(Plot+Characters)*Voice^2=Literature?

[Boromir88]

"plug and chug"

My Geometry teacher would say the same thing!!!

Anyway...

His use of "archaic" language too has, I believe, been criticised as inappropriate in a "modern" novel. I am sure that there are other examples.

Very true SpM, I remember Tolkien having trouble with them editors. With the whole "Elfin" "Elfish" fiasco.
I say Elfin you say Elven. I say Elfish you say Elvish.

There's two keys to being a "good," author, as I was taught. You either "go with the flow," and continue on with the popular trend at the time. Whatever the literary trend be at that time you continue to write in that fashion, and tweak it just a bit to your own likings.

Or you do something completely opposite from the trend and just go off on your own thing. Sometimes people want to see something knew, and therefor it starts your own trend. For example:
The Reformation thinkers wrote about how we are born being capable of evil and it was society, government, laws that kept us being "good."
The next literary change brought something totally opposite, called "romanticism." They believed we are born good but it is society, government, laws, that corrupt us.