What an MFA does and doesn’t do

A post at Jane Friedman’s blog: What the MFA Does and Does Not Do for Aspiring Novelists

In the first edition of The Business of Being a Writer, Jane Friedman states that “it’s not an exaggeration to say that an MFA could even be detrimental to a successful freelance career, because it trains you to be aware of how writing succeeds not on a commercial level, but only on an artistic one—which you may then need to be trained out of.” As the director of an MFA program, and as a working novelist, I find myself agreeing with this statement. One of the things I wrestle with as an instructor is how to make the MFA a more useful degree for aspiring commercial novelists. At the same time, I’m thinking about how to recreate the most useful parts of the MFA experience for novelists who can’t devote years to graduate school.

This post is by MFA director Nancy Wayson Dinan, who is evidently well-placed to think about this topic.

Now in my classes, we explore the differences between art’s success on a commercial level versus on an artistic level, and what those terms mean. We also look at what the MFA doesn’t usually do, which is the in-depth and explicit craft work that most aspiring novelists crave. We also talk about what the MFA does do—providing professionalization, feedback, and the opportunity to see and submit work in progress—and we discuss ways in which a novelist can learn those things without a graduate degree. I would argue, by the way, that all aspiring novelists should be doing these things, with or without the MFA.

I honestly would have thought that an MFA did focus on in-depth writing craft, at least inasmuch as looking at broad story structure. I guess not. The author says that nothing in her MFA prepared her to think about the structure of novels. ???, I said, because one would think that would matter to success at the artistic level as well as the commercial level?

Anyway, evidently an MFA teaches students

About the publishing profession. This means, things like the chance to meet agents and editors and learn about that side of the industry, which … fine, but there are lots of online resources about the query process and things like that.]

Providing feedback, seeing work in progress.

Submitting work in progress, AAH! NO! I generally feel, personally, repelled by the idea of showing a partial novel to anybody. I just don’t like the idea at all. I’ve done it only once (I think), which was when I was so stuck with Invictus.

However, obviously you don’t need an MFA program to get feedback on a WIP. That’s what critique partners, critique groups, and beta readers are for …

… have I said lately how much I love and cherish everyone who reads early drafts for me? You are totally indispensable. I go through Kim’s comments, for example, and think, How did I not realize I’m handling this scene kind of backward? How did I not see that I’m describing this other scene in the wrong order? It’s a real mystery how I can miss obvious scene-level things that become instantly obvious when Kim points to them.

Or Alison’s comments, and I’m like FINE WHATEVER LET ME SPEND TWO HOURS DELETING “MAYBE,” for example. Mike catches errors of fact and continuity and points out that I’ve given a character the same name as an obscure video game protagonist from the 90s. This is all before the equally indispensable proofreaders catch ten thousand stupid typos.

What was the topic? Oh right, you don’t need an MFA program to get feedback! And a good thing, too! Let’s see what else this person says about MFAs and novelists. …

[Readers of commercial fiction] expect a chain of cause and effect, a closed ending, linear time, and an active protagonist, among other things. Language might not be the focus of a commercial novel, but that doesn’t mean the language is less skilled—it just means that the story is the focus of a commercial novel, and we expect that story to have some conventional structure.

That’s all very well, but Piranesi by Susannah Clarke is currently sitting at a sales rank of 1796 for all books, 23 for Contemporary Fantasy, and it’s been out for 3 years and still has this amazingly good sales rank, so maaaaaybe “readers” of “commercial fiction” are not actually all that unwilling to deal with a book that isn’t all that conventional?

I grant, maybe the publisher just ran a sale over Thanksgiving weekend, and in that case the sales rank would be higher than usual. I have no way of knowing, so let me think of another example. Okay, All the Light We Cannot See is another bestselling nonlinear commercially successful novel, and it’s well above 10,000 in sales rank right now. It was published ten years ago. It’s doing great!

I just don’t buy this idea that readers of commercial fiction expect a, b, c, d and novels don’t succeed if they deviate from this so-called conventional structure. I do think it’s reasonable to say that a lot of so-called commercial fiction does meet those four criteria — a chain of cause and effect, a closed ending, linear time, and an active protagonist — and that this is not a sign of a book that is less worthy or less artistic. But apparently MFA programs totally teach students that they should sneer at novels that do meet those criteria:

In MFA programs, we’re often encouraged to seek alternatives to traditional storytelling, to focus on character and not plot (though, for many reasons, I think this is a false dichotomy). We’re taught to value language and image more than a strong chain of cause and effect. It’s not that we’re actively told to avoid the traditional modes of storytelling, it’s just that other modes are privileged. And when we do see a genre piece in workshop, there’s often a palpable disdain.

An attitude of open contempt is very active discouragement. Certainly the character / plot thing is a decidedly and even blatantly false dichotomy, and when you teach students that this dichotomy is real and then add the contempt, then you’re actively teaching them that plot is to be despised. No wonder Jane Friedman says NO to MFA programs! Talk about harmful!

Well, let me see. Okay, the author of this post then explains what she means by “provides professionalism,” and she adds that and MFA provides a chance for writers to give and get feedback, and provides a community of writers, hmm. I just can’t see spending time and money on an MFA for any of this.

Here’s the ending of this post:

I still remember one day in my MFA program when a professor asked me what I was reading those days. “Oh, you know,” I said. “Some craft books.” The professor looked horrified, as if I’d confessed to somehow cheating. “Hmm,” she replied. “I hope they don’t mess you up too much.” After that remark, I didn’t touch a craft book for five years, and when I finally did, I felt like the act was somehow shameful. …

And personally, I feel that this is a sufficient indictment of MFA programs, or at least that program. Honestly, I think the whole post is worth reading, but I also think it could be deleted and replaced with the above paragraph and the words

JUST SAY NO TO AN MFA

because good lord above, who needs to face that attitude of sneering contempt when they want to write a novel? Look at this author! She didn’t touch another craft book for five years! That’s terrible! After reading her post, I feel there should be a huge warning sign blinking on and off above MFA programs

IF YOU WANT TO WRITE A NOVEL, THEN JUST SAY NO TO AN MFA UNLESS YOU CAN COMPETELY IGNORE YOUR TEACHERS’ ATTITUDE OF SMUG CONTEMPT FOR ACTUALLY WRITING NOVELS

which isn’t as pithy, but seems like good advice, even if that’s not exactly the advice that the author of the post had in mind.

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