I am finally posting this topic though I have forgotten to do it for a while.

What Varon said here made me think. viewtopic.php?f=20&t=5134&start=20


I don't think that you can really compare two great books that way. The Dark Sea Annals and the Lord of the Rings are two very different series written in two different styles and voices written by two separate authors of two different times. And the characters are very different than the characters in the other series and the worlds are actually different too.

They may both be great series but I don't think it's for us to say one is better than the other except to say that you enjoyed one series more than the other.

This is the same with every other book series. Everyone is different so everyone's book is different (unless there is plagiarism involved).

We can't say one book is better than the other any more than we can say one person is better than another. Just as "nothing is new under the sun" (including stories), all men and women are created equal.
But everyone is different.

The Auralia Thread series is my favorite series, but one of my best friends didn't like the first book as much as I did. One book series may be better than another in my opinion, but everyone is too different for us to know in fact what is better than that?
I don't think I would be happy if my book series was talked about or that another book series that I didn't like was better than mine. I also wouldn't like my series to be called better than someone else's.

What do you think?

Hmmm... I'm not so sure... Because to compare the two book series you were discussing, I like the Dark Sea Annals more, but I think LotR is a better book.... I guess generally when I'm thinking about if a book is better, what I'm considering is which is better literature, which may be different from your definition. So then I believe LotR is better literature, even though I may like some books from the past ten years better... Anyways, there's my thoughts about what a 'better' book is and how I would define it...

Someone started a thread from a comment I made...
Wow.

It probably depends on what qualities you judge a book by. For LotR, for example, it's a narrative. I can't connect with the characters in a narrative. I'm to far away. I don't get to know them very well. If I don't know them, I can't really care about them.

Books are as comparable as people, because at the heart of every great story is an individual who has poured their heart and soul into their work. So naturally no two books are created equal (ignoring plagiarism of course). Now, that's not to say you can't make comparisons, such as genre, literary merit, structure of world and plot, etc., but those comparisons will naturally lead to different conclusions. I think fruit is a good analogy. A common theme runs through apples, strawberries, watermelon, etc, but when viewed as a whole, they're completely different. Same with stories.

Oh, and by the way, because people are as varied as books, their opinions about those book will be even more diverse. And in terms of qualifying one series or book as better than others, that's difficult because everyone's definition of what "better" is, varies. Technically speaking, some books have "better" design, format, plot structure, characterization, but that doesn't draw a definitive line. Most literary critics thought LOTR was a failure, but readers seem to think otherwise.

I think we, as writers, should strive to be different from everyone else, because in so doing, we're staying faithful to our own unique style. Are we Tolkien or Lewis? Of course not. So don't try to be. That's the lesson I learned, and as I've grown in my skill and distanced myself from copying (I use the term loosely), I've found that my writing has improved. As you said, Emilyn, comparing your book to another book is just a recipe for disaster. Qualifiers such as "in the vein of" or "in the tradition of" etc. can be helpful to give a general idea of what readers can expect, but even those break down after a point because in the end, your book is special and different because you are.

And that's my ramble for the week.