can say I have had a lot of first hand experience on writing as an amateur. And therefore I think that I may as well share a few things with you guys.

Of course, books have vast audiences and even though they are generally rated PG-13 or PG-15 etc, there are a lot of readers who fall way below this category. And do not think that I mean to say that I am discouraging these readers. If their parents allow them and think that guidelines can be overlooked, its fine with me.

Now back to the topic, as I was saying earlier, these readers become more fascinated to the the concept and plot of the story as compared to respectively elder readers. Young readers definitely have the passion required to write a book, and some may also have the patience but the one thing they are lacking is skill.

Obviously, I'm not discouraging anyone to write no matter what age group they belong to. Write all you want but before getting it published on a vast platform, make sure to get it rechecked by someone you think can go through it like a good critic does.

And do not get disappointed by the comments the critics throw your way, they only mean good. 

The age factor, because that's what I like to call it as, is also the reason for the cliche plots saturation on the net. And down below, I'm going to share what I had to go through when I started writing.

In the beginning, when I was 9, I was inspired by kids magazine and started writing short stories and fairy tales kind of stuff for such magazines. 

When I was 11, I developed an interest for poetry and began writing poetry that was kind of reply poems to the poems  I had read in my school syllabus. Such as a reply poem to Percy B. Shelley's To A Skylark, Henry Longfellow's Children, Robert Frost's Passing By The Woods On A Snowy Evening and also a few originals. This process continued till I was 15 and is still in continuity now even though the speed of poem production has lessened a great deal due to exams and homework.

I started reading Harry Potter Series when I was 12, borrowing books from the school library, and even though I didn't read them in order (I just read Prisoner of Azkaban for the first time this year), I still became intrigued with the idea of writng a fanfiction.

At that time I wasn't aware of Wattpad and I didn't even know whether fanfiction was eligible to be published online or not, so I just typed the story on my computer on a Word Document titling it as Harry Potter and the Enchantress of Godric Hollow.

This was the first novel I wrote including 11 chapters (they were really long) and it got completed when I was 13. By that time my school teachers and friends had come to know of the story up my sleeve and within weeks the first draft of the novel was legit circulated in the whole school.

I got appreciated, my teachers were impressed, my class fellows loved it but now when I look back at my writing, I realize that it wasn't that up to the mark as I had thought of it to be.,

For starters, it was cliche. And I discovered it was cliche when I joined Wattpad at 14 years of age. I found out that a lot many writers had written a much similar story to mine, about Harry Potter's younger sister with red hair and Lily's resemblance who was not given to the Dursleys etc etc.

Of course not all the points were similar in my story such as that girl (the OC Angelina) was adopted by James and Lily because her parent's were Lily's family friends who tragically passed away. But I know no one of you would like to have me rant about the story I wrote years ago.

So to cut a long conversation short, I realized the flaws in my writing when I matured (or so I like to think) and even though I believe that there must be a lot many flaws now as well, still it is loads better than the first stage.

Young readers, do not feel discouraged by reading all this. All I want to say to you is that consult other people's guidelines and opinions before showing your work to the world. And try to make it as better as you can. If you will put effort into your work, it will definitely show and you will get appreciated.

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I'm not discussing the flaws and stuff like that because I think those topics got well covered in the Dos and Don's of writing Fanfic part of this book.

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Good luck with writing and rewriting. 

See you soon with the next update.