Write a Modern Classic

3 Easy Steps

Immortality need not be a life-long pursuit. Become one of the greats, today.

Step 1) Write.

Don’t get the idea that this article is entirely tongue-in-cheek. I have serious questions. While studying the classics, we can’t help but wonder a few things. First, what makes writing worth remembering? To find that answer we must study the greats that came before. If only there was a Substack where we could read these stories and analyze them for the meaning we might miss on the first pass. Oh, wait. That’s Deeper Stories! Imagine. Who knew the article would take such a shocking turn?

I asked X (Twitter) what books they consider modern classics. They suggested a few, and I’ve listed every single one here, even a Dan Brown.

• 1984,

• 2666,

• Accomplice quartet,

• All God’s Children,

• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay,

• American Gods,

• The Andromeda Strain,

• At Swim, Two Boys,

• Atonement,

• Austerlitz,

• Between Two Fires,

• The Bell Jar,

• Belladonna,

• Beloved,

• Bitter Lemons,

• Black Leopard, Red Wolf,

• Blindsight,

• Blood Meridian,

• Bourne,

• Breasts and Eggs,

• Brutes,

• Carpentaria,

• Catch-22,

• Cherry,

• Children of Men,

• City of Bohane,

• Cloud Atlas,

• Cloud Cuckoo Land,

• Confessions of the Fox,

• Cosmopolis,

• The Cruel Sea,

• The Da Vinci Code,

• Dark Matter,

• Darkness at Noon,

• The Devil All the Time,

• Dragonflight,

• The Easter Parade,

• The Elementary Particles,

• The Employees,

• Ender’s Game,

• Europe Central,

• Fahrenheit 451,

• The Farthest Shore,

• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,

• A Feast of Snakes,

• The Fifth Wound,

• A Fine Balance,

• The First Law trilogy,

• The Flame Throwers,

• Flesh and Blood,

• Fly Already,

• Foster,

• A Fraction of the Whole,

• Frankenstein in Baghdad,

• A Gentleman in Moscow,

• Ghost Wall,

• Gilead,

• The Giver series,

• Gone Girl,

• Gravity’s Rainbow,

• The Great Gatsby,

• Hangman,

• Harrow,

• The Haunting of Hill House,

• Heir to the Glimmering World,

• A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,

• The Hours,

• Hurricane Season,

• Hyperion,

• Imperial,

• In the Fall,

• Interview with a Vampire,

• Into the Wild,

• Jesus’ Son,

• Killers of The Flower Moon,

• The Kite Runner,

• The Known World,

• The Last Pomegranate Tree,

• The Last Samurai,

• Let the Great World Spin,

• The Lost Scrapbook,

• Lathe of Heaven,

• Life of Pi,

• Lonesome Dove,

• The Lord of the Rings,

• The Map and the Territory,

• Mason & Dixon,

• Matterhorn,

• Middle G,

• Milkman,

• Mudbound,

• My Brilliant Friend,

• My Sister the Serial Killer,

• The Name of the Rose,

• The Neapolitan Quartet,

• Night,

• The Night Watchman,

• Open Water,

• On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,

• The Other Name,

• The Outsiders,

• Pachinko,

• The Passenger,

• Perdido Street Station,

• The Plains,

• A Prayer for Owen Meany,

• The Quick and the Dead,

• Remainder,

• The Remains of the Day,

• The Road,

• The Royal Family,

• Sabbath’s Theater,

• The Secret of Ventriloquism,

• Seiobo There Below,

• The Sellout,

• The Septology,

• The Shadow of the Wind,

• She Rides Shotgun,

• Silence of the Girls,

• Small Things Like These,

• So Beautiful and Elastic,

• The Son,

• The Sot-Weed Factor,

• The Southern Reach trilogy,

• The Stand,

• Suttree,

• Texaco,

• Ti Amo,

• The Time of Our Singing,

• The Tombs of Atuan,

• Watership Down,

• We Have Always Lived in the Castle,

• We Were Witches,

• What Belongs to You,

• When We Cease to Understand the World,

• Where the Red Fern Grows,

• White Teeth,

• Winter's Bone,

• A Wizard of Earthsea,

• A Wrinkle in Time,

• Your Face Tomorrow trilogy

I’ve linked to as many of the books as I could find at bookshop.org where you can find out more. Bookshop.org allows you to shop online while supporting the local small bookstore of your choice. Shopping through the links provided also helps support my efforts here.

In the comments, tell me which of these books you’d most like to see me review, and then…

Study the classics.

Read your contemporaries.

Practice your craft.

I often think of a writer interview I saw years ago. I have no idea who the author was, but the interviewer asked if he thought most contemporary novels would fade from memory. The author said yes. The interviewer grew visibly excited and asked why. The author deflated him immediately, saying: “The majority of works from any era fade from memory.”

What we call “the classics” is that subsection of great fiction that we still talk about today. How does a work achieve that status?

Step 3) Find your champion.

The Lost Generation had the salon of Gertrude Stein; Ezra Pound impacted several great authors including T.S. Elliot and James Joyce; Raymond Weaver resurrected Moby Dick; and Max Brod championed Kafka.

Most of the writers on Substack share fiction for free. When you like something, say something. We need to be purposeful in building a culture of support.

Out of that support, we’ll occasionally have the opportunity to lift someone up or be helped by someone who’s in a position to lift us to the next level.

If you have a book / literary / fiction-based Substack and would like to join a group I’m gathering together to support one another’s efforts, check us out here: The Literary Salon.

1. Write

2. Subscribe

3. Support the fiction you love.

Three easy steps.

Speaking of which, while you’re here, have you read my short story?

The Sphinx and Ernest Hemingway

Thank you, and I'll see you next time.

Thaddeus Thomas

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