Young new authors?

[astuffedshirt_perv]

Back in Feb, The New Yorker published an essay on "The end of the English major" talking about the demise of humanities degrees. A rather stunning quote therein: "Amanda Claybaugh, Harvard’s dean of undergraduate education and an English professor, told me ... “The last time I taught ‘The Scarlet Letter,’ I discovered that my students were really struggling to understand the sentences as sentences—like, having trouble identifying the subject and the verb,” she said. “Their capacities are different, and the nineteenth century is a long time ago.”"

Which has me wondering. Are there still young people who can write good stories? Because I would think identifying subjects and verbs would be awful useful in writing. Or will be just be reading GPT-4 stories in the next decade?

 

[djrip]

Ah yes, "the kids these days aren't learning anything anymore." Nostalgic! I remember this show coming on when I was a kid in the 90s as well.

 

[Euphony]

She reads as overdramatizing her classroom experience to advance her narrative.

I've have higher learning experiences through the decade and will admit in the rote, old school expectations of "learning," things are easier.

But whereas I could skate off of rote memorization, now there's a whole lot more practical and creative problem solving being asked.

Our collective fictions won't read as they did before just as our past fictions didn't read as their forebearer's.

Language is communication and forever malleable.

Those who have the most issue with "how things are going" are also a waning audience that isn't being catered to.

Humanities degrees, especially at legacy institutions like hers, have exploded in costs far beyond inflation while simultaneously losing more and more utility in our current iteration of capitalism.

Arts degrees can be a financial death sentence these days and I understand modern students, growing up in woefully underfunded school systems, not spending time on skills that won't bear fruit.

 

[muddie684]

(1) How young do you mean? 21? 18?

(2) There is an effort by some in academia to change words, definitions, grammar, and make it more open to their ideologies. For example, the abuse of pronouns. This has a detrimental effect on children learning the English language.

(3) Teachers at public schools are failing to properly teach children classic English grammar, vocabulary, and structure. They teach them to pass the test, that's all, and much of that is testing tactics.

(4) Texting is one of the most common forms of communication and is affecting how children communicate in other parts of their lives. They haven't learned how to code switch. Some academics want to embrace these changes.

(5) All languages change over time. We went from Old English, to Middle English, to English. Even Shakespeare is considered "Modern" and he can be hard to understand for kids. We've dropped the "Second Person Plural" from our vocabulary.

(6) Technology is making us lazier writers, in a way. In the days before the typewriter, authors would recite their works orally to hear how it sounds and then put it to paper. Most people use Grammarly, spellcheck, and such.

 

[SimonDoom]

These are two different things, of course. The prevalence of English majors doesn't necessarily correlate to the emergence of good new writers. My sense is that the quality of instruction in English has declined in some ways, making the major perhaps appear less valuable. When I was in school, I had some teachers who were very strong on teaching grammar, and I benefited from it. Later, when I spent a little time as an English teacher, I was already getting resistance from administrators and parents to teaching grammar. It wasn't the fashion. I think the resistance to the "nuts and bolts" approach has increased over time, with a corresponding lack of emphasis on simply writing well. In college I took many great English classes, but I didn't have any that had overtly political overtones or taught literature in terms of this group or that group, although I do recall a segment on the south and slavery. I think it's less fashionable these days to teach literature as literature; people prefer to treat it through the prism of fashionable ideologies. I think that's a mistake, because one of the pleasures of education is the ability to transport yourself into a perspective that is not fashionable and is not one's own and to appreciate something on its own terms.

But I have no idea if any of this is going to affect the emergence of good new writers. I think there are still good new writers coming on to the scene, but they may or may not be emerging from college English programs.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

There is a decline in my opinion, and while many people attribute that decline to the noticeable drop in the authority of teachers, or even to the drop in the quality of teachers, my take is a bit different. I'd say that the decline is mostly due to the considerable drop in motivation. The world from decades ago was a very different one. It was a world where in most cases you needed a degree to make a good living. Also, with that degree and the appropriate future job came the adequate social status. Simply put, it was useful to get some good degrees and attain some respectable job and position.

The world we live in today, for better or worse, is not the same. We are witnessing that having a good degree doesn't mean you will be making a good living. More than that, we can see that the expansion of media, internet and social networks has made it possible for utter idiots to become popular, influential, and most importantly, to get rich. The allure of doing something the easier way is too strong and it is increasingly hard to "sell" the benefits of good education to kids, especially considering how competitive the job market is, and how volatile those jobs are. Decades ago, in most countries, unions were stronger, state capitalism (or communism) was in place and jobs were far safer. If you had a decent degree it was almost guaranteed you would get a decent job.
The world has changed a lot and it will continue to change rapidly, and with it the quality education will continue to decline, until it once again (if ever) becomes useful to be well educated.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Is 26 counted as young?

