Writer's Fallout Shelter

Of course it depends on what you're trying to write - and I agree, if you can read, you can research anything and you can get a good feel for what works and what doesn't in writing (a sense of style, if you will).

But I don't think a ten year old can write a convincing scene in which a husband comes home and announces to his wife of twenty years that he wants a divorce. He can write it from the POV of a ten year old watching daddy deliver the bad news to mom, maybe - but he's not likely to truly empathize with the characters facing the end of a long-term, committed, romantic relationship unless he's dated, loved, and lost. That doesn't mean he has to be a divorced man to write it - he just has to have lived a little longer and experienced some similar loss, or had close friends who did confide in him.

That said, there may be a very remarkable ten year old who proves to be the exception to the rule. I'm just saying it's not very likely.

I do believe that experience is the best teacher - and I do think getting outside of your own hometown helps. Observing a wide variety of people from different socio-economic backgrounds and cultures helps, too. We don't all share the same emotions and we don't all react the same way to the same things.

I actually think acting classes help, too. ;)

What we adults lack in creativity comes, in large part, from losing absolute faith in our ability to make stuff up and have others fall for it.