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We all know about hack writers. Their work is of poor quality and some are quite prolific. But hack writer =/= writer I don’t like. What are some hacks you enjoy and which one’s you can’t stand?
My favorite hack is Dan Brown, his Robert Langdon series are a guilty pleasure of mine (though Origins was too terrible with the recycled plot). Langdon is a Mary Sue and his plots are so over the top I can’t take seriously while also being a page turner.
One I can’t stand is Paulo Coelho, who is unfortunately Brazil’s most famous writer abroad. So pretentious, and some people take it way too seriously, the alchemist reads like an YA novel. Another one is Reddit’s darling Neil Gaiman.
Let’s discuss the best and worst among the Terrible and Untalented
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I can't exactly call him a favorite, but I used to really like Stephen King. I feel like he's one of those writers who could've been pretty good, but after he got popular he just kinda stopped caring and did whatever. Editors can't say shit to him, so his books drag on and on about nothing.
My most hated hack is definitely Brandon Sanderson. He's the personification of the autism cult that has taken over so many nerd communities. It breaks my brain how people still talk about Tolkien writing big, long winded books, but then you have clowns out here Brando pooping out a new, thousand page DND monster manual every month, and people don't seem to notice?
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Sanderson is so nice tho. I met him and he’s definitely a sperg but a productive one.
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I‘ve never read his book’s, but I looked up the wired journo drama and he came out as such a classy guy
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I like the writing workshop things he has on youtube. Just very wholesome background noise
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Your ears must be really dirty if you think my videos are wholesome background noise. Take a Q-tip and clean them out, maybe you'll like my videos more afterwards.
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Kang has some really phoned in books, but he can also make something special when he puts his mind to it. The Stand and Desperation are a couple that stick out to me. "It" is also like 60% of the way to being this amazing psychoanalytic dark fantasy, but suffers from repetitive writing and the ending.
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The first 2 chapters of “IT” were awesome, and were the thing that kept me reading, then the middle was such a drag. I think that book could have been great if it was only the kids stories plus editing of pointless backstories and with a short epilogue with them as adults.
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I think the main mistake was having 7 main viewpoint characters. A lot of the book is just "character 1 is alone and sees something scary," then "character 2 is alone and sees something scary," and so on.
The dual timeline causes more repetition, but I think it was thematically important to show the adults recalling and facing their childhood trauma, abuse, etc.
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That was a mixed bag for me, some of those chapters were good like Ben in the bridge during winter and Bill looking at the picture, but in others Pennywise/IT felt goofy, like both Eddie’s chapters (kid and adult) and Richie adult chapter.
Yeah you’re right, I understand one of the book’s themes was about growing up, but the execution wasn’t very good.
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I’ve heard from “wheel of time” fans that they could notice the writing difference between Jordan and Sanderson.
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The biggest difference between the two of them that mattered was that Sanderson actually wrapped that shit up. There was a whole book of that series that Jordan wrote that I just skipped (book TEN) because the online reviews said the overall series plot was literally not at all advanced by it. Apparently the entire thing is just scenes of different groups of people reacting to the events of the previous book. Imagine writing a huge volume in your fantasy series and having NOTHING happen in it.
Of course, the ending of the series was a fricking mess, but at least someone ended it finally.
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The TV series was better anyway
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Sanderson's characters have the personality depth of a puddle and all sound the same when he doesn't insert "accent" inflections. His romance bits are only titillating to eighty-year-old virgins who see chemistry in the mirror.
Yes, there was a writing difference.
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At least Tolkien have some great prose, Sanderson feels like I'm reading a reddit fanfic sometimes.
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I like BrandoSando because you need a really high IQ to enjoy his stuff. It's nice after LCD stuff like WoT and ASOIAF.
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Dude needs to get back on the drugs, imo
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George Martin for writing himself into a corner suffused with erotic descriptions of food and a 14 year old girl pooping herself with dysentery.
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Is ASOIAF worth reading? I can’t fathom reading thousands of pages of a story that will probably have no ending
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It's wildly entertaining through the first three books, then starts meandering pointlessly after that. I fear he's suffering from some sort of cognitive decline and the series will.nevet be finished.
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It worked out fine for the wheel of time series. Hopefully the mother fricker actually has ideas and notes on the book before he dies. I just imagine a notebook with writing on one page, “frick they didn’t like what I told HBO I was going to do, please think of something better”
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I dont think the end point of the show are necessarily bad, its more how they got there and how lazy it felt.
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It did feel lazy, but all the books are sorta lazy. There wasn’t an effort to make extensive lore or provide a fully fleshed out world, there was really only effort to advance the plot. It would have been out of character to spend the time to flesh out the details to make the ending more satisfying but that might require long boring explanations that don’t advance the plot and only act as exposition. You can’t just go kill someone or do something out of an action movie to get to the end either. I enjoy the books and I didn’t mind the shows ending, but it was a different style of fantasy than I am used to. Lack of plot armor was so refreshing though.
