Ten Tips for Teen Writers
1. Don't chase a market. You might never sell anything so at least write what you love.
2. Open your mind. Unplug. Stare out of windows. Leave space for ideas to get in.
3. Read good writing in lots of genres. Read classics. Read poetry. Read history and science. Read out loud. Read books about writing and get a solid grip on grammar and style. Keep a list of words you love. Pay attention to language.
4. Get lots of exercise, mental and physical. Spend time with friends. Get in touch with nature. Learn how things work. Fall in love. The more stimulated you are by the world, the more ideas you can connect and the more you’ll have to say.
5. Keep a journal or ideas file and review it every now and then. Don’t trust your stories to memory.
6. Expect a learning curve. Even if you have talent, dedication, and an ear for language, your first writings may not be the best. Don't be discouraged: no one expects a musician or dancer to hop on stage without any training and blow away an audience. It takes time to master various techniques. (Not the passage of time but hours of working at it.)
7. Don't agonize over your crappy stories. Spend most of your time on your few really gripping projects rather than bits of time on every mediocre one.
8. Submit your best work to your favorite publishers and then write something new. Do not sit around waiting for a reply - it may never be accepted and if it is, you'll have to rewrite anyway. Focus on your work-in-progress.
9. Draft fast but rewrite carefully. If you spend a lot of time fine-tuning the phrasing of your first draft, you'll have a hard time cutting chunks later for the sake of the whole. Polish at the end, over and over until it shines.
10. Don't let middle-aged people make you feel that you're not ready or that you can't be an artist or a success until you're older. That is just not true. Marie Claire Blais wrote La Belle Bete (Mad Shadows) as a teen and it's a great book. S.E. Hinton wrote The Outsiders as a teen and it has been read by kazillions every year since. Technique improves with ten thousand hours of practice but technique isn't everything. The truth you know as a teenager is just as true as the truth you know as an adult. Write your truth.
