What Makes a Classic?

A week to go before the semi-organized insanity known as NaNo I haven't yet reactivated my account, but it's on the agenda--yes, once again, the hermit shall be NaNo-ing.

Comes the question, then: writing what?

NaNo’s rules are few, but rules there are:

**the goal is to write 50K of a single novel begun no sooner than one second into the day of Nov 1.**

So I can't pick up one of my unfinished works, I have to start something new. Usually, I go for something completely unpublishable, just for the fun of it; last year, I wrote a male-sub transformational piece. No magic, no fantasy, no romance--that is, none of my standards--just a chance to explore an experience and a character that had happened to occur to me.

I had a blast. Which is the point to NaNo. If I could find a publisher interested, you can bet I'd carve out some time to polish that manuscript!--but even without that, the story was fun to write. And that's what NaNo is about.

This year, I've fallen far behind on my personal goals; illness has sidelined me too damned many times, and all the bits of life that get backed up when one is sick have stolen much of my writing time and energy. So I'd really like to get at least one more submittable-quality manuscript finished this year. Two would be good. (Do I hear three?)

But it's not necessarily going to happen during November. NaNo is for fun! Some years, I've gone into it with no idea for a story; other years, I've had characters and settings; once, even a sketchy sort of outline. This year, as I often do, I have a question to explore:

What makes a classic--and how long does that label remain?

Why is "The Cold Equations" so enduring, when "Eve and the Twenty-Three Adams" is already less a warning than an historical curiosity?* What makes Nedra Tyre's "Recipe for a Happy Marriage" and Donald Westlake’s "Nackles" so very popular and so frequently, deservedly, reprinted, while Susan Casper's "Under Her Skin" remains more or less a cult favorite?

Of the stories that have endured into our time, which shall be carried into the future? And why?

Picture if you will a far-future library, with a section of "Classic Literature circa 1950-2050" What books or stories might you see? What about "Classic (Genre)" instead of the dates? Pride and Prejudice is still popular now; shall it always continue to be? Poe, I've no doubt, makes it onto the first colony starships headed Outbound, as does Shakespeare, I think. Who else goes along for that ride?

Alice, probably. What about Harry? What makes a classic, and how long before that label expires?

Next month, that question shall obtain a narrower focus, at least to me. To wit: at some minutes past midnight, when my NaNo character takes her first pixel-dust-laden breath, what titles shall she see?

I can't wait to find out!

Happy NaNo-ing!

--

pxj


*If you don't know all about Eve, you must not spend enough time with me! I rant about that story regularly.