If I have any right (or excuse or what have you) to offer advice to under-eighteen members, it is this: don't dwell on your age, remember that you are a guest, and tread on eggshells. For what it's worth: I did it and I have yet to receive any mailbombs.

My dear Ragdoll,

1. Survivor is absolutely right, and your last post absolutely proves his point.

2. Your response showed your maturity, or lack thereof. And you have yet to prove to me that you are confident. Cocky, maybe. They're two different things. I am gaining confidence in my work but I don't go around telling everyone how great I think I am, or that if they just give me a chance I'll blow their socks off. That's not confidence--it's cockiness. Confidence is humble. Cockiness is immature.

3. 'Or,' as applied in my last post, is exclusive. I never said you were deceptive. Some of the young writers here have been--that bothers me, A LOT! You are the insistent variety.

4. No one yet has asked you to leave. We have simply stated our preference that you not participate here. Watch and learn all you want, but don't expect me to respect you just because you think I should. Respect is something you earn--the hard way.

5. In truth, Ragdoll, we have to impose rules and guidelines somewhere; and the more people we allow to skirt those rules/guidelines, the more people we have who think they are also 'exceptions to the rule.' And the more exceptions to the rule we have, the less meaning the rules/guidelines have until the whole system collapses into lawlessness. We're seeing the symptoms of that in the 'maturity shift' that many of us have noticed. Those of us who have strong objections to teens joining us have those objections because we want to nip a potential problem in the bud--and do it now.

1) Emotional and immature behavior (getting angry at critiques, having hurt feelings when someone is merely speaking an opinion, taking things personally when no personal attack was made, rude and rebellious "I ain't conforming with no stupid, lame rules" obnoxious behavior.)
2) Lack of mechanical skill (ie, punctuation, spelling, grammar)
3) Lack of life experience that leaves a hole in the realism of the writing. (Trying to write as an adult with no experience of BEING an adult leads to lack of understanding of motive, logical choices, etc.)

These things are expected of teens and not bad, in and of themselves. The point is, these issues take up a tremendous amount of the time required to critique a younger person's work. I think all of us want to be working with people at our own skill level, or hopefully a few notches higher, not trying to mentor someone who hasn't yet grasped the basic mechanics of writing.

It takes me 4-5 times longer to do a thorough critique for an inexperienced writer because of the numerous mechanical errors and pure "adults don't act like this in real life" silliness in it. The other side of the coin is that the critiques I've gotten back from younger folk show their inexperience as well. One critique amounted to something like: "It didn't work for me," which was useless information because it didn't contain specifics.

I don't mind being around teenagers. I LIKE teenagers (particularly now that my own kids are grown and no longer trying to grind me into emotional dust.)

But I don't like spending my valuable time--time that is precious to me--teaching someone basic 8th grade English skills. I expect people here at Hatrack to have mastered those basic skills already.

Preferring to hang out with other adults of a similar skill level is really about our desire to spend every ounce of OUR time learning from each other. Teens, it's hard for US to learn if we spend all our time teaching YOU basic skills that you would probably have developed by the time you were 18. It's really not fair for you to demand that we become teachers for you, when by doing so we have to spend so much time teaching you the basics that we end up giving up the time we might have spent learning new things too.

To me, the difference lies entirely on whether the teenager--or any writer, for that matter--has mastered basic English skills, and whether there is enough emotional maturity to handle critique without having a melt-down or a hissy fit.

quote:

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I'd be willing to be one of the helpful adults. I've taught writing to sixth graders for the last three years, so I have some experience in proofreading, and I currently have alot of free time because we moved and I'm still looking for a teaching job. My only problem is that I have absolutely NO knowledge of how to run a site like that from the technical standpoint.
Does anyone have any ideas?

---

This would be an example of #1 as I cited earlier.

Sorry you are choosing to go, Amanda. We were asked for an explanation, and we gave it. I know it's hard to receive a critique, particularly when it's aimed at an age group and not a manuscript. But we adults seem to be stuck in a "no-win" situation when we cannot give our honest opinions on a topic without being branded racist/ageist and called hypocrites. We could soften our words and our tone, but that would dilute the honesty.

quote:

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I think there are three primary issues that most of us have with underage writers:
1) Emotional and immature behavior (getting angry at critiques, having hurt feelings when someone is merely speaking an opinion, taking things personally when no personal attack was made, rude and rebellious "I ain't conforming with no stupid, lame rules" obnoxious behavior.)
2) Lack of mechanical skill (ie, punctuation, spelling, grammar)
3) Lack of life experience that leaves a hole in the realism of the writing. (Trying to write as an adult with no experience of BEING an adult leads to lack of understanding of motive, logical choices, etc.)

