What's a Hack to a Horror Writer?

Actually, CG, I haven't really been called a 'hack'. Typically people that I run into who aren't open to the idea just shoot me a strange look. - They actually assume that I write romance (that makes me mad).
However, a friend of mine brought a horror story to a college writing class. The instructor belittled her, and told her that she is an evil person and that there is something wrong with her for wanting to write "that stuff".
I've read it, and certainly there is nothing depraved or evil (other than normal horror related topics).
It makes me so ANGRY when people say - well they write that horror dribble or that people who don't know how to write, write horror.

Well, GhostAuthor, that's exactly what happened to Stephen King in his creative writing class intro in college. He brought in a story which got a bad grade and was called 'hackwork' by the instructor who had never published much at all. He got his revenge by posting a photocopy of the check paying for the same story that got lambasted.

I think it's called "laughing all the way to the bank."

Seriously, I have been called a hack by an agent, or so-called agent. You can check out the link in Bewares by looking under "Circle Literary Agency (Sam Vargo)"

Regards,
Scott

Non-horror-writer piping in: Horror writers are definitely not default-hacks. If they write well, they conjure many of the purest of human emotions. It is extremely difficult to use the written word to create revulsion, fear, suspense, disbelief, loathing.....all packaged up in a way to compel a reader to keep reading. I love horror writers! Now, romance writers on the other hand.....

hack

For most, a hack is anyone more succesful than they are.

It's the mark of a fool to call any successful writer a hack, no matter who that writer is, or what he writes. It's arrogance unleashed, and a definite slap in the face to the millions who love that writer.

No one with any sense calls any successful writer a hack.

There's only one unfailing mark of greatness, and that's whether a writer stands the test of time. A good number of writers who have stood the test of time with flying colors were also called hacks in their day. The writers we remember. The crap for brain critics who called them hacks are long forgotten.

I wish I was rich and/or successful enough to be considered a "hack." *sigh* Maybe someday.

The way I understand it, hacks can occur in any type of writing. Anyone who doesn't respect the genre can be a hack. It has more to do with a lack of passion for what the hack is writing rather than a lack of experience. Also, people who write for years in a genre and yet never read anyone else's work can become hacks by not keeping up-to-date with current cliches. Horror is especially prone to this because a lot of people think "How hard can it be to chop up a few people and toss in a vampire or two?"

Yeah, that part is easy, but avoiding cliches while simultaneously dragging folks into an emotional spiral and entertaining them all at the same time? That's hard.

From what I can gather on the net, "Hack" was originally used as a description for any writer who placed "quantity over quality." Pulp fiction and serial writers were considered hacks by the "serious Great American Novel" set.

Today, I've heard it used in several different contexts.
1. A midlist author
2. A writer who just can't seem to sell a story
3. A writer of "inferior" stories"
4. A working stiff who just keeps churning out the genre work, and makes a living at it.
5. Any writer not on the Best Seller list.
6. In a self-depreciating, humorous manner


I don't know that the word has any real significance today.

Maybe I am biased because I am a horror author, but I don't believe that the horror genre is a hackneyed genre at all. Good horror authors tap into something within themselves that most people hide away in a dusty box in their minds. We touch the dark, evil, creepy, penetrating things that others avoid. We study them, learn what makes them scary, and with a tap of our pen it comes to life in our words.

We have to examine our own fears, make love to them, and spit the out on to the page so that the reader can really understand, can really FEEL what that fear is like. We are no stranger to the scary - we cherish it.

Not to mention that any given good horror story consists of most, if not all, of the other genres. You have romance (love stories), Sci fi, fantasy (ever notice how many stories feature black magic?), Drama (otherwise referred to the uninformed at melodrama)Mystery/suspense/thriller (I shouldn't need to explain that), etc. We work it all in to make a nice, believable, well rounded story. Not to mention, you must suspend disbelief in horror, where you don't have to quite as much in other genres. We take the modern, every day world, and we add fantastic, yet horrible, things to it. With Fantasy and Sci-Fi, the world is made up, with different rules (generally) or in the future, with different rules. Mysteries and suspense novels don't need to suspend disbelief because well, that stuff really happens in real life. The same with Romance. To be successful, a horror write must make the events happening in their novel believable. Not to say the other genres have it easy - they each have their piece of complicated.

That brings me to my primary point - Any and every genre has a Hack. A hack, to me, is an author that doesn't try to be as good as they can be. Their stories are mediocre, with tons of potential they never reach. They don't try, and by reading their work, you can tell their heart wasn't in it. That, to me, is a hack.

Pretty good definition, Dan. Kinda' goes back to that "quantity over quality" thing. As for the genre-thing, I agree that every genre has its share of underachievers.

I really dont know if there's any truth to this statement, but I've heard again and again that humor and horror are the most difficult genres to write well. Maybe that's true, maybe not.

I prefer writing horror because it let's me play with every human and supernatural frailty on my own terms. I get to shake hands with the Devil and don't have to count my fingers, afterwards.

For me, a hack is someone who clearly didn't put ANY work into the story, beyond typing the first draft and then proofreading.

Stereotypical characters, tired scenes we've seen a million times. Lazy wordplay.

I want to feel like I've been in the presence of an artisan when I finish reading a story. Not that I just bought second-rate goods.


And... I LOVE melodrama.