If you're going to spend time writing and creating, I think it's good to take an honest look at what you do well and what you don't. Many of those things are subjective - is there a scientific way to break down good character creation? Probably. Do I know what it is? No. Do I know it when I see it? Sometimes. Let me start with something I don't do well: Proper character maturity.

Now there isn't a universal way any age group acts. I have raised 2 and one half boys (one is still a teen) and they were all three very, very different. My oldest was as stubborn as a conference call is long, was many times stubborn for the sake of being stubborn and focused on 'getting his way'; sometimes to the point of ruining an entire day or more. Very smart, but bored in school. Would read in class rather than do the work, yet do well enough on tests to pass.

My middle son couldn't tell the truth if all he had to do was point and tell you what he saw. He saw his older brother not doing work and followed suit, only to fail the test as well. His status as a teenager was, in his opinion, reason enough to avoid consequences for dumb behavior. He was caught on camera leaving the school and still denied it was him.

My youngest will talk to you, mostly one on one, and think about things and circle back later with thought out conclusions. He's always tried to avoid trouble and was the type to learn from his older brother's mistakes. He's grown into some messiness and still needs guidance, but is a far different person from either of his two brothers. He's begun to consider life beyond high school before exiting the 10th grade, he's thinking about the practicalities of owning a cor once he turns 16 and can pursue his license.

So this is were I get back to character maturity. It's a frequent - and honest - knock on the characters I write. For what it's worth, I generally agree. The problem is...I don't do dumb well. Allow me to explain. I don't think of myself as an over intelligent person - one of my biggest faults is that I think if I know it, you must know it because I don't possess especially specialized knowledge. Yet when I watch shows (not as much anymore) like The Fosters or Love, Victor (which I enjoyed, outside of the coming criticism) I sit in my chair and cringe from second hand embarrassment at the absolute stupidity written into younger characters. Now if we think back to High School in our late teens, there were definite 'warning sign' people. They sold weed or thought they were the epitome of cool for bringing a flask to school. They dyed their hair or had many piercings. They smoked and maybe had what many of us might call a jailhouse tattoo. Later in life we'd run into them - they were just out of rehab. They were just out of jail (and had usually found Jesus). They were working at the convenience store - clerk, not a department head or anything. In short they never recovered from their thinking and behavior as a youth.

There were some kids we thought would make it for sure, who just went into average things and didn't 'make it big'. They got jobs with the state, had too many kids to retire early, but were maybe happy enough people.

My point in all this is, some kids are more mature than we realize. Not all, not the percentage I write, but I don't know how to write those dumb decisions that we see constantly happening on shows with teen characters where they get a light bulb over their head and decide to do something so colossally stupid they should win a Darwin Award. Of course there can be a fine line between doing something stupid and something that seems correct in the moment, but that's a whole other thing. Does that constitute a bad thing in writing? It can, certainly. It hurts the true voice of that generation - if you read a story from someone who is closer to that age group you'll see a different thought process, if one is presented, and a completely different rationale - in fact sometimes a lack of thought about consequences at all. Perhaps that's the secret, to write a younger character more believably you have to sacrifice the idea of self-preservation? Many times a character that grows up in poverty tends to stay in poverty. They make the same mistakes their parents do, because that's their example no matter if they think themselves better than their parents.

As far as what I do well, I'd say it's the dialogue for the most part. Language changes and the words younger generations use - even fleetingly - is usually very different from the language older adults use (even those that wouldn't identify themselves in that category). That in particular is hard to nail down and in no way would I say it's perfect - in fact it even would change from area to area in the country. But I do enjoy the exchanges characters can have, the funny moments or one liners. Some scenes will still make me smile years later - like Meet The Parents from the Sanitaria Springs episodes. I also enjoy my older, cranky characters. They can get away with saying things that others cannot. On the page it's funny, in real life...maybe not.

However I do think that the dialogue, sometimes between parent and child as shown in my latest serial that is making it's way through editing now, the conversations between parent and child. The teaching moments where a parent tries to find a way to lead the child to understanding rather than trying to 'square peg, round hole' them into a 'because I said so' situation. I always thought, when we decided to adopt, that older kids would be better because they could understand what was being explained and could then proceed from that point. I'm 1 for 3 on that. Well, 2 for 3 as my oldest has circled back as an adult and shared that there are things I said to him in those conversations that are of help to him now. So we don't always know when they are listening, like we don't always know what's in their head (even though 1 in 3 is that space is empty).

The bottom line is, if you're going to write it's a good idea to make some honest assessments based on your own observations and the things other people tell you about what you wrote. Only you can decide if what you write, after that reflection, is acceptable - but it's always a good idea to listen and look at it with an honest appraisal.