Can teenagers write books about teenage issues?

I've been trying to write about teenage issues (pregnancy, drugs, sex, identity, sexuality etc...) for a while now. I almost finished a story and then got bored of it. But I was just wondering how you felt about really young authors. Would you read a book written by a 12,13,14,15 year old? A novel? Why or why not? Any suggestions. Thanks in advance.Can teenagers write books about teenage issues?
Hi,


I am 20. I think it is good that you are trying to write about issues that are relevant to your age group (teens). Like someone else said: these issues can be relevant to lots of people. So, to your question-%26gt; I would read a book written by a teen if I found it interesting and the writing was good (what classifies ';good'; writing varies from person to person). I don't think it depends on the age of the writer by the quality of the book.





Hope I helped...





Good Luck on your story (or stories) ;-)Can teenagers write books about teenage issues?
Almost anyone with a little determination can write a book. But the reality is that a very small percentage of books written ever get published or into the hands of the public.


For now I would suggest that you keep detailed journals of your life, experiences, impressions, etc. Later on when you have more education and expertise in the mechanics of writing you can go back to these journals and use them to attempt a 'real' book.


Good luck!
Pregnancy, drugs and sex are not teenage issues. They are adult issues which, unfortunately, teenagers often get mixed up in. It's fine for a _character_ to be naive about something. But an author needs not to be. An author needs to know what's really at stake in order to plausibly write about what will happen to a character who doesn't.





So no, I wouldn't read a book about them written by a teenager. There's almost no chance it would deal with them at anything other than the most superficial level.
I feel like the best way to read a book based on teenage issues would be from a teenagers perspective. There are many hardships (drugs, sex, pregnancy as you stated...) us teenagers face every day, and although they're common, everyone reacts differently under their own circumstances. Thus, I find it better reading from another teenagers shoes.





Like in Go Ask Alice, or basically anything that Beatrice Sparks has documented from anonymous teens.
Not really. To realistically portray the emotional weight of these issues, you must be outside, looking in - not mixed up in them: an exception could be drug use (an addict could write a great memoir), but only after a lifetime (longer than you've been alive) of using.





I agree completely with the second poster.





A young teenager can not actually understand anything they are mixed up in. Sorry to sound condescending, but, I'm almost 30 years old and have only just begun to realize how much I truly don't understand the circumstances of my own life - let alone well enough to generalize them into something readable.





Keep a journal so you can use it for fodder when you mature.








EDIT: To above Poster: all Beatrice Sparks books are fabricated, and written by her - not as she claims, anonymous accounts of teenage life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/go_ask_alic鈥?/a> : ';In an October 1979 interview with Aileen Pace Nilsen for School Library Journal, Sparks claimed that Go Ask Alice had been based on the diary of one of her patients, but that she had added various fictional incidents based on her experiences working with other troubled teens. She said the real ';Alice'; had not died of a drug overdose, but in a way that could have been either an accident or suicide. She also stated that she could not produce the original diary, because she had destroyed part of it after transcribing it and the rest was locked away in the publisher's vault.';
The chances of an adolescent actually being a decent author is pretty slim. Most writers, even when they get older, still suck. There's pretty much no way that you have enough writing experience when you're young to be able to sell something that people want to buy. Wait a while until you get a better grasp on writing before you try getting it to a publisher.
I'd read a book by someone ages 12-15. I'd be pretty curious about their style of writing if the plot looked interesting to me.
old old and old, write about something new, nobody cares about teenage angst
yes..but it will morph into this body of cliche