---

It was not directed at you, RagDoll. Elan was just trying to clarify the reasons for her, and others, not wanting teens on the sight as a "rule". It's nothing personal, and should not be taken that way. Though, I definitely think that calling us all hypocrites is not the way to convince us of your stability.

I'm sorry to see you go. I think you could have contributed to this sight if you'd given it a chance. Perhaps I'll pop on over and see how you're doing once in a while. I'd like to help if I can.

1. Can there be some sort of note to direct people under 18 from this site to the under 18 forum?

There is, of course, in inherent problem with the discussion we've been having. Pointing out to teenagers what elements make them teenagers is one of the likeliest ways to get a teenaged reaction from them. We have now taken on the role of the adults who get in the way of what they want...we don't understand them, we are morons, we are discriminating. I might have thought the same thing ten years ago.

I remember adults trying to explain to me that "I would understand when I was older." and I thought they were nuts and just trying to impose their will on me. They were right, though. There are some things that can only be learned with age and experienc -- no amount of explanations or psycho-babble will help.

I think that's great, though not exactly what I had in mind. I was thinking an email kind of writer's group--something very similar to what we already have going on among the adult writers and their groups. But if you can get them a website, GREAT!!

But now that I am older, I know that's not what it is. It's about wisdom, in Biblical terms, that can only be gained with time. As a teenager, you haven't had enough time on this earth to learn some things from experience. Love, for example. How can you know what it's like to love someone for a decade? You haven't been around that long. How can you know what it's like to bear the responsibilities of hard work, day after day for years on end, with no second chances if you fail? How can you know the stresses of marriage, of child-raising, of mortages? You're capable of doing all these things, and you know it, and that's why your frustrated. But you haven't done them yet--and therein lies the entire point.

Experience is an irreplaceable teacher. It's most of the reason that adults think, talk, and act differently than teenagers.

Surely, now that you've progressed beyond your teen years, you see how inoffensive this statement is? How it truly is a plain statement of fact?

Haven't you ever tried to explain something to a teenager, and found that they were just incapable of really understanding? Not because they lack intelligence, but because they lack experience.

I think this exchange between wbriggs and J is hilarious! Why? Because here we have an adult basically saying, "I've been there, so I know what I'm talking about," and a kid basically saying, "WHATEVER!"

J is SO RIGHT on this. And someday, when wbriggs is also a grown-up, he'll do the "I've been there, so I know what I'm talking about," and some kid'll say to him, "WHATEVER!" THEN he'll get it. But ONLY then. (Deny it all you want, Will. We all did. None of us EVER thought we'd be sounding like our parents. But I'd bet we all do!)

We all have to grow up to that certain point. But at some point, we finally come to the conclusion that those older than us really have been there and they really do understand and we really should listen to their advice.

RagDoll, in the interest of understanding your point of view, why did you feel Elan's statement was an attack? Feel free to quote specific phrases to illustrate your point.

(Sorry if I've stepped on your toes, Elan. I'm just really curious at the moment.)

Dang it... simulpost. If y'all are done with this, so am I, I guess.

While I was leaning towards the "age really is magical" position based on the local evidence (the posts from teenagers), I have a good deal of life experience that tells me that there are exceptions.

I don't recall that many people ever told me that I would "understand" when I got older. For me, it was simply logical to believe that greater experience would mean that people older than me would know more. So people didn't tend to assert it every five seconds. The problem as I got older, is that it became obvious that it wasn't true. The problem was that I had assumed (based on considerable evidence) that I was the same species as those other people, and could be expected to follow a comparable developmental path. Whether or not the first is true (and it isn't worth arguing over without some more evidence), the second was definitely not true.

I was wrong to think that all I had to do was "grow up" and I'd understand the way adult humans think. What I had to do was accept that humans are irrational and mostly driven by weird impulses that I could only identify. Really understanding them was not and would never be possible for me, though I did come to understand many of the practical reasons for many human behaviors.

An interesting paradox, eh? It is normal for humans to go through a period, starting near puberty, where they begin to excessively distinquish themselves from the community that raised them. This assists in a number of survival related behaviors, like exogamy and loyalty to a mate (or several, since males don't have an instinctive sense that loyalty to one reproductive partner precludes loyalty to others, they must be taught that concept, it doesn't occur naturally). The feelings of alienation that prompt this behavior are just part of what makes humans human.

I didn't have those feelings, and nobody ever explained to me that the lack of such feelings was a definite indicator that I was different. I felt that all my "peers" were acting very strange. It never occured to me that I was the one that wasn't normal, for failing to become a teen.

