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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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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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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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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