Masters in English Literature of Masters of Creative Writing?

neither, in any practical sense.

>>9205025
Why?

>>9205038

There's not much practical application.

If you just want to spend 8 years in school, studying lit, and avoiding getting a real job then that's fine, but neither are going to do a whole lot for you professionally.

If your goal is to be a writer, you don't need a degree to do that. Most writers don't have degrees.

>>9205052
But university would build connections, no?

>>9205055

Yeah....but just writing and sending your stuff out would build connections too.

>>9205073
What I mean is at a university you have an array or professors and peers to guide you

>>9205055

Writing it's not like directing movies, where you need a crew. You do the bulk of the work by yourself, alone. Connections are useful when it comes to publishing, but a degree in Literature or Philosophy can give you the right friends as well.

>>9205085

Guide you to what...?

>>9205096
is right. Writing is a self taught thing, for the most part.

>>9205104
Guide you on your writing

>>9205110

If you need someone to guide you on your writing, you're not a writer, you're a transcriptionist.

Masters are very expensive.

There is no doubt the resources you can obtain studying at university are valuable, but I do not think they are as valuable as the cost. Especially when all the information that would be taught is available for free on the internet.

If you have the money & free time to pursue this, I say go for it. It would be beneficial socially & probably artistically.

But you can do all of this on your own. There are university courses available on YouTube, and all of the texts you would study you can obtain yourself.

Nobody can teach you to write, or to read. You have to come to that by yourself.

Creative writing departments are factories for screenwriters and mediocre diet coke literature by and for people who want to "become a writer." By the time you're finished gradschool you've absorbed too many received ideas to have your own point of view, and you've shifted your focus from sharpening yourself up to hustling. There are plenty of comfortably middle class Creative Writing MAs and PhDs out there writing readable but toothless novels. Becoming an artist isn't a trade you can just go to school for.

>>9205017
Take Classics. You get all the good bits of the literature, language, philosophy and poetry, in a manner that will allow you to easily understand English literature, and improve your creative writing.

To me, it's kind of like asking, "Well, if I want to learn to ride a bike, and I keep the training wheels on for 8 years, that'll make me a better rider, right?"

At some point, you're going to be totally on your own, left to your own devices to write. Might as well get there as soon as possible.

>>9205136
That's a generalisation.

>>9205136

also keep in mind all these MA and PHD writers out there, even though they're published, aren't really making a living a doing it.

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>tfw really enjoy creative writing and want to be a writer but everyone scoffs at me for being 'that guy' so I wrote a small book and self-published it and now everyone scoffs at me for self-publishing a book

can't win

People who normally do Masters are either rich or sponsored to do so.

If you are from a middle class family, and your parents are not involved in any sort of academia, how the fuck are you going to pay $40k average?

Masters in Arts related subjects are for rich people who can afford to study and not have to work at all. There is no real practiclity for it

Masters are normally for people who are looking to expand their career prospects, for promotions and what have you.

>>9205193
I'm not so sure about that, anon. Especially since a lot of Masters have fellowships and stipends. Not as many as PhDs, no, but still the best ones do.

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>>9205017
Creative Writing is a fucking joke. I thinker Salinger was the only figure in history that benefitted from it

>>9205233
dfw

flannery o connor

>>9205218
masters is essentially more in depth study for undergrads

and you think paying 40k is worth it

lmfao

>>9205218
Yes, but you still have to pay all of that.

If you have no job, or a good paying, regular job, how will you afford to pay it at all?

You need to be rich.

>>9205271
I meant writers of discernable talent

>>9205119
attention everyone this anon is completely full of shit

>>9205281
bloom thinks o connor is a genius

>>9205274
>>9205280
Anons, fellowships are funding that frequently cover the cost of tuition. Usually with some left over for living expenses (esp. on good MFAs).

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>>9205131
>Especially when all the information that would be taught is available for free on the internet.

I don't know about for an MFA but the most enlightening parts of my humanities education came from listening to professors extemporaneously meander through their subjects of fascination.

I honestly feel like I robbed them blind without them even realizing it.

The books were supplementary. However the constant essay writing didn't hurt.

