Fellow blogger Chicklit provides this link to a great story by Margo Rabb, published in All-Story.  Rabb provides a funny and insightful perspective on MFA programs.  I’ve always had mixed feelings about MFA programs:  sometimes I want to enroll in the one at my local university, and take advantage of the “connections” I might be able to make; other times I want to just hole up with my laptop and write what I want to write, damn the critics.

My opinion is colored by my own experience in a creative writing program (what my local university had before they developed an MFA program).  I was ostensibly a literature major but took writing workshops because I wanted to develop my writing.  So much of what I observed during the two years in that program are captured in Rabb’s story:  the favoritism, the unskilled (and thus worthless) workshop critiques, the sexual games among the students, the competition.  

I was lucky in that most of the students in the program treated me kindly.  I had so little confidence in my writing that I obviously wasn’t a threat to any of them.  I also was happily married at that time (and still am … to the same guy even) and avoided the after-class bar and bed hops.   What disappointed me about the experience–and why I would loathed to attend writing workshops again–was the fact that I came out of it with no more confidence in my skill as a writer than I did going in.  

Yes, I did receive praise for a couple of my stories from one of the more highly regarded workshop professors, and I even won a graduate student writing award (although that was for a literary essay, not a short story).  But what has unfortunately stayed with me was the high ridicule expressed over one of my stories during one workshop, a story that had an autobiographical basis.  I didn’t know how to deal with the humiliation, nor why I had to be humiliated, no matter how bad my story was.  Like the narrator of Rabb’s story, I wept bitterly.

The fallibility of the workshop professor was also a disappointment.  His overt favoritism toward some students sparked ill-will within the group, and his was always the “last word” in the workshops.  One time I strongly argued on behalf of another student regarding a technique she had used in her story.  I said it worked; he said it didn’t.  His opinion squashed mine, which could have been OK if only I had been allowed to make my argument in full.  

So I guess I still have some grudges–15+ years and counting.  But since then (and most recently), I’ve engaged a paid writing mentor who provided criticism and support, and found myself writing more in these past three years than I had in the previous ten.  I’ve also shared my stories with friends, again getting needed criticism but also much needed support.  I think my former professor would consider me delusional to rely solely on the feedback of friends and paid mentors.  But so what?  I am writing, and I am being read, even if (at this time) by a very small group.  It’s enough to sustain me and encourage me to, as one friend commands, “keep writing”!

Today at the Writer’s Resource Center, Kat Shann offers a compelling argument for why writers should learn to become good critics. Kat notes that, “Most writers love to receive critique of their work. Few are keen on giving it.” Yet, writers have a lot to gain by critiquing the work of their fellow writers. Kat describes several benefits, including (and most important to me), developing a critical eye for one’s own work. By constructively reviewing someone else’s novel or short story, you not only learn what that writer did “right” (aka the “WOW” factor), you also learn how to create that effect in your story. Kat also provides several links on the proper way to critique as well as venues for critiquing. You’ll have to read her full post (click here) for those links

And here I will put a plug in for Zoetrope and New Bard’s Press; both of these online writing communities have been discussed in my previous posts and you can also find their links on the sidebar.