[please say yes - please say yes - please say yes ]

Em

 

[alohadave]

Is 26 counted as young?

[please say yes - please say yes - please say yes ]

Em

Sorry, no. You are officially ancient. You will now be addressed as Ma'am by everyone younger than you.

 

[oneagainst]

Sorry, no. You are officially ancient. You will now be addressed as Ma'am by everyone younger than you.

...as they give up their seat to you on the bus or help you cross the road....

 

[Bramblethorn]

(1) How young do you mean? 21? 18?

(2) There is an effort by some in academia to change words, definitions, grammar, and make it more open to their ideologies. For example, the abuse of pronouns. This has a detrimental effect on children learning the English language.

Has anybody verified this as a causal link, or is that speculation?

There have always been politically-fuelled language wars raging, over one topic or another, with "some in academia" being just a few of the combatants. When I was younger, the argument was more about things like the use of "he" as a generic third-person pronoun. If anything, I think that argument helped rather than hindered my learning of English, since it got people talking more about how the language works.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Back in Feb, The New Yorker published an essay on "The end of the English major" talking about the demise of humanities degrees. A rather stunning quote therein: "Amanda Claybaugh, Harvard’s dean of undergraduate education and an English professor, told me ... “The last time I taught ‘The Scarlet Letter,’ I discovered that my students were really struggling to understand the sentences as sentences—like, having trouble identifying the subject and the verb,” she said. “Their capacities are different, and the nineteenth century is a long time ago.”"

Which has me wondering. Are there still young people who can write good stories? Because I would think identifying subjects and verbs would be awful useful in writing. Or will be just be reading GPT-4 stories in the next decade?

For context, these are some of the sentences her students would've been struggling with:

Here, likewise,—the germ of the wrinkle-browed, grizzly-bearded, care-worn merchant,—we have the smart young clerk, who gets the taste of traffic as a wolf-cub does of blood, and already sends adventures in his master’s ships, when he had better be sailing mimic-boats upon a mill-pond.

Indeed, so far as [Salem's] physical aspect is concerned, with its flat, unvaried surface, covered chiefly with wooden houses, few or none of which pretend to architectural beauty,—its irregularity, which is neither picturesque nor quaint, but only tame,—its long and lazy street, lounging wearisomely through the whole extent of the peninsula, with Gallows Hill and New Guinea at one end, and a view of the almshouse at the other,—such being the features of my native town, it would be quite as reasonable to form a sentimental attachment to a disarranged checker-board.

Morally, as well as materially, there was a coarser fibre in those wives and maidens of old English birth and breeding, than in their fair descendants, separated from them by a series of six or seven generations; for, throughout that chain of ancestry, every successive mother has transmitted to her child a fainter bloom, a more delicate and briefer beauty, and a slighter physical frame, if not a character of less force and solidity, than her own.

The door of the jail being flung open from within, there appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and grisly presence of the town-beadle, with a sword by his side, and his staff of office in his hand.

Lastly, in lieu of these shifting scenes, came back the rude market-place of the Puritan settlement, with all the towns-people assembled and levelling their stern regards at Hester Prynne,—yes, at herself,—who stood on the scaffold of the pillory, an infant on her arm, and the letter A, in scarlet, fantastically embroidered with gold-thread, upon her bosom!

It may seem marvellous, that, with the world before her,—kept by no restrictive clause of her condemnation within the limits of the Puritan settlement, so remote and so obscure,—free to return to her birthplace, or to any other European land, and there hide her character and identity under a new exterior, as completely as if emerging into another state of being,—and having also the passes of the dark, inscrutable forest open to her, where the wildness of her nature might assimilate itself with a people whose customs and life were alien from the law that had condemned her,—it may seem marvellous, that this woman should still call that place her home, where, and where only, she must needs be the type of shame.

My reading of that part of the article was not so much "woe, kids these days don't know what a subject and a verb are" but more "they have difficulty identifying the subject and verb in Hawthorne's sentences because his style of English is unfamiliar to a modern reader".

I'm not sure we need to be alarmed about that. Hawthorne has a penchant for very long, complex sentences, often using idioms and vocabulary that would be unfamiliar to most modern readers, a lot of passive voice, and constructions where the grammatical "subject" of the sentence is not the person or thing that the sentence is actually about. I doubt many of us here would find them easy reading.

 

[TheRedChamber]

For context, these are some of the sentences her students would've been struggling with:

My reading of that part of the article was not so much "woe, kids these days don't know what a subject and a verb are" but more "they have difficulty identifying the subject and verb in Hawthorne's sentences because his style of English is unfamiliar to a modern reader".