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I moreso meant that it was lazy as in it just feels like they didnt even care, and knew people would watch regardless and put any effort they did make into action instead of making the plot make any sense whatsoever. It started to decline in season 5 but 7 and 8 are a different type of bad to me. For example the entire Arya/Sansa feud in season 7 is complete nonsense and doesnt make sense in its resolution either. Just poorly written all around.
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Daenerys whole arc was butchered as well. She was always ruthless, but that is not synonymous with mad, Stannis too was ruthless, he also burned his own daughter as well as his brother in law and others yet no one called him mad for that.
On season 7 finale she risked her life to save Jon from a convoluted mess of a subplot (capturing a wight to convince Cersei, so stupid). On season 8 episode 3 she risks her life again and fights the WW. Then she just snaps and burns King Landing.
Daenerys going mad or becoming evil is a great idea but they should have explored that for a few seasons and slowly build on that, instead it was all rushed
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Agreed, i always thought she would end up being the "villain", i think its a bit more obvious if you have read the books as well, but her heel turn was completely non-sensical and extremely rushed. The way i always thought of it happening was her going "mad" from the perspective of the people of Westeros, but for reasons that make sense from her point of view. There are a few plot points from the books that would have made it make more sense as well.
But yeah that season 7 capture the wight plot was ridiculously stupid and it actually has almost no bearing on the plot at all. The only reason i can think of for it is giving the white walkers their dragon, and i guess finally spurring Jaime to leave Cersei (then he just goes back lmao). Both of which could have been achieved without so much bullshit.
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Supposedly he is more than 2/3 done with the book, but he doesn’t seem bery reliable with deadlines. I would consider buying his books if “the winds of winter” gets published next year, if he’s 75 he might live till 85 and finish it, beyond that it gets complicated with
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The Winds of Winter is the second to last book if you were not already aware, so while i do think it will come out im not sure A Dream of Spring ever will. Either way though, TWoW is going to have a lot of shit going down I would think so just that will be interesting enough to make it worth reading.
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I did enjoy it but someparts of the series are lopsided. The ""medieval"" setting is quite shallow with the only titles in Westeros are Lord, Lord Paramount and King with some great plots throughout the first 3 books imo. It kinda falls apart in book 4 tho. Book 4 has Jaime Lannisters best scenes along with the Greyjoys having some surprisingly cool characters like Damphair and Victarion but the Brienne, Arya and Daenerys chapters are a SLOG to get thru. Almost gave up at some points.
My opinion would be read the first 3 books and if you REALLY like it then keep reading, otherwise just save yourself the frustration of Martin missing his 7th fricking deadline at this point.
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It’s a rollercoaster. Like reading a nonstop action movie. I’m not saying it’s my favorite series ever but it’s engaging. It’s a series that’s easy for me to keep reading once I start since there aren’t long periods of slow parts. They skip the slow parts and get right back to the action in most cases. Perfect series for todays adhd youth who aren’t going to get into something wordy like Tolkien or Robert Jordan
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Is there any YA author that isn’t hack? Why else would an author choose to write for teenagers.
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True and also borderline unbearable. Also I don’t understand the “Young Adult” label, when is directed towards teenage girls
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A lot of the people reading it are 30 year old women. Conversely, I remember reading the Hunger Games and stuff as a teenager; a fair amount of YA appealed to boys.
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Well, I'm sorry that you found the movie "true and also borderline unbearable." I guess you just don't understand what it's like to be a teenage girl. And as for the "Young Adult" label, I guess you just don't understand what that means either.
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New bbbb just dropped?
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It literally is bbbb
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I'm not new, I've been here for years.
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Lmao. Thank goodness
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What's so funny? You should be thankful that you have a roof over your head and food on the table. There are a lot of people in the world who don't have that.
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It'd have to be someone that wrote YA and adult shit of similar quality like Stephen King, although I guess some people probably would call him a hack too.
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Louis Sachar but idk if he counts as YA
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I liked Good Omens when I was in high school, and like him and Harry Potter, you're supposed to outgrow from those books....
As a forgotten realms fan, I tried reading RA Salvatore stuff. To actually learn the lore of drizzit that edgy nerds love so much but I kinda found it boring and felt like just someone rewriting their campaign session into a novel. A boring campaign.
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I agree with you, for me they are kind like Macdonald’s, something you love when you’re kid/teenager and still occasionally enjoy as an adult, while still being aware it’s not the same level as a juicy stake
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How? Did you play it (tabletop, not vidya), or just read the books? I've never understood the hype behind it, it's so close to Greyhawk and doesn't have much that stands out aside from way more attention given to drow, who I never cared for much.
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I like Dan Brown too. I never read the Twilight series or 50 Shades of Grey, but I hear both of them are very poorly written.
I separate lit into difficult reads and easy reads. The difficult reads are for during the day (like learning some technical thing) and the easy reads I like late at night before bed. I found a couple of good easy read small authors that way, but so many shitty purchases to find the diamond in the rough.
Krayon sexually assaulted his sister.
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Twilight has absolutely top tier writing when it matters, especially descriptions that bring you into the story. When it describes how Bella physically feels as a new vampire it's rather gripping to read even out of context, because it's plain good writing.
