Why can't kids write novels?

IS IT EXPERIENCE OR IMAGINATION?

Photo by Yogesh Rahamatkar on Unsplash

I’ve become completely intrigued by Turkish/British author Elif Shafak. Her first English novel, The Saint of Incipient Insanities, is a story about a group of foreign friends searching for fulfillment while attending university in the U.S. More notably, Shafak wrote The Bastard of Istanbul, a novel that moves back and forth between Turkey and the U.S., and tells the story of  a 19-year-old “bastard” named Asya. The backdrop of this novel is the Armenian massacre from 1915-1916 by the hands of the ruling Ottoman empire. This event is sometimes referred to as the first genocide of the twentieth century. 

Although a lot of Shafak’s books are based in Turkey and/or have Turkish sentiments, she has had a rather nomadic upbringing (as she has said herself). Contrary to popular belief, Shafak was actually  born in France to Turkish parents. When her parents split at a young age, she followed her mother to Turkey where she was raised by her mother and grandmother in a middle-class neighbourhood. Her mother soon became a Diplomat which meant Shafak was off to what she refers to as a “Posh, international school where I was the only Turk.”

This school happened to be in Spain but Shafak’s nomadic upbringing didn’t end there. She spent significant time in Jordan, the UK, America, and Istanbul, the latter being where she wrote many of her novels.

Even by the brief description I gave of Shafak’s upbringing, you can tell that her worldly experiences have helped shape the stories she’s able to tell. And even though all of her novels are imaginative works of fiction - including the ones that speak to historical events -  I think it’s fair to presume that Shafak would not have constructed those novels if she didn’t have those experiences. 

But I still question whether experience is the main driver of writing or if it truly is imagination. 

Photo by Santi Vedrí on Unsplash

Let’s lean on the side of imagination for a bit. Here’s something else to think about: has a child under the age of 12 ever written a book we would consider a masterpiece? Or even significant? And done so without the aid of an adult? 

Yet there have been child-stars in entertainment, child geniuses in mathematics, in science, at intellectual games like chess. Why no child-novelists? We all agree that children have the most active imaginations, yet it has been so rare for one to produce a novel that reflects this imagination and is simultaneously compelling for readers that I can’t think of any off the top of my head.  

If we follow this argument, then life experience plays a much larger role than we may like to admit. Even if the subject matter is seemingly outside of an author’s direct experience, just having experience allows the author to process events more thoroughly. And what are novels but a series of events organized inventively to tell a story? 

I can’t help but to think of R.F. Kuang again. The biggest criticism of Kuang is that she is far too young to be writing about the themes of her novels. Kuang started writing the Poppy War at just 19 years of age. The novel includes references to the Second-Sino Japanese War in Book one and moves towards the Chinese Civil War in the latter two books of her trilogy. Kuang is an academic who studies literature, so one can argue that these themes can simply be researched to be written about effectively. But nuance is key when referring to real life events, and the criticism of Kuang is that she hasn’t lived enough life to insert a high level of nuance in these stories. 

I think that argument is far more valid for her novel Babel. Babel is a story that tackles themes of race, capitalism and colonialism told from a somewhat fantastical perspective. Kuang would’ve been in her early 20s when writing this novel and some argue that even though the novel is extremely well-researched, Kuang’s lack of real life experience with these complicated themes removes or dilutes nuance from subjects that require a comprehensive lens. 

But is that actually true? 

Should we criticize Kuang and praise Shafak because the latter has seemingly lived a more worldly life and is able to weave that wealth of experience into her novels? Should we not praise Kuang for her imagination? For her ability to combine the rigor of research with invention of story? And should we assume that because Shafak leverages her experiences that she somehow lacks imagination on the level we’re ascribing to Kuang? 

I’m an author who routinely pulls from real life to write my novels. And Then There Was Us is so close to my daughter’s experience that she said she had a physical reaction while reading it and initially couldn’t get past the first fifty pages (she got to 51). That said, the book I’m most proud of is my last novel, Boys and Girls Screaming, because it’s a story told completely from my imagination. The plot follows a group of teenagers who form a healing group that they call, you guessed it, Boys and Girls Screaming. The themes of that novel - including mental health, wealth, friendship and family drama - were equally as prominent as the themes of And Then There Was Us. Should I be penalized because Boys And Girls Screaming is not a reflection of my lived experience?

Or maybe this is the question we’re really grappling with: would I have been able to tell a better story in Boys and Girls Screaming if I was actually a teenager? 

Was my age somehow an impediment to me being able to dive deep into the psyche of teenagehood? Or was my experience having already gone through that phase of my life the reason I was able to articulate that story so inventively? 

I wouldn’t do this argument justice if I didn’t take into account how hard it is to write a novel. Novel writing is far more technical than most people realize, and presuming a child would possess the necessary skillset to write one effectively is a lot to ask. That said, my child-star argument still stands. Kids have somehow been able to naturally build up the mental capacity to garner some fairly challenging accomplishments. Novel writing hasn’t been one of them. 

So I ask again: is it imagination or is it experience? I’m curious to hear your thoughts.