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Friday, November 15, 2013

Thoughts about being a hack

Good morning all! It has been awhile so I thought I would begin the day with a post. So, let's talk about being a hack.

What is a hack? A hack was a writer who was paid to crank out low grade literature, be it true crime novels, or pot boilers. They got paid by the word. As a result, the writing had a reputation for quantity taking priority over quality( this according to Wikipedia)

Their emphasis on word count also caused a very interesting writing style that was somewhat disjointed, due to mixing ten dollar words with ten cent ones. Needless to say, it is a prose style I have grown to like and slightly imitate.

Are they any hacks today? I would answer that by saying no. It is a derogatory term for authors these days and we often times refer to popular writers as hacks when we think they are just churning things out. Trust me, if hack writing was prevalent, myself and a lot of writing partners in crime would be doing it.