Debatable: Do You Need an MFA?

How an MFA Can Make You a Stronger Writer

Jael McHenry

Question: Do you need an MFA?

Answer: No.

Oops. As you can guess from the title of this essay, I’m supposed to take the “pro” side of this debate. So let’s phrase the question a little differently.

Question: Could you benefit from an MFA?

Answer: Almost definitely.

Here’s a little background on me: My senior year of college, I applied to the most selective MFA programs in the country. One by one, they all politely rejected me.

The following year, I cast my net a little wider and was accepted to American University’s MFA program. Success! I spent the next two years attending writing workshops and graduate-level literature classes, devoting my days and nights to becoming a better writer. I wrote a novel as my thesis project, I graduated with a shiny new degree, and I went out into the world.

Ten years later, I still hadn’t published a novel.

I’d successfully submitted a few short stories and poems to literary magazines, including the pretty darn reputable North American Review. But novel-wise, I had near miss after near miss. I got an agent with my thesis novel; he didn’t sell it. I wrote another book and got another agent; she left the business. Despite working diligently toward my goal, and despite all those near misses, I still hadn’t sold a novel.

Getting an MFA will not get you published. Period.

But it can do a thousand other things for you, almost all of which will make you a better writer. So let’s talk about those things.

HEAR IT LIKE IT IS

Feedback is the most important thing an MFA program can give you. Not that you can’t get feedback from trusted readers outside the MFA system, but the intensity of critiques in the graduate-degree environment absolutely can’t be matched. The difference between a beta-reader and an MFA workshop is the difference between a match and a flamethrower.

In each semester-long workshop, I submitted three pieces of writing to twelve or so classmates, all of whom were deadly serious about the art of feedback, as well as a professor who provided input and guided discussion. They scrubbed and scrutinized each piece for everything from plot plausibility to the characters’ names, and they discussed their findings in an open forum that pulled no punches. It wasn’t always comfortable, and it wasn’t always fun. But there’s nothing like a critique to teach you a few important principles:

• It doesn’t matter what you meant to write; it matters what the reader sees.
• You can’t please every reader.
• “But that’s how it really happened” is not an excuse for lousy fiction.

What you learn from having people read your work is only half the lesson. I learned just as much, if not more, from critiquing other people’s work. You learn how to recognize and express when something is not working. Once you see that in other writers’ manuscripts, it gets a lot easier to see it in your own.

GET THE DEADLINE YOU CAN’T IGNORE

During the second year of my MFA, I finished my first novel. Before that, I’d started and abandoned at least five of them for various reasons. My focus pre-MFA was split between writing and college classes and writing and working full-time. Finishing the first book in grad school taught me I could do it.

Later I learned how better to balance writing with other demands on my time, but I needed that first novel under my belt to know what I was shooting for. It turns out that a thesis committee of three professors waiting for you to produce work is a pretty big motivator. It isn’t the only impetus, but it’s a darn good one.

LEARN THROUGH DIVERSE OPPORTUNITIES

Not all MFA programs are created equal. I’m not talking about selectivity, the talent level of your fellow writers, or what they publish afterward. I mean that the actual composition of the program and how you spend your days in it makes a huge difference. Some MFA programs are pure workshop, which I wouldn’t actually recommend—there’s more to being a writer than writing. Others combine writing with literature classes, teaching opportunities, required lectures, and even internships.

During my MFA years, I did so much more than practice writing fiction. I took workshops in poetry (with a Pulitzer Prize winner) and playwriting to round out my perspective on language. I wrote a one-act play that was later performed onstage. I edited a literary magazine, selecting and refining other students’ work. I took classes on everybody from Dante to Toni Morrison, guided by experts in the field, and I delved deep into the study of words in all their beauty. I read my work in public at a bookstore, performing for a crowd. I had incredibly positive and incredibly negative workshop experiences, and both kinds taught me things I needed to know. Had I chosen not to earn my MFA and simply dedicated my days and nights to writing for two years, I might have learned a lot about craft. But I learned a lot of other things—things I’ve needed since—that I wouldn’t know without the opportunities the MFA program afforded me.

CONSIDER WHAT’S RIGHT FOR YOU

Here’s the question: Could I have done all of these things without paying tens of thousands of dollars in tuition? Some yes, some no. You can take night classes, go to weeklong or weekend workshops, and participate in online critique groups. You can pay brilliant freelance editors to provide honest feedback on your work. But an MFA program sets up the buffet so you can dish out exactly what you want to eat. Opportunity abounds.

The MFA has a gigantic price tag. Whether that price is worth it is a completely personal decision. Most of the published writers I know don’t have one, and plenty of MFA grads I know aren’t published. In my mind, the only bad decision is to draw a line between the two groups and look down at the people who make a different decision than your own. I’ve heard a lot of rancor on both sides of the debate, and it’s nearly always misplaced.

Do you need the degree? No. Can you benefit from it? Definitely. Will you pursue it? That’s up to you.