Can you really figure out someone's age by their writing?

[shinigamiinochi]

in a lot of adult archives (not just this one) I've noticed that a majority of claims that another author is underaged and shouldn't be here is based on how that person writes. Now, I'm not here to bash a system that tries to get people to follow the rules, because I love that this site actually listens to its members and follows through with their problems and complaints. I'm just wondering how anyone can say with absolute certainty that all adults can write well and all children can't. There is a stigma in a lot of the people I know, especially my own family, that if you are young and you write something well, then you had to have plagiarized it. I was writing fiction back in the fourth grade and I even have stuff I'd written in Middle School on the net and people seem to think that I wrote it in the past few years, but whenever I showed those things to people at that age, even my parents assumed that I had found it and copied it. Fortunately, since I'm now 21 that doesn't happen so much anymore, but it still pisses me off that people think that good writing can only be done by adults. The opposite is also true. I know thirty year olds that can't write worth shit. If these people were to post to the internet, they would probably be accused of being underaged. I guess it's just a facet of agism. I've made it known in the past that I've never desired to coddle children and I think that they have the same potential in many things as adults. I also know that when I was a child and trying to write, but was put down at every turn because of my age, it got to the point that I probably would have stopped writing if I hadn't loved the actual process so much. If I was one of those people that put complete stock in what others said about my stories, I probably wouldn't be here today.

[Dandello2000]

You're absolutely right - a person's age is not indicative of writing ability - I've known fifth graders who wrote on a very 'adult' level (with a 'want to learn more' attitude and a love of research) and adults who wrote like immature, self-centered brats. I've known pre-schoolers and kindergartners who could plot a flawless fantasy adventure - okay, they needed a scribe, but their train of thought was as well constructed as much older writers' outlines.

So no, I seriously doubt you can tell the age of a writer by their writing - but you CAN tell the maturity of the writer by their writing. And some people mature earlier than others.

[DemonGoddess]

No, writing quality is certainly not the best indicator of a person's age. I wish it was. It can point to the possibility of it with some, and the PROBABILITY with others, but only gives a start point as far as wanting to look closer at a given user, say.

I've seen some fiction written by some young people (not here) that was very well done. Quality is quality. One either has a talent for it, or they don't.

[Guest Zanthious]

I agree that in most cases it's how mature the person is that can be discovered by the writing, and not the age. But, thigs have to be looked into on a site like this, due to the type of material being displayed. I mean if someone is found to be under age and reading, and writing on the site, it then makes no difference how well they write, but that they are too young to see the content by law. But, if it's simply a matter of trying to tell whether they are 18, or 40 something, then I feel most times it's futile. I've read good work from all ages, and I don't desciminate based on that. Good writing is good writing to me!

[Helluin]

You can't tell with certainty when someone is a skilled writer, but there are certain types of unskilled writing in which the cause is lack of experience/maturity rather than lack of talent/diligence. Older writers can be stinkingly awful, using shorthand, vocabulary wildly inappropriate for the characters, run-on sentences and lack of punctuation, but cf bad writing by older writers just feels bad, whereas bad writing by very young writers feels exuberantly clueless.

Two other aspects of writing can reveal a writer's age.

Younger writers tend to gravitate toward certain flavors of angst and h/c, Mary Suedom, and high school flavored fic (whether or not it's an explicit high school AU, there's a certain style to high school social interactions that often spills over to writing).

On AFF, you've got sex scenes. Some younger writers may learn enough from reading that they can write a plausible, or at least conventional, sex scene-- so again, skilled younger writers may sound older. However, there's particular assumptions, vagueries, and misconceptions that tend to pop up in writing by those who haven't experienced what they're trying to describe!

It's a judgment call, and one can be mistaken, but yeah, I can usually tell. Then again, I've taught college students, and one quickly learns to scent and track down plagiarism. (The hard part is finding the book/passage/article being paraphrased or copied.)

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[schrodinger]

By their writing you can really only gauge skill and maturity.

I have seen some things written in the age group of 25-30 which make the average 12-15 year old fan bases look brilliant.