Without reading what other's think, I can say that every demographic counts. That means that writers write for every reader. If we only hit a certain audience, we want to know. A book for kids might miss its mark, the same with any other target. For a kid to tell us that our material is boring may be conformation as much as anything else. Speak your mind. If anyone says something against you, they don't deserve to be a writer.
From a physiological standpoint, age does matter. The frontal cortex doesn't mature until the ancient age of 25, so you won't have all of your reasoning capacity until then. The only way of measuring the value of a critique is the information in it. Like other posts on this thread, a fifteen year old can easily have better writing/critiques than someone who is 58. The only thing that matters is content. If you are good at critiquing at the age of fifteen, you have the benefit of knowing you haven't peaked yet and you can only get better, whereas the elderly, like myself, can only look forward to avoiding an early onset of Alzheimers. Write/read young and don't down yourself for your youth. ---------- Post added at 02:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:32 PM ---------- From a physiological standpoint, age does matter. The frontal cortex doesn't mature until the ancient age of 25, so you won't have all of your reasoning capacity until then. The only way of measuring the value of a critique is the information in it. Like other posts on this thread, a fifteen year old can easily have better writing/critiques than someone who is 58. The only thing that matters is content. If you are good at critiquing at the age of fifteen, you have the benefit of knowing you haven't peaked yet and you can only get better, whereas the elderly, like myself, can only look forward to avoiding an early onset of Alzheimers. Write/read young and don't down yourself for your youth.
I like this, and also don't. Working my way towards 30, frontal cortex formed up and I feel like everything I write is absolute hackneyed tripe and just can't seem to come up with anything new and different, hahahaha. Either way, age generally equals experience and as mentioned often higher levels of reasoning, but if you've got a good point or a point, mention it. If it really is "overly stupid" then you learn something new if it's explained to you, at any age. To be proven wrong or feel foolish means you have learned something new which is valuable and eventually you won't feel foolish at all, just be happy you learned something new.
Hmm...I think it's about how often you do it rather than age. If some 14 year old has been reviewing ever since he was 7 and another 30 year old posting his first one give critique, I think the 14 year old will have better advice. Experience>age, for me (Maybe bias as well because I'm 14!)
Well, maybe and maybe not. A 30 year old may not be able to give you a strong critique as a writer (If that's what he/she is beginning) but they may be able to give you a 20+ years of experience critique in the form of a READER. To answer the question, in my opinion, age does matter. Not because older people are intrinsically better writers and reviewers (although they typically are) they also have experienced opinions on reading, society, and life in general. That's not to say that younger people can't give reviews, that's silly. They often bring up valid points. But you'll get different types of reviews depending on age. At least in theory.
Younger writers on here should absolutely critique in the writing workshop! Critiquing is one of the greatest ways to get better at writing. You'll also (more obviously) get better at critiquing! You won't go anywhere if you don't get started. Others have already said that you will be able to look at a story in a unique way that is very helpful to the writer. You'll be able to point out areas to improve that others have missed. And even if you do give absolutely crap advice (which you won't), it's up to the writer to determine whether or not to follow it. Young writers: There is NO harm in critiquing, only gain.
Part of the reason I registered and decided to become a part of this forum was this particular thread. I'm 16, I critique manuscripts, and my age makes me feel so self-conscious. I was overwhelmed by the kind responses! I know that I write good, helpful critiques, but I'm always nervous that writers won't take me serious because of my age. I love to read, write, and critique. Authors are fond of the work I do for them and many are surprised that, despite my age, my critiques are not horrible or immature, but actually helpful. It's so nice to know that we're all just readers and writers, and judged by that criteria only. After all, age is just a number
You can always give feedback, talk about which parts you liked and which parts didn't work well for you. It's always useful to the writer to hear whether the reader had to re-read any sentences or paragraphs, because those might need to be re-written. Were you confused by anything? Did any parts make you react emotionally (laugh, feel sad, worried, angry)? Could you relate to the character? Did you care about what happened to the character? Stuff like that, it's all really useful without having to tell the writer how to fix things
The beauty of a site like this is the anonymity available. Non-one has any idea whether the person critiquing their work has any experience or not, what age they are or where on the social / artistic ladder they are. We can only take the critique on the face value of it's delivery - and in that there are lessons. If you are worried about critiquing - start basic and work up to the finer details. At the end of the day, you might represent the intended audience for the book, age or not. There is a very good reason why toy company's have their latets toys 'critiqued' by children and infants. The reviewers might have basic opinions e.g. I don't like it cos it smells funny! - but that is feedback they desperately need to know.
