The Greatest Writer OF ALL TIME!!!

[WhiteCrowNZ]

I just felt like NOW THATS WHAT I CALL MUSIC needs capitals, so does the "of all time".

Anyway - tonight I seem to have been looking through a few writers on Google and Wikipedia. Elsewhere we've got a chat about Pip and Jane Baker going on.

I know Joss Whedon and Stephen Moffat are held in acclaim for anything they do. JK Rowling is one of the most popular - but one of the best? Shakespeare was great for his time but has he dated?

Whether they write for books or TV, who do you think are the greatest writers of all time?

[SiHart]

My goodness how do you choose? I mean I heavn't even skimmed the surface of every writer who's ever written, so I couldn't even begin to work it out.

I might be better off with a favourite writer, but i dpn't know who the Greatest Writer OF ALL TIME! is...

Si xx

[MacNimon]

It all really comes down to a matter of taste, doesn't it? Many would say Shakespeare or Robert Burns or one of the other historical writers such as HG Wells or RL Stevenson but I think that to be great you also have to be truly enjoyable to a large modern audience as well.

Admittedly both Shakespeare and Burns have followers these days but I wouldn't consider them mainstream. Although it could be argued that being mainstream is an agument against being considered great...

Where do you actually start on a question like this?

[Jeff]

It's Stephen King. Next topic...

[Paul Monk]

Its obviously Dan Brown.


Nope I can't even type that and keep a straight face.

[Rob McCow]

Wu Cheng En. The grand master - the creator of MONKEY!!!

[WhiteCrowNZ]

It's ironic I've set this thread off without putting in my own 10cents. Just been busy.

It is as people have said a tough question. I think mainly I set this off cos in my mind there is a gulf of difference between "the best writer" and those who sell the most books. Otherwise it'd probably be some kind of Barbara Cartland type ...

Then again I'm not really going to champion someone obscure whose works are kind of impenatrable and use archaic language ... and thus is probably highly rated by the Guardian.

Personally to me one of the greatest writers has to be Terry Pratchett. There are several yardsticks I'd measure his ability on ...
* his books mirror our own world and have all kind of clever and witty satire throughout.
* his stories have clever twists, but don't rely too much on just the twists

Ironically for someone who was originally called "the Douglas Adams of fantasy", his humour and output is very different. I know Douglas Adams suffered some depression over the fact he felt he'd written so little, whereas Terry has a very workmanlike attitude to writing, pretty much churning out 2 books a year regularly.

Of course there are flaws - he's written a great series of books, and his output is consistently good. But is there a "masterpiece"? I'm not sure there is. And also his characters often kind of feel slightly more characture than proper characters at time.

But in my mind, one of the writing greats ...