Doubting MFAs

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George Saunders teaches part of the MFA at Syracuse. And I would be absolutely ecstatic to have George Saunders critique my work and share his knowledge in fiction writing with me. He's a great writer. But the other 50 or so people in that class would hear the exact same information and techniques I heard, and those would likely all be funneled into our work somehow. They would hear exactly what I hear. They would complete the same assignments I complete. They would go the same places. See the same people. We would apply, at least to an extent, at least a sizeable amount of the class, those techniques and experiences into our writing. Then we would go on to critique other's work, further passing down these same techniques recommended by what one writer considers to be the right way.

This institution is incubating an incest of ideas, styles, and traditions. The multiple resources these programs offer all subscribe to the same literary dogma that has been in power ever since the ones writing the great novels of the day were the ones teaching students how to write their own books, the first being Nabokov, to my knowledge. Obviously, this will lead to at least a great deal of people who are somewhat similar in their writing styles, motifs, worlds, backgrounds, cultural educational perspective, interests, financial and social situations, ideas, and styles. What this institution has achieved is a society that advertises itself of being accepting of minorities and other disadvantaged groups while simultaneously stripping their students of a great deal of creative power.

Once an artist enters an institution, they become a student. And they willfully subscribe themselves to a single or very small authority figure who has power over how they evaluate their work. Say, for the sake of it, that a student would enroll in the MFA program at Syracuse under George Saunders. Say, also for the sake of it, that this student has independently developed their own style, themes, and skill set from well outside the spectrum of modern literary thought.

>>8793698
Write poetry. It's lessed plagued by these pedagogical problems.

Compare it to what you think would happen if William S Burroughs took a writing course taught by Ernest Hemingway at the time, if Burroughs typed out the final version of The Naked Lunch and turned it in for a big project, what would you think Hemingway would have done? There's a good chance he'd rip Burroughs apart, destroy his self-worth, and force him to choose between failing, not getting his degree, not having that little certificate that makes it so much easier to get published, or simply changing the way he writes. Writers as good as Burroughs can write in a certain style if they have to. Would Burroughs have stuck to his style? or changed it to conform to the literary status quo? Furthermore, what would Burroughs think of himself? He'd look at Hemingway, who won a Nobel and Pulitzer Prize and was one of the foremost American champions in the most exciting period of world literature. They are both legendary writers. But put the two in a power structure, and one will detest and try to "correct" the writing of the other. You think Burroughs could have enough self-confidence to ignore that criticism and keep going with his developed style? Possibly. But possibly not. This situation comes down to one’s ability for risk assessment and their priorities in regards to writing.

But that's another thing I haven't seen considered yet. The last 50 years have fostered an attitude of dependency in those raised under helicopter parenting. We're taught to compromise, to tread carefully, and, more than anything, we're told not to upset anyone. We're a generation of people pleasers. We find our role models, and we work towards something they could approve of. Our biggest fear is falling short of what's expected of us. This goes beyond the natural yearning for social acceptance. We’ve been intimidated with tales of poverty and failure and every year more and more of us live at home past twenty-five. We were raised with so much optimism and self-worth that we can't handle it when shit goes bad, at least a lot of us can’t. I heard my 27-year-old TA talking about how he steals sneaks food when he visits his parents, like he’s still an undergrad whose meal plan runs out half way through the week.

What aspect do we see in great writers? Robert Walser ran away from home at fifteen and ended up being what was arguably the biggest influence of Kafka and Hesse. Sherwood Anderson left his wife and children to pursue a career in writing. William Faulkner took the best education anyone in his family had ever had and left it behind to work menial jobs for 20 years before he could make a living off writing. James Joyce left his home country in which he based everything he ever wrote because he was convinced he was a genius and nobody in Ireland country would ever publish him without forcing him to sacrifice his artistic integrity.

>>8793698


Writers, at least the ones who make the largest splashes, tend to be bold. They knew that they either went all in and had faith in themselves and threw hail Mary passes or stayed home with an existence they tolerated and dreams they still dreamt about when they grew old and it’s too late. They had passion. That passion drove what made them the geniuses and great thinkers they were more than any other innate aspect of intelligence. Of course, these writers took advice. But they took it from people who respected them to an extent, who didn’t take one look at their work and throw it away, who saw what they themselves saw in it. An MFA program doesn’t doesn’t create that sort of system where the mentor and the artist have that connection. Instead the institution ingrains the artist with the belief that this is mentor is someone they need to respect, with no regard whatsoever as to whether or not that respect is returned. But mutual respect needs to exist in places like this. The mentor needs to understand and accept in what direction this artist wants to take their work. Once they realize this, they're advice stops simply being something that worked for them in the past, but instead becomes another perspective, another problem solver towards how to get to that specific artist's destination. If that mutual respect and understanding isn't there, then the mentor will guide the artist towards the same direction they follow, with that has the same ideas, has the same devices, and from which ultimately nothing profound or innovation can be said or done because they are trying to discover new land. That mutual respect is the only way the creative of intention of the artist is never intruded upon because the mentor must either consider the artist his equal, or recognize and restrict from himself from prescribing that overbearing influence.

