September 18, 2024 by Harvey
In today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* The MFA: Valuable or Harmful? Part 1
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
The MFA: Valuable or Harmful? Part 1
A guest post by Michaele Lockhart
Editor’s Note: I have known Michaele Lockhart for almost 30 years.
We first met in the mid-to-late 1990s at the annual writer’s conference in Tucson held under the auspices of the now-defunct Society of Southwestern Authors.
Michaele is an excellent storyteller, an excellent writer, and an excellent copyeditor. I was thrilled when she agreed to let me use her email to me for this short series of posts.
Disclaimer: Nothing you will read below should be viewed as either Michaele or I disparaging in any way any writer’s endeavors. You do you. We offer the following free of charge in case it might help:
Dear Harvey,
After reading through an article in which Joseph Epstein shared why writing can’t be taught, I glanced back at your analysis of the Stages of Development of a writer.
Like you, I have worked with a variety of writers over the years. However, there is one particular group that seems handicapped the most: anyone with an MFA in Writing.
Most of them seem doomed to be stuck in Stage One. I’m well aware that my sample of twenty-three writers is not a statistically reliable sample, but I found it revealing all the same.
At the outset, each would ask my rate [for copyediting]. “I have an MFA in writing,” each would invariably state, “so I won’t need much editing.”
Of course, I would respond, “I need to see your manuscript. Then I’ll give you a sample edit and explain my fee.”
They would always protest: “But I don’t need much done. I know this, because of my MFA.” We’d go round and round by email, until finally a manuscript would appear in my inbox.
However, the most bizarre encounter was with the son of a major, well-known fiction writer who lives in Arizona part-time and in Seattle part-time.
“But do you know who my mother is?” he demanded. Although I had a vague idea based on his last name, I said no.
“Well, because X.X. is my mother, I know I don’t need much in the way of editing. And I have an MFA.”
Long story short, he finally sent the manuscript, which was distressing if it represented advanced level performance of any kind.
I sent back my sample edit with comments. He chose to argue with me about the editing by email.
“That’s all right,” I said. “If you don’t want me to edit it, I won’t. Simple as that.”
Then, in a moment that bordered on the surreal, he demanded that I send back his manuscript.
I gently, very patiently, reminded him that he’d sent me an electronic document and that he still owned the original, safe and sound on his own computer.
“I still want it back,” he insisted.
So I emailed a copy to him and he seemed happy. At least I never heard from him again. Thankfully.)
It is a tragedy what has happened to lovely, otherwise intelligent people who have spent inordinate amounts of time and money on most MFA in Creative Writing programs. They have somehow become divorced from the common sense of anything they knew about Story before starting on their advanced degree.
Invariably, editing for them became nearly impossible, an exercise in frustration.
Unlike most other advanced degrees, when progressing through an MFA the student does not become exposed to more and more advanced knowledge and expertise. Instead, he or she has knowledge gradually stripped away.
I once audited a seminar with a friend (who was enrolled) at [a major Arizona university]. I was amazed that most of the two hours was devoted to how various students could “add subtext” to their stories.
The way I write, subtext always came from the character(s) and his/her/their reactions to a given situation. It wasn’t something you added afterward, like icing on the cake.
Furthermore, a reader finds subtext. It’s not the other way around. When I was 15 or 16, I read King Lear for the first time. I read it again sometime in midlife and then again about 10 years ago. I found different “subtext” in the story each time.
My other anecdote on the topic came from a very dear writer friend. She was a brilliant writer.
About 2008 or so, she paid for a 4-day mini-course with the famous Iowa Writer’s Workshop, which at that time cost around $5000. Of course, she sent two manuscripts ahead.
Over that time, all she learned was that she should eliminate all uses of the word “that.” Another instructor told her to eliminate all “-ing” verbs.
When she logically asked, “But what about ongoing action?” they told her it wasn’t actually necessary. There was no comment on the actual writing.
She returned very disappointed because she thought she would learn so much. She had also hoped it would help her get accepted by major publishers. It didn’t.
*
Thank you, Michaele. And folks, stay tuned. I’ll be back soon with Part 2 of this discussion on the value or harm of getting an MFA.
Talk with you again then.
Of Interest
Time, Expectations, and Reality Pushing the Writer’s Block classes, but some good info too.
I’m the Bob Schneider of Authors Unnecessary foul language. Otherwise some good stuff.
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 910
Writing of “The Tear as Process”
Day 1…… 3211 words. To date…… 3211 (done)
Fiction for September…………………….. 47483
Fiction for 2024………………………….… 666847
Fiction since October 1…………………… 831271
Nonfiction for September………………… 17420
Nonfiction for 2024……………………….. 292260
2024 consumable words…………………. 820474
Average Fiction WPD (September)……… 2793
2024 Novels to Date……………………… 13
2024 Novellas to Date……………………. 0
2024 Short Stories to Date………………. 10
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 95
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………. 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………. 247
Short story collections……………………. 29
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer, but please try this at home. You can do it. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing are lies. They will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
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I have a feeling a friend of mine's daughter is going to find out the hard way just how useless a degree in "creative writing" is. She has a bachelor's. Went to college JUST to become a creative writer. She's graduated with her bachelor's, but can't find a job to support herself. During that four years, she apparently didn't actually write anything (shouldn't she have been doing that for those "creative writing" classes?). She finished a "creative writing" degree without a single thing to publish yet, so no income that route either.
I think about the money and time she spent for that degree, and it makes me sad. Instead of wasting all that time and money on a degree that will probably hamper rather than help her writing career, she could've been working to support herself (or getting a degree in something that could actually help her get a job to support her while she writes) AND actually writing.
Based on what Michaela said, I don't envy any editor who has to work with my friend's daughter in the future. I hadn't even thought about it all from that angle. The handful of people I have edited for haven't been degree holders. I'm hugely grateful for that, if Michaela's experience is truly representative of trying to work with one.
Can't say I know any MFAs. Can say I'm happy for that, by the look of it. And this is only Part 1. Why must you insist on torturing us, Harvey?