Hack writer is a
colloquial and usually
pejorative term used to refer to a
writer who is paid to write low-quality, rushed articles or books "to order", often with a short deadline. In a fiction-writing context, the term is used to describe writers who are paid to churn out sensational, lower-quality "pulp" fiction such as "true crime" novels or "bodice ripping" paperbacks. In journalism, the term is used to describe a writer who is deemed to operate as a "mercenary" or "pen for hire", expressing their client's political opinions in
pamphlets or
newspaper articles. So-called "hack writers" are usually paid by the number of words in their book or article; as a result, hack writing has a reputation for quantity taking precedence over quality.
History
The term "hack writer" was first used in the 1700s, "when publishing was establishing itself as a business employing writers who could produce to order."
[Robert Fulford. "When hacks attract: Serious artists are drawn to tales of mercenary scribes. In The National Post, 19 August 2003. Available at: http://www.robertfulford.com/2003-08-19-hacks.html] The derivation of the term "hack" was a "shortening of
hackney, which described a horse that was easy to ride and available for hire."
In 1728,
Alexander Pope wrote
The Dunciad, which was a satire of "the Grub-street Race" of commercial writers who worked in
Grub Street, a London district that was home to a
bohemian counterculture of impoverished writers and poets. In the late 1800s,
Anthony Trollope's novel
The Way We Live Now (1875) depicts a female hack writer whose career was built on social connections rather than writing skill.
A number of writers who subsequently became famous authors had to work as low-paid hack writers early in their careers, or during a downturn in their fortunes. As a young man,
Anton Chekhov had to support his family by writing short newspaper articles;
Arthur Koestler penned a dubious
Dictionary of Sexuality for the popular press;
Samuel Beckett translated for the French
Reader's Digest; and
William Faulkner churned out
Hollywood scripts.
A number of films have depicted hack writers, perhaps because the way these authors are "prostituting" their creative talents makes them an interesting character study. In the film adaptation of
Carol Reed's
The Third Man (1949), author
Graham Greene added a hard-drinking hack writer named Holly Martins. In
Jean-Luc Godard's film
Contempt (1964), a hack screenwriter is paid to doctor a script. In the 2000s film
Adaptation.,
Nicolas Cage depicts an ill-educated character named Donald Kaufman who finds he has a knack for churning out cliché-filled movie scripts.
Current usage
The term "hack" has been adopted by UK
journalists as a form of humorous, self-deprecating self-description. The term was popularized in the UK by
Private Eye, which refers to male journalists as "hacks" and female journalists as "hackettes".
In Douglas Adams' The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox refers to the Guide as "That hack-rag" in reference to Ford Prefect's job as a researcher/writer for the book.
See also
- Ghostwriter, a writer who is paid to write books or articles that are credited to another person
- Essay mill, a ghostwriting service that provides university students with essays and term papers for a fee