On a side note, my brother, now in his early forties, thinks that fart jokes are hilarious. Not as funny as "no peeing" signs, though (part of this humor comes from asia, where you really would have found signs forbidding public urination in many places within the last decade, though I'm sure that the social norm has changed enough to render them largely redundant).

wbriggs explanation is interesting, though I don't agree with him. But then, my experience of adolescence was very different than most teens. Because of certain factors, I didn't get frustrated with adults until I was in college. And then it wasn't a matter of age, it was a matter of expectations: I found that professors weren't people to look up to above anyone else and that all of life is politics (i.e. the act of allocating valued items... if I remember the definition correctly). Something RagDoll has just recently discovered, albeit in a writer's forum, not college. I also found that the schmucks I'd been around in high school were there at college as well and that they weren't as awful as I remembered them. Or maybe life changed them. Maybe it changed me.

Either way, I'm sorry to see good writers go and I wish them luck on their forum.

--

JMariC, I don't think that sort of thing can be conveyed -- certainly not to an unwilling party. (Or maybe we just aren't wise enough to convey it yet.) I'm just saying we can be polite about it. Really, that's all.

--

RagDoll, my thought was just this: if a conversation is offensive to you, you can drop out of it, like I just did with something, above.

And welcome to the group. Got anything to post in F&F?

[Edit for simultaneous posts, or things I missed:

Bye, RagDoll.]

I have revised my mental image of you. But not my opinion of the ridiculousness of the argument.

I think it particularly interesting that you accuse the adults of ad hominem attacks when a reading of the previous posts show quite plainly that it is the youth around here who are most guilty of such. if any of the adults have stooped to addressing what's wrong with the person rather than addressing the issue, it's because the issue has been ignored by the youth, who think a logical argument/explanation IS a personal attack.

http://www.phpbbforfree.com/forums/?mforum=writers

Sincerely,
-Kgator

p.s: as you can see from the note below, it would be best to sign on after Monday, August 22nd.

I'll offer a little advice based on my observations of the now defunct Hatrack Young Writer's Workshop:

1. Let it be a sanctuary for the young. Much of the trouble at the YWW was immature adults acting like bullies. I know that some might interpret the strong resistance to young people joining our forum as bullying. And it's too bad we all let it go that far. But there is some difference. When the little kids push themselves into the big kids circle, they've got to expect some rough treatment, and they've got to expect to have to work VERY hard to prove themselves without whining about the rough treatment or the big kids' resistance to them being there at all. When the bullies push their way into the little kids' circle and start shoving people around, they're just being mean.

The group is the largest collection of former members of the Hatrack YW Forums.

Consider looking at the link or, if you're in communication with a young writer looking for a community, forward them to that site, if you would.

Thanks.

-----------
Wellington

...come up with something better so that I can come to YOU for advice!

Hey, you got 5 regulars, you've got a start. It's worth a try. (You might also post a new thread here, or wherever She suggests, to lure in new writers.)
Or are things going poorly for you in other ways?

Well see here's the deal... I remember the old topic on age and maturity, and I started to notice that the "harshness" (more like EXTREME helpfulness) wasn't really the type of encouragement that I needed. You see, the way I write, I like it better for people to tell me how great it is. That way I feel more skeptical and find more problems to make the story better. I realized that I was in the majority on this issue... anyway the point is that generally at this point in my writing experience I would rather learn by myself than be guided by the host of you very intelligent people.
SO, I devised (along with member "Moonshine") to make a young writers select group of people.
I advertised this here in the groups section, and then I realized the banner at the top. I was dissapointed that it appeared a day after the opening of my forum and I felt that this was where I would get the majority of my memberships from--people who, like me, learn more from themselves than by being... I hate to say "forced" but that's the way it felt when I submitted here. Not that there is anything wrong with that, just that I don't respond that well to that method of teaching.
Anyway, that's why I made this topic... to basically say, "hey, you just cut off one tof the major flows to my future members!" Now unfortunately this has dissolved down into yet ANOTHER age discussion, and while the rest of you have put it behind, I was on vacation... so this is where I rant on and on about why I was dissapointed once more to find that people here were unknowingly doing the exact same thing I was... creating forums for young people. Then I realized how biased I was being about myself and I instantly knew that the people at my forum would have to be... like me, learning because they have the desire (not that any serious writer lacks it... but I usually have a difficult time explaining my abstract ideas to others... unless of course they completely understand in that wierd way).
I looked into another positive flow of positive writers on a literature bulliten board. My message was modded and deleted from the records, and my account took a (minor) hit. ALthough I did pull one member out who saw it before it was deleted, my forum is still left with 5 people while other forums around me are doing the same.
So if the above description of my trials has you a tidbit interested, and you are of young age, I would appreciate you contacting me as soon as possible at dimensionsoldier@gmail.com
I WILL not give out the link so that any of those "seriously immature" people leak into MY site.
Thank you, and (as I have stated before) I completely understand the responses of the adults here... you have to take everything in perspective... that's how I (try) to run my life. So I can see where you all come from.
As I scan through this topic, I would request at least that RagDoll and mythopoetic talk to me on the issue...