History GenreTurningPoint / Literature

* Samuel Richardson's ''Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded'' (1740) and ''[[Literature/{{Clarissa}} Clarissa; or, The History of a Young Lady]]'' (1748) introduced the concept of serial novels and best-sellers, and made the novel a professional genre across Europe. The EpistolaryNovel, a story narrated in the form of journals and letters, became the dominant literary tradition for the rest of the 1700s, inspiring Creator/JohannWolfgangVonGoethe's ''Literature/TheSorrowsOfYoungWerther''.

* One of the most influential military strategy texts is without a doubt Sun Tzu's ''[[Literature/TheArtOfWarSunTzu The Art of War]]'', not only shaping the entire East and South East Asian war strategy, but also deeply imbedded in every culture that ever came across that region. The text most notably helped the Viet Cong to match the American military in the UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar, which brought the text infamy among Western civilizations.

* One of the most influential military strategy text is without a doubt Sun Tzu's ''[[Literature/TheArtOfWarSunTzu The Art of War]]'', not only shaping the entire East and South East Asian war strategy, but also deeply imbedded in every culture ever came across that region. The text most notably helped the Viet Cong to held off American from the UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar for public opinion to turn against it, which brought the text infamy among western civilizations.

* S. E. Hinton's 1967 novel ''Literature/TheOutsiders'' has been credited with single-handedly inventing YoungAdultLiterature, or at least making it a respectable SubGenre of fiction. When it was published, the Creator/StratemeyerSyndicate and [[FollowTheLeader its imitators]] were still a major force in the American publishing industry, and most books written for adolescents were formulaic, escapist genre fiction, usually written [[ExtrudedBookProduct as installments in indefinitely running series]]. The [[TeenGenius 17-year-old]] Hinton had the advantage of writing from an actual teenage perspective, and set out to write the kind of standalone novel that would actually appeal to serious readers in her own age group. The book's relatively simple prose made it accessible to young readers, but its frank examination of class conflict and gang violence made it possible to take it seriously as a work of literature. There's a reason [[UsefulNotes/SchoolStudyMedia it's still regularly taught in middle school English classes]].

** Rowling also changed the relationship that professional creators had with {{fanfiction}} writers who worked in the worlds they created. Before, fanfic was considered a disreputable hobby that existed in a legal gray area, with many creators regarding it as uncreatively borrowing other people's characters and a violation of copyright on top of it, and as such many fanfic writers had to circulate their work in private networks to avoid getting sued. Rowling, on the other hand, embraced the ''Harry Potter'' fanfic community and expressed hope that some of them would go on to become professional authors in their own right (which quite a few did), and even promoted several fanfic websites; her only guidelines were that it remain strictly amateur and not-for-profit (because otherwise it would be copyright infringement), that it didn't venture into [[{{Lemon}} explicit sexual territory]] (because ''Harry Potter'' was [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids an all-ages book series]]), and that they didn't send it to her directly (because then ''she'' could risk getting sued for [[UsefulNotes/{{Plagiarism}} borrowing canon plot elements from fanfic writers]]). Nowadays, fanfic is an integral part of many fandoms, with major websites like Website/FanFictionDotNet and Website/ArchiveOfOurOwn catering to it, and creators who try to [[ScrewedByTheLawyers sue fanfic authors]] (as Creator/AnneRice, Creator/ArchieComics, and the producers of ''Series/TheXFiles'' did in the past) would nowadays face scrutiny for it.

* S. E. Hinton's 1967 novel ''Literature/TheOutsiders'' has been credited with single-handedly inventing YoungAdultLiterature, or at least making it a respectable sub-genre of fiction. When it was published, the Creator/StratemeyerSyndicate and [[FollowTheLeader its imitators]] were still a major force in the American publishing industry, and most books written for adolescents were formulaic, escapist genre fiction, usually written [[ExtrudedBookProduct as installments in indefinitely running series]]. The [[TeenGenius 17-year-old]] Hinton had the advantage of writing from an actual teenage perspective, and set out to write the kind of standalone novel that would actually appeal to serious readers in her own age group. The book's relatively simple prose made it accessible to young readers, but its frank examination of class conflict and gang violence made it possible to take it seriously as a work of literature. There's a reason [[UsefulNotes/SchoolStudyMedia it's still regularly taught in middle school English classes]].

