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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Grumpy Celt" data-source="post: 2460272" data-attributes="member: 1019">(Grumpy Celt screams like a girly-man in stark terror)[/joking]I would like to say something in the defense of J.K.R., or at least to ask a non-rhetorical question.How do you define innovative?A number of people here have commented that she is not an innovative write. Well, please (A) Define what it means to be an innovative writer,  (B) Explain why she does not qualify(C) Name some writers who are innovative writers,No, I do not find her work to be ground breaking. However, I do believe it is well written – at least well written enough to finish reading it.I forget specifics, but there was a science fiction writer who once said that 90 percent of science fiction was bad, but then 90 percent of everything (including fantasy fiction) is bad. I am inclined to agree.It is not so much that fantasy fiction is full of “knights and ladies morris-dancing to Greensleeves,*” however much of it is not worth the time to read it or the money to buy the copy of the book. Either the plot is poorly thought out, the characters are poorly developed, the setting is poorly illustrated (in terms of descriptive text, not drawings) or there problems with grammar and spelling, or a combination of one or more of these issues.(And be honest – how many fantasy fiction stories are set is some pseudo-Middle Ages setting, with some order of knights or warriors, some order of wizards or magic users and pretty people imperiled by dark powers?)These same problems all appear in traditional** drama, suspense and mystery writing, however the nature of speculative fiction (science fiction and fantasy fiction) tends to make these problems stand out more than it does in a simply story of the bank foreclosing on a farm.In any event, it is debatable how innovative any writer can truly be considering humanity has been telling stories since we wandered out of the jungle 100,000 odd years ago. We probably stopped having entirely new stories, or anything truly innovative, about the time we domesticated dogs.However, stories can be well executed in terms of plot, characters, setting, grammar, spelling and pure style. J.K.R. has has managed to accomplish that and that is part of the reason for her commercial success.Innovative? No, but few are and the weakest of the series (Chamber of Secrets) is still a better read than piles of other books.* This image strikes me as so funny I hope some comic or humorist does a parody of it.** I tend to read more non-fiction than fiction these days, and non-fiction has the same problems.</blockquote>

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