Young Writers Society

I have two characters in my story: a 15 year old girl and a 17 year old guy. I'm writing from the girl's point of view.

Do you guys have any tips for writing about someone older than you are?

I'm writing about people older than me too. I try to just watch people that age. Like a T.V. show or real people. If I get really desperate sometimes I'll ask for my parent's opinions.

Read work by writers who are older than you about people who are older than you. The story that opened me up to the adult world was Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and it showed me about romance and a bunch of other neato stuff. ^_^

Interview someone! We have a bunch of older teenagers on this site... why not use them? I think that most people here would love to be interviewed, especially if it will help you with your writing.

Read our blogs! YWS has an amazing blog system where you can see a BUNCH of young people's day-to-day writings. Don't like the style of one? Try another! So, by reading a bunch of different blogs, you'll find what kinds of things older teenagers write about and gleam some knowledge off of them.

It's a little hard at first, but I assure you that 13 years old is really not as different as 15, so you'll be pretty safe. Just keep your eyes open and learn about people. Remember: we're all human.

Do you guys have any tips for writing about someone older than you are?

Snoink's suggestion about interviewing people is a great idea, even if it's not on the web, finding someone such as a family member or an older friend should work too.

The other option you can try is brainstorming. If you were an older teenager, how would you act? Take all those notes and again ask older people, "Does this sound accurate to you?" The response will be many different opinions because we are all different.

Think about the two age groups you are writing about - fifteen and seventeen. A seventeen year old is on the borderline of an adult and most would probably be considering college, an apartment('moving out'), a steady job, license and their social life usually becomes more serious.

How about a fifteen year old? My guess they would be either a sophomore or junior in high school, 'pending what age your character started school. For me, at fifteen, college was the farthest from my mind. I didn't start to think about college and apartment until eighteen. At fifteen, my social life was all about fun. I loved to go off jumps on my bike, play sports, goof off with friends, pull pranks and find new an exciting ways to test my limits. I was all about fun and games.

When I hit roughly nineteen, life for me came to a screeching halt and it was time to put the fun aside and start finding a way to support myself and become more responsible and leave my early teenage years behind. Seventeen, again, is the borderline of an adult by societies standards and life changes drastically once you graduate from high school.

Not sure if I helped, but I did offer my outlook on some things that happened to me when I reached a certain age and hopefully that will help when the time comes to write your character's profiles. These of course, are all my own opinions.

I liked the reading blogs of older people idea. I've been doing that to prepare myself for college and such ('cause I'm a dork.) It might surprise you that older people aren't as different from you as you think. At least that's been my experience.

Yeah, blogs, news etc... I would observe, its a little strange but go into a cafe ofr public place, look for someone about that age and write down all the characteristics and mannerisms that person has: Voice, hair, gestus, face gesture etc.. That will get the physical side of things done.

I like the interview idea, that would work well