I hate the book thematically because it's basically a Mormon allegory, and also because it's le heckin' toxic relationships
, but I just can't call it "garbage writing 
" when I just don't like what the book is about
A lot of the shit people take out of context to feel smug about how bad it is... flows so much more in context even if it's inherently a bit cheesy because the book's POV is melodramatic teenage girl
. It's just nowhere near as bad as what the smug writers who can't sell or finish their books say.
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Great “Twilight” efforpost
Love reading some actual unpopular opinions
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here's an actual effortpost I wrote a few months ago
https://rdrama.net/h/lit/post/148881/are-you-an-aspiring-writer-marseychudnotes/3634230#context
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Never thought of Bella this way but yeah, while most YA novels have Mary Sue’s as main characters she’s just a normal albeit melodramatic teenage girl, she’s relatable because she’s realistic. There is some parallel with Sansa Stark (didn’t read the books but watched the show), and she also got lot’s of hate
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People complain Bella doesn't have any power in the story and I'm like...yeah, that's how most teenage girls feel all the time? 🤔
It's also plain wrong, even in human form Bella has psychic powers to resist vampire psychic powers, but from a character standpoint she does make choices. They're just not the choices the non-target audience want her to make
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I agree with you on people hating Sansa in the first few seasons, but shes legitimately a bad character in the last few imo. It was very strange that they made her r*pe basically empower her to be le strong woman, and then she starts publicly undermining Jon and her feud with Arya was bizarre. She also hated Daenarys for reasons that werent really well established (and of course she ended up being right). Like i get why she would be apprehensive about her but in the show she comes across as just being a mean girl b-word, lol
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Later seasons Sansa is a poorly written cardboard character. The scene where she tells The Hound that Ramsey made her strong while smiling is eye rolling
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Its weird because in the books she is actually well on her way to becoming a legitimately savvy politician-type character, im really not sure why they made the change to have her marry Ramsay.
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yeah, i've heard the same - she apparently writes the milieu well. Most of the hate is it being YA (valid) and also not being aimed at adult lorestrags.
For its demo it's apparently decent.
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I tried 50 shades of Grey years ago and gave up after a couple hundred pages. For me it was just terrible, an unironic
foid r*pe fantasy.
Good advice, a few months ago I started Nabokov’s “Pale Fire” and used to read at night before sleeping, couldn’t handle it and put it down, don’t know why. I guess I’ll start again from the begin someday as a day reading
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Tried watching the movie and couldn't get more than 15 mins in. lol
This is what happens to me if I try to read "difficult reads" at night, but I read at night to wind down so if I read difficult reads then I can't retain it or pay attention.
Krayon sexually assaulted his sister.
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I still enjoy Stephen King I find hes good at doing quick characterization (which helps both in his short stories and getting you invested early on in his longer books) and always has some bat shit stuff going on. I used to like Chuck Palahniuk but he's basically written the same book for most of his career minus a few odd balls like Haunted. I find Bret Easton Elli's total writing career to be better.
Its funny I've never read a Neil Gaiman book and have only read his comics. That's what I think of him as, a comic book writer. Hes finally gotten around to finishing his Miracleman series and its pretty disappointing. One issue of 6 he's doing for this miniseries was a reprint of a classic miracleman story which took up 80% of the issue, which is so lame when gaiman had bragged about the last 12 issues of his Miracleman fun being fully planned out before the book was cancelled. You'd think that would mean he'd just have to write the scripts or edit the concepts a bit, but he can't even be assed to write a full 22 pages. I guess Gaiman was smart to jump from comics when he did as now he's know as a novelist rather then a comic book writer whereas despite Alan Moore being a way better writer he'll always be a comic writer even as he's jumping fully into novels.
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Your pulitzer's in the mail
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from what I've gathered, Gaiman is pure ideas guy with much worse execution. If you read a Gaiman synopsis, you get the best version of his writing and should leave it there.
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I tried reading Cujo because Stephen King was so coked out he doesn't remember writing it. My conclusion was it's basically like one of those boring John Updike Rabbit novels about marriage and infidelity, except at least you know a dog is gonna kill these people at some point, which keeps you going.
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Cujo was way too tame for a coke book. King has also written a lot of books with the same premise of "someone is trapped in a confined space for way too long" and Cujo is far inferior to Misery, Gerald's Game, and whatever other ones I haven't read or have forgotten
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Sorry but the new rules state you have to show us your vaccine passport in order to post here
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Sure thing Snaps
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Robert Zelazny. Every one of his stories I read had some nugget of a good idea but the writing and especially the characterization was terrible. Darnation Alley was exceptionally bad.
Speaking of Gaiman, I read Bad Omens and idk what happened in that book. Starts off incredibly strong but the last 1/3rd is rushed and lazy and completely anticlimactic
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Neil Gaiman is actually good I will die on this hill
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Neil Gaiman can write well, he's just a pretentious twit. Actually some of his writing reminds me a lot of Ray Bradbury, who as far as I know was not a pretentious twit. So if you like Gaiman, I strongly recommend you try some of Bradbury's short stories.
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I read Fahrenheit 451
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If they haven't chained people up in their basement are they even an author?
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