But I've seen precocious preteenagers wipe the floor with fairly elite published writers.
There's an embryonic Oxbridge novel that sees precocious, amoral Hugo Lamb describe his predatory life as a Cambridge undergraduate.
Do people see a precocious child athlete and start shuffling papers, to buy a few years for the kid?
"The funny thing about Pants on Fire is that he is so laid back you wouldn't ever think to see him as precocious as he's acting lately," Breen said.
Everyone could see he was a precocious legal talent.
"I see some of these precocious, high-achieving kids we have at our charter school and I see myself years ago.
Ms. Wilson, you see, had shown a precocious interest -- and talent -- in journalism as a college freshman, but had run into just a few problems with the age-old rules of the trade.
Paddington is released on 28 November Footnotes (1) Any animal entering the UK from outside the EU requires a microchip, a rabies vaccination and up to four months in quarantine (2) Paddington features "dangerous behaviour, mild threat, innuendo, and infrequent mild bad language", according to the BBFC (3) Precocious bears: see Boo-Boo.
Coppola's first feature film, "The Virgin Suicides," which she made five years ago, is increasingly seen as a precocious debut and, among many young women, as a generational statement about suburban life, first love and sexual awakening.
We begin again with Frederica, whom we have seen as a precocious 1950s schoolgirl, a Cambridge student, a bereaved sister, an unhappy and fleetingly battered wife and latterly, as a woman tentatively exploring her own intelligence and will.