** Rowling also changed the relationship that content creators had with {{fanfiction}} writers. Before, fanfic was considered a disreputable hobby that existed in a legal gray area, with many creators regarding it as uncreatively borrowing other people's characters and a violation of copyright on top of it, and as such many fanfic writers had to circulate their work in private networks to avoid getting sued. Rowling, on the other hand, embraced the ''Harry Potter'' fanfic community and expressed hope that some of them would go on to become professional authors in their own right (which quite a few did), and even promoted several fanfic websites; her only guidelines were that it remain strictly amateur and not-for-profit (because otherwise it would be copyright infringement), that it didn't venture into [[{{Lemon}} explicit sexual territory]] (because ''Harry Potter'' was [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids an all-ages book series]]), and that they didn't send it to her directly (because then ''she'' could risk getting sued for [[UsefulNotes/{{Plagiarism}} borrowing canon plot elements from fanfic writers]]). Nowadays, fanfic is an integral part of many fandoms, with major websites like Website/FanFictionDotNet and Website/ArchiveOfOurOwn catering to it, and content creators who try to [[ScrewedByTheLawyers sue fanfic authors]] (as Creator/AnneRice, Creator/ArchieComics, and the producers of ''Series/TheXFiles'' did in the past) would nowadays face scrutiny for it.
* Creator/ELJames' 2011 novel ''Literature/FiftyShadesOfGrey'' was a turning point in the mainstreaming of fanfiction as a literary endeavor that, [[CriticProof while still not taken seriously]] as literature by professional critics, at least had mass appeal. A SerialNumbersFiledOff version of James' erotic ''[[Literature/TheTwilightSaga Twilight]]'' fanfic ''Master of the Universe'', ''Fifty Shades'' proved to be a literary blockbuster on par with the books it was based on, reaching well beyond fanfic's historic demographic of young {{fangirl}}s as everyone from suburban moms to old ladies to morning talk show hosts read and talked about its salacious content. James was hardly the first published author to start out in fanfic, but her success proved that they didn't have to spend their careers toiling in either obscurity or the SciFiGhetto, and the 2010s saw a wave of fanfic writers (especially in young adult literature, even if ''Fifty Shades'' most certainly ''wasn't'' for that demographic) who went on to write bestsellers.

* Creator/JohnWCampbell, a popular science fiction writer and magazine editor, is generally credited by Creator/IsaacAsimov, Creator/ArthurCClarke, Creator/RobertAHeinlein, and other science fiction writers of the mid-20th century as being responsible for nurturing their talents and for bringing a higher standard of storytelling to the science fiction genre, which had previously consisted mostly of {{utopia}}n literature, stories of aliens and fantastic gadgets, and {{space Western}}s. Genre historians often date the beginning of science fiction's GoldenAge as being 1937, the year Campbell assumed editorship of ''[[Magazine/{{Analog}} Astounding Science Fiction]]'' magazine.

** While YoungAdultLiterature had existed for decades, ''Harry Potter'' turned it into a pop culture phenomenon that's often credited with almost single-handedly restoring interest in reading among younger generations. It also proved that books written for children didn't have to be watered-down to the point of being stripped of all their depth, especially once later books started [[DarkerAndEdgier growing up with their readers]]. Without ''Harry Potter'', the likes of ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' and ''Literature/TheHungerGames'' would never have been as successful as they were.

* Creator/ELJames' 2011 novel ''Literature/FiftyShadesOfGrey'' was a turning point in the mainstreaming of fanfiction as a literary endeavor that, [[CriticProof while still not taken seriously]] as literature by professional critics, at least had mass appeal. A SerialNumbersFiledOff version of James' erotic ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' fanfic ''Master of the Universe'', ''Fifty Shades'' proved to be a literary blockbuster on par with the books it was based on, reaching well beyond fanfic's historic demographic of young {{fangirl}}s as everyone from suburban moms to old ladies to morning talk show hosts read and talked about its salacious content. James was hardly the first published author to start out in fanfic, but her success proved that they didn't have to spend their careers toiling in either obscurity or the SciFiGhetto, and the 2010s saw a wave of fanfic writers (especially in young adult literature, even if ''Fifty Shades'' most certainly ''wasn't'' for that demographic) who went on to write bestsellers.

** Wu Jingzi's [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scholars_(novel) The Scholars]] might not influential on a plot and characters scale, but it is extremely important for the development of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_vernacular_Chinese Baihua]] - the simplified written vernacular version of Chinese.

* One of the most influential military strategy text is without a doubt Sun Tzu's ''[[Literature/TheArtOfWarSunTzu The Art of War]]'', not only shaping the entire East and South East Asian war strategy, but also deeply imbedded in every culture ever came across that region. Most notably helped Vietnam to held off American from the UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar for public opinion to turn against it, which brought the text infamy among western civilizations.