Depends, if you read alot, you'll be a better critic, if you don't anything, then you should be criticizing something you know nothing about. I've met 5 year olds who are more honest than some adults. totally depends on the person
Oh... Boy, how much I hate when people dismiss my opinions/ critiques because I'm only a teenager girl so I must be over reacting or I'm biased or anything like that. I believe that age and experience change the way people understand a novel, BUT if I disagree with someone I rather pin point parts of their opinions that I disagree instead of making less of their opinion just because of their age. I sense that the OP is concerned that people will make less of his/her opinion because of the age, and I assure you, that if someone ever do that, they are doing it wrong. Besides, everyone ages differently so age shouldn't be a concern at all.
First of all, you are doing very well to acknowledge your own possible fallibility for someone your age. That shows maturity and critical introspection skills. So, bravo, there. Not many young people wish to admit such a thing. I should know, I was one of them, once. You need to realize that you can make a significant contribution towards a review by communicating your thoughts as a reader. You don't have to delve into the mechanics of writing, plotting, character design or any of the more mature areas of personal motivation, social interpretations, basic themes surrounding human nature and our continuing questioning of our existence and self-actualization needs.. In short, you can make a valuable contribution by simply offering up your thoughts on the work that was presented as a potential consumer of that work. For example, how does a work make you feel? Did the protagonist appeal to you? Were you able to clearly understand the events that were being depicted? Did you want to keep reading the story? That last part is extremely important. It is every writer's goal to force the reader to desire to keep reading the story, otherwise we wouldn't be very good writers. If, for instance, you lost interest, the writer may like to know why. You're 14, but you can read. YOU are a targeted portion of the consumer base that the writer is likely writing for! Your opinion matters and any author would like to hear your personal opinion of their work. You can certainly understand these sorts of things, so there is value in your commentary, in my opinion. Read the FAQ concerning writing reviews. I bet if you wrote a review in the style you think would be acceptable, you'd have no problem having your review being considered as pertinent. If you had doubts, I bet you could post in the Review forum and ask others to comment on your review so you could improve your style if necessary. No, you may not yet be able to write as well as others. But, you can read and you are a consumer of books and that means that you are significant, even if you feel yourself to be less than competent when it comes down to the mechanics of writing a story. Also, keep in mind that many authors starting writing at your age and were published not long after that. So, being young is no barrier to being a published author. You just have to hone your skills and learn well how to write well.
You know what you like in a story. What makes it engaging for you, what makes a character interesting to you. Everyone has a unique angle on everything. If we only heard from people in an older age bracket we would be missing the angle given by the younger audience. Also, many books are written specifically for your age group, so of course people are going to want to know what you think about stuff.
From my standpoint (and as a teen - 18 - writer myself) I have to say that every review counts. If a writer is going to diss you and say you're too young to be reviewing their work, their opinion shouldn't matter to you at all. Every view point, whether from a teenager or an adult should be taken into consideration. Now, can a writer think to themselves "Well, I'm not aiming at a teen audience, so their opinion doesn't mean as much to me as someone that's in the audience that I want to go for,"? Yes, most definitely. In fact, I think that's more than reasonable. Likewise, if I'm writing YA, and an adult reviews and tells me something, then I can genuinely say the same thing about them. Go and review no matter who you're reviewing. Give your opinion, be honest, be as in depth and unbiased as you possibly can and if someone has a problem with you reviewing then don't bother reviewing them again. On a slightly different angle, if someone tells you that your review is lacking in some way, then I think it's only sensible to read it, consider what they said and work out how you can review better. But you won't get better at reviews until you get into doing it.
Has anyone mentioned the title of this thread? "Does your age make you a less better critic?" Just wondering.... In response to the question, its not as much as age thing as it is experience and knowledge. As already said =)
Such a long time since I made this thread. I have come to the conclusion that it does not make you a less able critic. Hey, who even says you have to mention your age? Just get reviewing and you'll be helpful in some way. Just be honest, give examples and ways to improve them... (Did I just answer my 14 year old self's question lol)
And here's the other thing to think about: There are different kinds of feedback people can give. Much of the time in the Writing Workshop, we get suggestions on technique, sentence structure, word choices, etc. And that feedback is extremely helpful. But sometimes the most helpful feedback can be as simple as "I got confused when {...} happened. I thought the character was talking about {...}, but when I kept reading, it didn't sound like that was what they were talking about. " Sometimes that's the most helpful feedback of all.
