Falling in love isn’t just about romance. It’s about discovering new parts of yourself.
If an adult wrote this couple of sentences, I could ask them what they were talking about, and maybe hear a story about their personal love life. That would almost certainly be interesting—even if expressed in clunky language.
If a nine-year old wrote the same, I wouldn’t be so sure they knew what they were talking about, but I’d hold out hope for a charming anecdote about what they learned from their first crush.
But if I learned the nine-year-old had concluded it solely based on skimming all the books about love in their school library, then I would smile to myself and think, “Ah, how innocent: to write about love without having experienced it for oneself.”
If an adult wrote this couple of sentences, I could ask them what they were talking about, and maybe hear a story about their personal love life. That would almost certainly be interesting—even if expressed in clunky language.
If a nine-year old wrote the same, I wouldn’t be so sure they knew what they were talking about, but I’d hold out hope for a charming anecdote about what they learned from their first crush.
But if I learned the nine-year-old had concluded it solely based on skimming all the books about love in their school library, then I would smile to myself and think, “Ah, how innocent: to write about love without having experienced it for oneself.”