And how are these mentors selected? Obviously through other institutions either connected with or controlled by the same group of people who prescribe whether a book is good or bad under their authority. Look at Ben Lerner. He’s a Macarthur Fellow, a Guggenheim fellow, a Fulbright Scholar, and the winner of the National Book Award. He teaches creative writing at Brooklyn College. The man is a talented writer. His prose is excellent and his poetry more hit than miss. Now put his awards and fellowships aside, focus on his writing. What about it stands out? What great ideas has he expressed in some new and previously not thought of way?

>>8793751

Within his writing, there’s little of that innovation that changed the literary world when Hemingway published the Sun Also Rises, when Thompson wrote his piece on the Kentucky Derby, or when Joyce published Ulysses and proved all his Irish critics wrong. I know these breakthroughs are few and far between. But Ben Lerner is now considered one of America’s foremost writers. But he's only the cream of the crop of a product that has been in production since Universities began pandering to the young people. He writes safely. There's no real risk, nothing that questions anything his peers or academic equals have done before or believes. He found that line where he’s well good enough and just different enough to stick out from the thousands of other formulated writers, and yet still in line with the literary tradition: what is safe and true and talented and insightful and 20 years stagnated.

Mentoring someone’s thoughts and ideas is not a bad thing. Trying to teach it to 50 people about whom you know nothing is. What do we say to aspiring writers now? "Oh, you want to create something that represents, through your own developed, refined medium, an interpretation of all these personal, insightful, and unique aspects of your own experience of the Human Condition? We have a class for that!!!"


I say this all while having applied to several MFA programs quite recently. It almost guarantees you a cushy job after graduation if you shake the right hands, even if you don't get published. But I did some thinking for myself, and I look at the scarcity in the variety of writings published today, and I sense a deep hole in front of me, and I feel like I’ll fall into it and come out on the other side being the type of writer I don’t want to be.

>>8793766

I keep thinking back to that 18 year old kid who started that thread. I wonder if that thread convinced him to take an MFA course. He was a good writer, best I’ve ever seen from someone that young, and every reply in the thread supported what I thought of his ability. And I wonder what path would make him a better writer. Would playing it safe, completing a MFA, learning from an exceptionally talented teacher, living in an environment sealed off from the rest of society, alongside 50 other writers who are given the same advice on how to express themselves creatively make him into a more refined version of whoever wrote that piece I read yesterday, something I liked because I couldn’t recall reading writing like that? Or would he do better on another path, kindling his passion for writing by experiencing aspects life a lot of people don’t experience, ignoring anyone who tries to influence his writing without respecting or understanding what he is trying to achieve, a path on which he is more likely to fail, live in poverty, and remain unpublished or publish to little attention?. Of course he will go with the MFA program. It’s the route he’s supposed to take, the route approved by his parents and his friends and that girl he wants to get to know better. He’s told that a step to success is a certificate that shows you did what thousands of other people did: that someone taught you the write way to express yourself through language.

I’ve thought this out a while now. I’ve never been able to articulate my distrust of MFAs or any type of creative writing program until now. I’m choosing between going into an MFA or completing another year to earn my teaching certificate to teach high school English. I’m leaning towards the latter. All my friends are also looking at MFA programs, and I don’t want to be that dick who makes them reevaluate what they’ve been planning on doing for four years by discussing this with them. At least that guarantees them a job.

Who here has taken an MFA? In what ways have you improved, and how did that come about? did someone teach it to you face to face in their office? or did you hear in lecture along with 50 other people?

>>8793698
Is the tldr just "are MFA's bad or not bad?" If so, the answer is, they're fine if you want to be a mediocre writer, but a waste of time if you want to be a great one

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I'll interject.

You're building a sane argument, but know that it's not conclusively, or universally, right. It's more of a question of what percentage of aspiring writers the advice of "don't get an MFA" applies to.

George Saunders himself, a great and bold and interesting and of-our-time writer, also got his Syracuse MFA under Tobias Wolff. He respected Wolff because he respected his writing, was enamored by it, wanted to learn from the man himself -- not because the institution compelled him to blindly cast his respect upward. Your assumption that MFA programs are, by their institutional nature, power plays in which the students bend to the will of the mentor teacher, is unfounded.

Of course, the really great art is so because it's authentic and rooted in an urgent understanding of human experience (in addition to technical mastery and yadda yadda yadda), not just because someone decided they wanted to be a Great Artist. This isn't a phenomenon unique to writing. But if you're driven to express something like that, why couldn't you do, theoretically, both? Study and write like hell for your classes, travel to interesting places and build relationships with people that pull you out of your comfort zone during breaks. That's extracurricular, and not needed to land a cushy assistant professor job, but will certainly improve your work. Along the same lines, why not take time off after undergrad and "experience life", then apply for MFA a few years down the road, for the focused work on craft and networking. There's no rule saying you have to jump into it right after undergrad. Saunders himself started MFA when he was 28.

