My Favorite Author is a Hack
Five years ago I made a list of bestselling authors who I thought were hacks. Almost all of these authors are still writing bestsellers, even those who are now deceased.
My favorite hack from five years ago is still alive and writing, but I won’t read his books anymore. I tried his new book a few months ago and I could have sworn I’d read it before, even though it had just come out. He’s still my favorite hack, though. I’ll always give him that.
If you call a writer a hack, this is the response you might get. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“Is it just me, or has Stephen King become a hack?” I asked a bunch of my peers in a writer’s group a few years ago.
I’m often surprised at what makes people snap. I had figured that if I stayed away from politics and religion in my group’s post-writing-critique discussion, that we would be safe from any potential group-splitting controversy.
I was expecting an even-handed response (you know, because we writers have such stable personalities).
Instead, another writer snapped at me, saying, “Stephen King has forgotten more about writing than you’ll ever know.”
That was true, and it was kind of my point. Yes, Stephen King had indeed forgotten a lot about writing, and he was demonstrating that in his recent novels.
When I had started that discussion moments earlier, I was just asking…
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Dysfunctional Literacy 