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@theaardvark Sir Terry used to joke that the "services to literature" that earned him a knighthood were refraining from attempting any. But that was a joke.

@theaardvark to really throw the cat amongst the pigeons...

Nobody "writes" a classic. People write what they write. It's the readers that make a classic a classic.

Pratchett wrote what he wanted to write, and when people started enjoying his writing he started writing more of what he wrote. He wrote the stories he wanted to tell in the style his readers enjoyed.

So, basically, in other words, the same as what Shakespeare did.

@theaardvark "The press waited. It looked now like a great big beast. Soon he’d throw a lot of words into it. And in a few hours it would be hungry again, as if those words had never happened. You could feed it, but you could never fill it up."

Terry Pratchett, The Truth

@theaardvark "Be careful. People like to be told what they already know. Remember that. They get uncomfortable when you tell them new things. New things…well, new things aren’t what they expect. They like to know that, say, a dog will bite a man. That is what dogs do. They don’t want to know that a man bites a dog, because the world is not supposed to happen like that. In short, what people think they want is news, but what they really crave is olds."

Terry Pratchett, The Truth

@theaardvark Did the Spectator ever write anything of value?

No, says everyone.

@theaardvark

"Even he would have been doubtful."

This sounds like the time some random person online tried to explain what Terry Pratchett's novels really meant, to someone who was obviously wrong.

The person who was supposed to be wrong?

Rhianna Pratchett. Terry Pratchett's daughter.

@theaardvark wow, shit news day at Spectator much?

@theaardvark
Obviously yes. But which are in your top five?

If not you, who else?

@theaardvark
IMO the insult is in the word "even" in the sub-heading.

@theaardvark I am a bit ambivalent about this... on the one hand... yes... on the other hand... aren't classics supposed to be... old? (and so the people remembering them coming out...)

@tfiebig @theaardvark

well, there is the Mark Twain definition:

“′Classic′ - a book which people praise and don't read.”

for cars and musical instruments, i think vintage and classic are used mostly interchangeably and it's 25 years?

the first discworld book came out in 1983, so 42 years ago. i'd call it a classic and the answer to life, the universe, and everything. :)