Do you really need an MFA to be a novelist?
As an MFA director who also teaches a lot of very enthusiastic undergrads, this is a question I get a lot. Writers love creative writing courses — it’s often the first time we’re taken seriously as creators. But we don’t stay in school forever, and the question often arises: what do we do next? For many writers, the answer seems obvious. After undergrad, it’s time to get an MFA. Should this be the default answer?
It’s a tricky question, and one only the writer can answer. But there are things that the MFA does for a writer and does NOT do for a writer, and I think it would be helpful to have that frank talk.
You DO need an MFA if:
You want to teach creative writing at the college level.
That’s it. That’s the one thing that an MFA gives you that you can’t really get anywhere else: a teaching credential. But the tricky part here is that the jobs you are likely to get with ONLY an MFA are not jobs you can pay the bills with. My first job out of the MFA was as an adjunct teaching 2 courses per semester for $12,000 per year with no benefits. It was not a job that was conducive to getting a lot of writing done.
But with an MFA, you can apply to a PhD in Literature with a creative dissertation, which is the next academic step. And with a creative PhD and a book, you have a much better chance of getting a tenure-track professor job, a job much more likely to pay you a living wage and to give you benefits. But note that this is an additional 5 years of school.
You might want an MFA if:
You have a job (eg K-12 teaching) where a Master’s degree would give you a bump in pay.
You want to write on the literary spectrum (though many MFA programs are becoming more welcoming to commercial fiction!).
You want to be surrounded by others who write on the literary spectrum.
You want to dabble in other genres like poetry, creative nonfiction, and often screenwriting or playwriting.
You want a chance to teach composition courses — many MFA students are funded through teaching courses.
You want to get really good at workshop (and I don’t say this sarcastically at all). MFA programs are built on the Iowa model of workshop, where a writer turns in a story and then is workshopped, which means that the rest of the class discusses the piece while the writer remains silent. Many people dislike this model, and the potential for harm is high. But reading 4 unfinished stories per week for 2-3 years will make you very good at feeling out what a story is missing. There’s really no other training like it.
You want to be in the MFA world. I’ll say more about this in another blog post.
You want to be an academic. Many of us find identity in theory, for example — when I was formally introduced to feminist theory in graduate school, I felt the difference in my psyche. It’s hard to explain, but it felt like something opened for me, some way of understanding and parsing the world. I wouldn’t have had this experience without going to graduate school.
You DON”T need an MFA if:
You want to be a novelist. In fact, I don’t think the MFA is the most efficient way to get there (not that efficiency is the priority when developing a craft!). This topic merits a much bigger discussion, but let’s just say that MFA coursework is usually centered around short fiction, as it’s hard to fit the creation of longer form works into the span of a semester. Some MFA programs do multi-semester sequences, but this is very rare. (But something extension courses do very well!)
You want to learn the nuts and bolts of structure (or any other “craft” issue, for that matter!). Screenwriting is the exception to this rule, by the way — you will often encounter Robert McKee, Blake Snyder, or Syd Fields in a screenwriting class. But you are very unlikely to encounter frank, pragmatic models of narrative in a fiction course, other than Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, and even then, it will be only a glancing conversation. You might encounter Flannery O’Connor, Richard Russo, or Robert Boswell, but these essays are less how-to, more here’s-a-theory-advancing-fiction.
You want to get an agent or publish a book. This topic, too, merits its own post, but the thing the MFA does for you in a query letter is show an agent that you’ve spent time — years! — developing your craft. This is an important point, but the MFA is not the only way to show that you’ve put in the work.
Some additional possible benefits of an MFA:
Many programs have literary journals attached, and you may get the chance to be an editor on one of these journals. You get a CV line, and you learn a lot about the submission process.
You meet MFA-famous writers when they come to visit. The program might invite you to dinner with them, or ask you to pick them up from the airport.
You get used to doing a lot (teaching classes, juggling coursework, writing on the side, plus family and other obligations) with a little (very little money and resources). This sounds like a sarcastic point, but it’s not — this is good training for the writing life.
Some drawbacks:
It is VERY expensive to apply to MFA programs, between $50-100 per application.
MFA programs are VERY selective, sometimes admitting as few as 1% of their applicants. I remember reading a statistic that it’s easier to get into Harvard, Yale, and Princeton than it is to get into the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Low-residency programs are less competitive, as they’re not limited by the number of graduate assistantships the department can offer. (But be careful here! If your goal is to teach, a low-res MFA will often not be considered as equal preparation to teach.)
Would I do an MFA all over again? Absolutely, 100% yes. When Ohio State told me I’d been admitted to their program, it changed the course of my life. But this is an individual choice, and the MFA is no longer the only option to take creative writing courses. Good luck with your decision!