Shockley
Maester
As to whether or not I'm being elitist, well, there's nothing inherently wrong with being elitist. It's just how you personally interpret that label.
Isn't that a bit reductionist?
I wouldn't break it down in those terms, but essentially.
If you're trying to find out what defines good food, do you go to someone who eats exclusively at McDonald's or Anthony Bourdain?
If you're trying to find out what defines good film, do you ask Michael Bey or Frederico Fellini?
I don't know what you mean. I'm only saying, if you can make a value judgement about what features are considered good writing, we can develop objective metrics about which groups agree that a writing posses those features and to what extent. From that evidence, we can draw objective conclusions about the quality of a book.
Ah, but you are axiomatically declaring that certain features are "good" writing. Why do those features get to be called "good" and others don't?
People who don't read or like fantasy much will enjoy them into their adult years, but I think anyone who's actually interested in the genre will be able to find something much, much better.
I'm not. I'm saying that however you define "good," those qualities can be measured. It's like saying Boston is a "big city." It's subjective, until you define "big."
However, once you break down the data, you will probably see clear trends that will redefine your notion of good and bad writing. For instance - and I'm just guessing, based a little on other discussions - you might find a "plain" main character reaches more people because a more distinct one is unrelatable to many people.
I'm not making a decision about whether the book is good or not, I'm saying that it's possible the conversation can be moved to an objective measure of the various qualities a book possesses.
Very true. And the whole taste and preference thing muddles the issue even further. I'm sure that Crowley passage was well-written, but I got bored after the first paragraph. I'm not much for poetry.
I think in theory you could categorize writing on a plane or sort of biaxial continuum or sliding scale. On one axis you have "good" vs "bad" and on another axis you have "fun" vs "boring". This gives you four extremes: totally epic, good-but-boring aka "the classic", so-bad-it's-good aka "the farce", and utterly worthless, aka "OMG WTF IS THIS I DON'T EVEN".
The problem with this is that everyone skews those axes differently, and it's extremely difficult to find a truly objective viewpoint from which to relativize all others.