Random Thoughts · 11:07pm Apr 1st, 2021
In my estimation there are about 4 tiers of fiction writers.
First, there's the writers who aren't good: whether they merely lack talent or experience, or are genuinely and hopelessly terrible, doesn't matter; I group them all together. This is the group that isn't worth reading for any reason whatsoever.
Second, writers who are good, that is, "fairly" or "pretty" good. They have talent, they know how to spin out engaging plots and readable dialogue. These are people like Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, C.S. Lewis, most of your best Fimfic writers, and so on.
Third, there's your great writers, the ones who typically win the Nobel Prize, or are on the level of the Nobel Prize. These are people like Steinbeck, Hemingway, Camus, Bulgakov, Harper Lee, Dickens, and so on. They are very good, maybe even geniuses, but are still human and are recognized as such.
Fourth, there's your god-level writers: Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Goethe, et cetera. Most will tell you it's not worth bothering trying to surpass these guys. They are treated as literary gods, the talents of whom seemingly remain far beyond human reckoning, with a unique prodigiousness that only comes once every hundred or so years. They unambiguously are geniuses in every sense of the word.
To give you a clearer idea: you typically have a set of rules and/or standards for good writing—what makes a character believable, what makes for good pacing, what kind of plot structure you should use, and so on. These 4th-tier writers stand above these rules and standards, if only because they're the ones who are creating and defining them. They exist in their own space.
I'm easily first.