/lit/ - Literature

Writing a college paper on the topic above (I chose the topic a long time ago since I'm writing a fantasy novel as we speak).

Basically, I have the academic side down pat, but I wish to go over the artistic side of the debate with you guys. I devised a set of steps in becoming a great author: Read, Critique, Write, Revise, and Market. All of these things one can learn quite easily in any classroom or YouTube video. But I wish to learn the artistic sides of these things.

Why? The homogenization of public schools and even creative writing classes--as well as our modern media as a whole--has blurred the lines behind what makes great art, or great entertainment.

With all that said, I wish to ask you guys the following questions:

1. As we read, what value is there for an author to read outside their personal preferences? How and why? Any examples?

2. As we read, we hope to develop an objective critical frame of mind. From an artistic perspective, why is it important for an author to discriminate between the good and the bad in developing your taste and prose?

3. After all the reading and critiquing, now we can get started on writing whatever we want to write. Outside of the homogenization process of academia, how can a creative writer compartmentalized all that they learned into their own unique vision? What questions should they ask when writing their novel?

4. My personal philosophy is to write for yourself, then revise and edit for others. Aside from the edits you'd think of when writing an essay for school, how should an author condense their vision to best be consumed and understood by their audiences? How much leeway ought a writer leave to the reader's imagination?

5. I believe the name is an author is a brand first and foremost. Though this area seems almost exclusively an academic exercise, is there an artistic side to marketing that an author can use in promoting their works to the masses? How? Please be specific.

Finally, any closing pieces of advice in the further enhancement of both the artistic and academic sides of literary writing?

As serious a discussion as one can expect from 4chan.

How do you define a great author?

What is it about their literary works that make them great? Any examples?

Can great literary writing be taught? If so, how?

Please be honest here. And for the record, I honestly don't care about genre here, so long as it's fiction. Nonfiction, in my honest opinion, is a separate discussion for another time.