Quote:
Originally Posted by eschwartz
Now it does seem to me as though you've said at least one of the definitions of Literary is anything that defines or redefines a particular form of writing, thus influencing many others in how they write.
You agree Christie did that, yet you directly compare Christie and Pratchett on the grounds that both were formulaic writers who therefore didn't innovate anything.
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You're right, the posts you've quoted above do sound a little contradictory. Let me try to elaborate a little:
Christie was innovative in the sense that she devised a new literary genre: the English country house murder mystery. She was formulaic in the sense that pretty much all her books then followed the innovation she had originally come up with.
What is less clear to me, and perhaps you have a view on this, is whether Pratchett can be said to have been an innovator in a similar way? He wrote extremely good comic fantasy, but many other people had written comic fantasy before him. Did he define or redefine that particular form of writing, do you think?