Hackery and art

Aaron Wells

Copy Editor

Sagebrush 4-24-2001

It's 1:11 a.m. right now, and I'm stumped once again with writer's block. Piers Anthony once said that any writer who claims to get writer's block is not a professional. I agree. They're more likely an artist.

Still, Piers Anthony has made way more money than I have writing, and he's published more books than practically anyone except Isaac Asimov. Someday, if I play my cards right and force out enough columns, I too may join the ranks of great hack writers like Piers Anthony, Harry Harrison, Philip José Farmer, Alan Dean Foster, Stephen King, Michael Chrichton Tom Clancy, Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov... yes, some of the greatest writers in our history have, in fact, been hacks.

It's a fine distinction, what makes a writer a hack. The Piers test is pretty accurate for many. If you are unable to picture the writer being hung up with writer's block, then they are, in all likelihood, a hack.

It's not 100% accurate, though. Stephen King, for instance creepy man that he is, is easily imaginable with writer's block, although the sheer volume of books he's turned out speaks to the contrary. In this case, we get down to a further level of what really makes the author a hack.

It's different for every author. For Stephen King, what makes him a hack is that every story he writes is based on the premise of, "You know that completely impossible, irrational monster you were afraid of when you were a kid, because you were stupid? What if it was actually real?"

For Ray Bradbury, it's because, although he writes very eagerly about science fiction, he never really seems to get it. Reading his works is like trying to hold a philosophical discussion with a stoner. "Hey, yeah, censorship sucks. Hey, what if there were guys, who did nothing but burn books. And they'd be called 'firemen'! Man, that'd be far out!"

Isaac Asimov is a hack because every character he created has the same personality.

Michael Chrichton is a hack because he didn't take Moore's Law into account. Jurrasic park took place in the "near future" from when it was written in 1991. In that near future, it took six super-computers to hold the human genome. In the actual near future, it takes a 2 gigabyte hard drive you can buy for under $200. That's the problem with every Michael Chrichton book ­ he writes a science fiction story about current technology, and ten years later it's only worthwhile reading for retro tech perverts lie myself. Seriously, have you read Andromeda Strain? Or better yet, seen the movie?

Dean Koontz is a hack for copyrighting the name of his main character, Dirk Pitt, and following his name with everywhere it appears on the book jacket, including the summary on the back cover, like he's an action figure.

I should point out, though, that just because I call someone a hack doesn't mean they're a bad author. It just means they'll probably never be a true, complete artist. But what is art? Art is life. Life is biochemistry. Biochemistry does not exist. So don't worry about it.

And, of course, I myself am a hack, so maybe my opinion's not so valid anyway.

I know I'm a hack, partly because all the authors I've ever been compared to have been hacks. The authors I'm most often compared to: Ogden Nash, Dr. Seuss, Dave Barry, Kurt Vonnegut. What do they all have in common? Well, Dr. Seuss and Kurt Vonnegut are both brothers of the Delta Upsilon fraternity like me, but, more importantly, all four of them are hacks.

And the clearest sign that I'm a hack: I had writer's block, and yet here I am, at the end of the column, and I still don't know what the fuck I'm going to write about.