I'm not sure we need to be alarmed about that. Hawthorne has a penchant for very long, complex sentences, often using idioms and vocabulary that would be unfamiliar to most modern readers, a lot of passive voice, and constructions where the grammatical "subject" of the sentence is not the person or thing that the sentence is actually about. I doubt many of us here would find them easy reading.

In fairness, if I got a file with sentences like that from my beta-reading group, I'd sent it back with a note saying 'I'm out'. I was strongly resisting my editor urge to add full stops by the handful while reading just now.

Never read the Scarlet Letter - are those outliers or is it all like that?

 

[Bramblethorn]

In fairness, if I got a file with sentences like that from my beta-reading group, I'd sent it back with a note saying 'I'm out'. I was strongly resisting my editor urge to add full stops by the handful while reading just now.

Never read the Scarlet Letter - are those outliers or is it all like that?

Somewhere in between. I picked out some of the tougher sentences for those examples, it's not all like that, but there are enough sentences of that ilk that I wouldn't consider them outliers. Story text here if anybody wants to form their own impressions: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25344/25344-h/25344-h.htm

And, yes, I would not encourage any 21st-century author to write in that style unless they're deliberately evoking an archaic feel. Even if they are, it'd need to be balanced against readability.

 

[Emilymcplugger]

Ah yes, "the kids these days aren't learning anything anymore." Nostalgic! I remember this show coming on when I was a kid in the 90s as well.

And the 80’s
And the 70’s
And the 60’s

In fact this goes back to Aristotle’s time and probably beyond. Kids these days are…

a). Lazy
b). Entitled
c). Clueless
d). Unaware of life
e). All of the above.

Pick one answer and show your workings out. (5 marks)

 

[HordHolm]

And the 80’s
And the 70’s
And the 60’s

In fact this goes back to Aristotle’s time and probably beyond. Kids these days are…

a). Lazy
b). Entitled
c). Clueless
d). Unaware of life
e). All of the above.

Pick one answer and show your workings out. (5 marks)

You missed out snowflakes...

 

[Emilymcplugger]

You missed out snowflakes...

I will add it on to the next exam question.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Sorry, no. You are officially ancient. You will now be addressed as Ma'am by everyone younger than you.

I prefer mistress .

Em

 

[MelissaBaby]

A generation that grew up in a nation perpetually at war, lived through two of the worst economic crises in history, survived a once in a century pandemic and has routinely practiced mass shooting drills their whole lives is a bunch of "snowflakes."

Uh huh.

 

[astuffedshirt_perv]

So, are there any successful young authors on Lit? By the timing of the article, we're talking authors in the 18-22 range, I would think. I started posting in my 30's, so I don't know if young people that young would ever get to trying to write.

 

[EmilyMiller]

So, are there any successful young authors on Lit? By the timing of the article, we're talking authors in the 18-22 range, I would think. I started posting in my 30's, so I don't know if young people that young would ever get to trying to write.

I started at 25.

Em

 

[Euphony]

So, are there any successful young authors on Lit? By the timing of the article, we're talking authors in the 18-22 range, I would think. I started posting in my 30's, so I don't know if young people that young would ever get to trying to write.

Of course there are.

Many are hesitant to identify b/c young erotic authors, especially female, are blood in the water to sharks around here.

I'm not naming individuals b/c it's not my place but there are plenty of young contributors to Lit and even the AH specifically.

They bring a unique lens which is highly applicable as sooo many older writers round here love writing younger characters (or "participants" as many don't stretch beyond fetishizing the age)

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I started at 25.

Em

He obviously didn't mean you, grandma

Joking aside, would 18-22 aspiring new authors even consider writing porn? Actually, now when I think a bit more, isn't @AWhoopsieDaisy in this age range?

 

[Euphony]

Joking aside, would 18-22 aspiring new authors even consider writing porn?

Why not? I wouldn't be surprised if there's more writers than Gen xers or what have you at the same age.

Kids are hooked into writing (admittedly not long form) far more than many of us were at that time.

The tools are more at your fingertips, corrections can be made far easier, help is more accessible.

I won't say I have regular interaction with the yutes like some but I've had some in concentrated bunches and they often disprove the stereotypes.

Like we did when older generations lamented our own generational "failings" when we were the young. "Slackers."

 

[EmilyMiller]

Of course there are.

Many are hesitant to identify b/c young erotic authors, especially female, are blood in the water to sharks around here.

No shit!

Em

 

[SeraphNocturne]

So, are there any successful young authors on Lit? By the timing of the article, we're talking authors in the 18-22 range, I would think. I started posting in my 30's, so I don't know if young people that young would ever get to trying to write.

I was writing and present on Literotica at eighteen. I've been around a very long time, this isn't my original account. I'm thirty-two now! So I think it's safe to say that the presence of young erotica writers isn't outrageous. I didn't share my age when I was here so young though, I think that may likely be the case with many teenaged and young-adult erotica authors.