>>9205385
bloom thinks a lot things

>>9205420
You use a Bloom reaction image and a Bloom-themed insult.

You are a fucking idiot

>>9205428
I like Bloom you fucciboi.

I'm jsut saying when you get outside of Influence and into his ditch digging and front lining then he suddenly manifests a lot poor aesthetic choices.

His love for Wordsworth, even in light of Milton, has always been the lynchpin of his discrediting.

>>9205017
Study something else that will inform your writing like history, philosophy or just fucking anything else. A masters is expensive and awkwardly time consuming compared to actually living, working, reading and writing on your own terms. Spend a year travelling anon.

>>9205017
stay in school as long as you can, the real world blows. nobody gives a shit about you after you graduate.

>>9205017

english lit

mfa is fine if you can get fully funded and plan to continue your education after. dont think its a ticket to a book deal, even if you're tip top in your class

>>9206342
So you are telling this person to go a further $40k in debt because you are too much of an awkwarf pussy to interact with people?

>>9205017
Absolutely creative writing. You don't need anything to break into fiction, but your odds are better if you know your ass from your head. If you get the English Lit degree they'll just pass over you for someone with a PhD.

>>9205351
anon did nothing wrong

>>9206362
absolutely i am...as long as you go in debt for something you enjoy and not what is "practical". who gives a shit about getting rich: time, youth, and freedom are what is truly valuable/rare in life.

and i'm pretty well adjusted, actually. i have a good job, friends, and a girlfriend. regardless of those things, you better bet your ass that i wish i was back in college taking classes, exploring new things, and dicking around. the sheer amount of free time you have in college compared to the rest of your life is mindblowing once you spend a few years as a wageslave. i'd cut off four of my toes just to have another semester of that lifestyle.

>tfw free education in a top european uni

Just do a PhD, get tenure, and become "that professor" who is extremely moody and hard to please but when you do please them they are very kind and friendly to you.

I'm getting a masters in English right now and I honestly feel like it's helping my writing greatly. I have pretty high aspirations for my own work, and I feel my current program helps me properly grasp the history of literature and its development over time. If you just want to be any old writer, I don't suppose that matters; but if you want to be a GREAT writer, I think you have to have some awareness of the long tradition you're taking part in.

>>9206522
Are you writing toward your own work? Are you working on a novel? How much better is that going than if you did not go to school? How much less or more would you be able to write if you did not go to school?

>>9205017
God what a narcissist.
Did Joyce just sit around looking at pictures of himself?
Truly he was the Kanye of his era.

>>9206653
He was old. Failing eyesight. Maybe that wasnt his home, and one of those ladies had just fetched that photo of him as a younger man, and maybe he photographer said hey, hold right there for a moment, this will be a good shot. Look at all those nice books in the background and photos on the wall. you should be envious of him, would justify your reaction.

>>9205351
Why would you need a guidance from a bunch of self-absorbed elitist professors? If you really want connections, just research publishers, writers and entrepreneurs and talk to them yourself without spending a dime. Professors at universities will tend to steer you in the direction they want you to go, rather than encourage your own worldview. Fuck 'em.

>>9206342
Nobody gives a shit about YOU because after spending all your college days on writing and reading, you come out with no practical applications to the average person.

>>9206645
I'm already writing my own work. I've written a novel and lots of short stories, and am working on another work right now.

I suppose the proper way to describe the benefit of my program is that it's calibrated my ambitions. I know, to a greater extent than I did before, just how to think about the projects I'm undertaking. I know how to respond and react to the literature that's come before me, in a way that I didn't before grad school.

I realize that may be an unusual application of one's time at grad school, but that's what I'm doing. And of course it's great to be able to read great works in a scholarly setting again. It fires the mind and expands the imagination.

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>>9205055

>But university would build connections, no?

Build "connections" for what? To write? Stop getting meme'd on and go for a proper degree if you really want to go to college. "Creative Writing" is glorified babysitting.

