Tom Clancy was one of the last best writers of our era, in my humble opinion.

Though his wiki page doesn't include his artistic development as a writer, he was a true wordsmith. I've been researching writers published in the 80's/90's because, like Clancy, they have a clear style, excellent grasp of cause and effect, and the balance of logic and creativity that creative writing demands and that is hard to find these days. Indeed, too many modern fiction books are written by people who don't have the fundamentals down. In a nutshell: their sentences don't make sense.

It doesn't help that the publishing world has been taken over by the left. Today, many publishing houses are requesting stories with strong female leads or LQBTQ leads rather than just hunting down good stories. Is it any wonder that there are so many badly written or contrived stories? No.

Writing is a craft that can be learned, yet so many of today's teachers of the craft can't teach technique. However, if you look at How to Write books pre-1960, you will find the clear and concise guidance to the craft IF you can get your hands on them.

Some writers worry that AI will take over storywriting. IMHO, it won't happen for a long long time in fiction. The human mind is far superior when it comes to fiction. Journalistic writing, on the other hand….well, AI is already making inroads.