Disclaimer: I just finished an undergrad writing degree and am currently dicking around waiting for inspiration to strike

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>>8793698
Yeah, so I was about to click out of your bullshit thread when I saw you mention Ben Lerner. I like him and wanted to see what you had to say so I ended up reading the whole thing.

1) You should type up long responses somewhere outside 4chan postbox and then copy them in

2) I appreciate your effort, but do you think your ridiculous word count is necessary? Your premise/idea/conclusion all seem pretty agreeable and commonly recognized to me.

Maybe it is because I have never wanted to be a writer or artist of any sort outside of recreation, but I don't see any harm from MFAs programs as you describe them. I think that the revolutionary people are going to try no matter what. Every great was once a nobody who wrote and submitted their masterpiece while being a nobody.

>>8793819

>Your assumption that MFA programs are, by their institutional nature, power plays in which the students bend to the will of the mentor teacher, is unfounded.

How so? Aren't professors more educated than their students? Isn't the teacher supposed to talk, and the student to listen? Doesn't the teacher hold power of the students final grade, along with letters of recommendation, interviews, and other resources they have the power to provide the student? Doesn't the teacher control how they will regulate these aspects between their students? Wouldn't that give the student an incentive to, as you said, "bend to the rule of the teacher."

>He respected Wolff because he respected his writing, was enamored by it, wanted to learn from the man himself -- not because the institution compelled him to blindly cast his respect upward.

That's exactly the point. The balance of respect was lopsided. If Saunders had such a deep respect for his teacher, would he have asked himself the necessary questions as to what he wanted his writing to be?

And how did Wolff view Saunders? Did Tobias come to develop an understanding of the type of writer Saunders was striving to be? Did he make a point to understand not just the meaning conveyed in Saunders' work, but what Saunders was trying to convey. Did he make an effort to understand Saunders as an artist and help him accomplish what he set out to?

No. He probably had fifty students. Nobody has time like. Saunders was spoken to and taught to Tobias the way a wall is painted by broad strokes. He's only lucky that the things Tobias taught him didn't derail and confuse, because it certainly could've happened. What would've stopped Wolff from reflecting his own personal tastes when critiquing Saunders' work. What if he had been a little grumpy and recommended that Saunders abandon or change something that was so deeply in grained in the reasons Saunders wrote that he came out of the program hopeless and disillusioned, and then spent years trying to be the type of writer he didn't want to be in the first place.


People are impressionable. Students who respect their teacher are going to listen because that's what they are taught to do in classrooms when someone older is speaking. They are not told to think for themselves. That is why there is a power play in this relationship, and that is why it is unhealthy for developing and different writers.

>>8793852
>I appreciate your effort, but do you think your ridiculous word count is necessary?

I agree it got a little out of hand. But i wanted to make sure i conveyed all my reasons for my skepticism.

>I think that the revolutionary people are going to try no matter what.

I think you under estimate the impressionability of young people under someone they respect.

Great, Revolutionary artists are products of their environment. Whatever quality they posses that makes them into this highly innovative and creative individual is produced by the nurturing aspect of their development, they aren't born with it.

Prescriptive guidance can easily derail an artist from this quality they seek for themselves. And MFA programs contain that type of environment.

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>>8793928
But, they are told to think for themselves. MFA students are not (er, at least not supposed to be) children incapable of developing their own styles and tastes. We want to learn from masters of the craft because they are masters of the craft, so the respect you're talking about is inherent (i.e. not institutionally derived).

You might read Saunders' own essay before assuming so much about the narrative of black-box universities you seem to want to build:
>http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/my-writing-education-a-timeline

A small example from that essay is the dose of perspective he gets from Tobias about "not losing the magic". It really boils down to a rift in understanding how education is supposed to work. Yes, you can and should self-educate by reading books, etc. But education at the MFA level (at least at the respectable ones that we're talking about) should not be (though could become, in unfortunate cases) a power play. What would honestly be the point of that? The teacher talks and student listens, but they also develop a relationship in which the student talks and teacher listens, too. The teacher-student respect isn't meant as a barrier but as a bond of trust, where one can trust the other to provide thoughtful, helpful criticism. If you can't trust people on that professional level, then MFA is not for you.

Also, when you say...

>Doesn't the teacher hold power of the students final grade, along with letters of recommendation, interviews, and other resources they have the power to provide the student?

...you're conflating "resources" and networking opportunities, which are things you're buying into via the MFA program, with "grades". And no self-respecting young- to middle-aged-adult ought to be threatened by a bad grade if the teacher doesn't like their work. If the student pushes themselves anyway, does the required word counts, readings, etc., gets and gives valuable feedback from the mentor teacher and classroom peers, then who gives a shit about a grade? You'll pass, perhaps without an A but certainly with a valuable education.