>>9205017
>http://flavorwire.com/476264/27-writers-on-whether-or-not-to-get-your-mfa

I suggest reading that instead of soliciting answers from a bunch of people who generally have no clue what they are talking about.

tl;dr Many of them indeed prize general life experience over grad school. Interestingly, may who say you don't need an MFA have one of their own. Which, to me, it's like you have an MFA and you're killing it, so... don't get one? Most say it's worth it if you can get it funded, which duh. This is also a testament to the fact that, no, not only rich people get grad degrees.

I minored in creative writing in undergrad, and workshopping my shit helped me immensely. As one of the authors in that list points out, your readers in workshop are incidental, not the readers you would hope to have. IMO, having a motley group of people tell you what works and what doesn't in your writing can be immeasurably valuable. Those who advise going it alone like a true artist or whatever are those who would probably benefit the most from someone telling them that the load they blew onto a page sucks shitty donkey gooch.

If you want to eventually teach, if you could find a PhD program that awards you your Master on the way up, that might be worth looking at. It's also generally a given that teaching sections of freshman undergrad writing or something will be a requirement for whatever grad degree you go for. Maybe some programs compensate you or let you work off tuition -- something else to consider.

There's no discussion here. The English degree would be more beneficial. In New York, for example, you need a Master's to teach. So there you go. A creative writing degree gives you nothing.

>>9205017

I just bought a home. If I want to live the literary lifestyle, do I have to decorate my home with wall to wall picture frames as well as my bookshelves? Are there any authors who live in sparsely decorated homes?

>>9205017
Don't major in either one unless you have a full-ride scholarship and want to go into academia. It isn't completely useless, but there are so many things that are much more useful.
Source: creative writing major.

>>9205395

Do you realise that these fellowships only really go to either a - ivy league students or b - incredible geniuses. Also possibly c - people with connections

The average person does not have a chance in hrll to get one, especially for an English literature masters, as it id by nature superflous

>>9207355
Also no one cares if it's one or the other. Most people hear "English BA in One of the Other" and only remember "BA".

People love to say 'nobody can teach you to write' and leave it at that, but I don't really think that it's a completely fair assessment. Think of it like learning an instrument; nobody can teach you to compose brilliant songs, but they can teach you the basics and help you improve. Many musicians (and many writers) are self taught, but many had teachers, although for writers mentors would probably be a better word. Any kind of teacher isn't going to turn you into a fantastic writer, but they will help you develop some of the more conventional cornerstones of good writing, things like plot, pacing, prose and so on. Obviously, a one to one's better than a small group, and a small group's better than a class, but even a class will have some benefits.

As someone who did a Creative Writing course a few years ago (thankfully before the cost increased so much), when I first graduated I was pretty disheartened, I was pretty stupid in choosing to do creative writing, and at the undergrad level they have pretty much no entry standards, so I was in seminars with people who were really talentless, and by the third year they were writing airport novel stuff. As well as that, there was never any discussion within the teaching groups of anything 'literary', things were bad because they were confusing or hard to read, but it was never considered as to whether this is working towards something else (in part I think this was to do with the marking process; analysis of ideas is a lot more subjective than whether prose is good or bad).

These days, though, I think back to the one to one discussions I had with some of the lecturers, and can see when I look through my old submissions how the course shaped my writing style in what I think are positive ways, and think that actually the course is really what you make of it, and whilst it can pump out pretty bland writers, if you actually have talent, then being in that environment (I had a group of friends on the course who were all pretty good) can be really good for a writer.

That said, the English side of the course was way more enjoyable ad probably had as big an effect on my writing style in the way it made me approach texts, although this affects more concepts than process I guess. I would never do a Creative Writing masters and did do an English masters, but I had done an undergraduate so take that as you will, but don't think that writing is entirely personal development, others can help.

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>>9207386
Thank you for your thoughtful analogy anon. You are miles ahead of the smug memesters around here desu.

>>9207371
How dare you? Do you even fathom what I went through for that major?

>>9207483
Yeah, I majored in English, too. OP asked about which was more useful in a "strictly practical" sense, and then got all sensitive and emotional when people gave him strictly practical answers. Apparently he should have asked which one was more personally fulfilling.

>>9207360
They're not really so rare, anon. I'm definitely no genius and I got one that covered 3/4th of my MA, which left me paying ~$5k.