Writing and Education

I figure that many authors major in subjects that aren't helpful to writing. Kafka and Flaubert both studied law, and that, if anything, should hurt your ability to write creatively. Also, if you think of the greatest authors of all time, I believe many of them did not go to college. I'm not sure about that, but I'm just thinking of Mark Twain, Hemingway, Dostoevsky, and Shakespeare. Poe only spent a year in college, and Tolstoy studied law and Oriental Languages, while never earning a degree.

Writing fiction is one of the few professions where is isn't particularly beneficial to have a college degree. Agents and editors don't ask for a resume, they ask for a manuscript.

On the other hand, I did learn a lot about writing, the world, and myself, from the various classes I had to take to earn my English degree. Who is the target audience for your writing? I would imagine it's difficult to write fiction which would be satisfying to someone with more education or a higher IQ than oneself. Personally I have difficulty enjoying standard romance novels or taking them seriously, even though I love romance, because they're written by and for people with a lower reading level and a much narrower, more traditional idea of the world than me.

If you've got the basic tools of your trade - decent grammar, spelling, etc - and can tell a good story, it doesn't matter what academic qualifications you have.

Publishers don't care if you've got a degree as long as you can write.

Good luck - and stop panicking.

The Freelance Writing forum has an ongoing poll on this very topic.

Sunandshadow, you've got to expand your romance selection. <G> Most of mine have featured some very topical issues in them. (from surrogacy to organ transplants to teen pregnancy.) They're not just "fluffy" stuff. And I refuse to write down. I don't let my writing become so lyrical that it interferes with my story (actually, lyrical writing is something my line frowns on) but I don't think I write down. I get annoyed when people want things "dumbed down." If the reader doesn't know a given word, they can either figure it out from context or go look it up. But I don't feel I need to change a word because a reader might not know it. (Of course, the vocabulary I use also depends on the character in whose POV I am. Some of my characters have better vocabularies than others.)

I do not think you need a college degree to be a writer, and I'd actually recommend that someone who wants to write and get a college degree get a degree in something other than English. Because as long as you have all the basics down, it's all those other things that are going to feed your writing. The English stuff gives you the tools (which you can get from English classes without making it your major) but the other classes will fill the well, feed your soul, give you many other things to think about. At least, that's my opinion on it.

And you can do it without a college degree, too.
Susan G.

DirtySyko said:

How could they just not care if you have a degree or not? Wouldn't an agent or publishing company be more prone to accept a MS from somebody who actually has an education in the field?

So that's that. I never graduated highschool, and I'm scared this will seriously effect my outcome in the writing world. I'll get my GED, I'm not worried about that... But I just don't know what it's going to be like when people realieze I don't have much of an education behind me, and how agents, publishers, and editors will be able to take me seriously.

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All they care about is your WORK. Your writing will speak for you. If you have the ability, quite honestly, they could care less. When you send your work, you're not going to say in your cover letter, oh, by the way, I only have a GED. Nope. You don't mention it at all. It won't matter. It's the work they want to see.

Oooo, you met the author of The Giver? That is such a cool novel.

Now stop fretting and go write something. Your posts are already far more articulate than some I've seen. Best of luck to you!

Susan G.

No one will care about your level of education if your writing is up to snuff. Read a lot, write a lot, and revise a lot.

Sure, it's a good idea to get your GED, and you might find it helpful to take a few college classes, but it's not required.

You wouldn't believe the number of MFAs who couldn't write a commercial story to save their lives.

Read. Write. If you're weak in some area improve that area.

Your story stands on its own. When you pick up a novel you don't check whether the author has a degree in writing before you pull it off the shelf, do you? Neither do other readers.

I do think having a college degree is important to be a good writer. I don't think it matters what the degree is in. But it's important because:

1) Getting through college and obtaining a degree is all about discipline. Can you get all your reading done on time? Can you write multiple essays and turn them in by the deadline and get a high grade? Can you commit yourself to attending all the class periods? BIC is a popular mantra around here, and that's all about self-discipline.

2) A scope of knowledge. Attending a liberal arts college will give you an oppurtunity to take classes in many, many areas. I know that my sociology, philosophy, astronomy, and history courses helped me just as much, if not more, than my English courses.

3) I know I said it doesn't matter what degree you get, but I think an English degree is particularly helpful. The worse writers I've read are bad because they don't understand the mechanics of writing. They don't know what's good and bad because they've never read good or bad! They don't know how to break a story down and build it up. Some people know this naturally, some people need to learn.

4) Meeting people. Lots and lots of people. People you love, people you hate, people you are indifferent to, people who change your life for the better and the worse. And with lots and lots of people come lots and lots of experiences, and all of that is fodder for your writing.

5) A sense of accomplishment. Finishing that first novel and that second novel is pretty goddamned satisfying. so is walking with your degree. It's worth it and it'll give you a taste for it and it'll make you want more.

6) Practice! Write as much as you can, either by yourself, with a group of like-minded people you meet on campus, or in a class environment. Also, connections...it's a good time to make them.

Nobody is going to care if you have a degree, it's true. Nobody asks. And it won't make you a great writer or a good writer. But the experiences you pick up on the way? The things you learn? The people you meet? The self-discipline? Yeah, all that stuff will make you a good writer.

DirtySyko said:

You see, I've always liked testing people's limits, going over the line, and just being a nuisance. Highschool was the perfect place for me to misbehave and test people. I didn't fail because I was dumb, far from it. Hell, I find myself to be a lot more intelligent and educated than a lot of the people in my class who did graduate, but that's what being conceded does to you.

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Yeah, and it helps to be able to spell conceited, too, before you start bragging about how intelligent and well educated you are.

Honestly, though, as the memories of high school are fresh in my mind, spelling conceited incorrectly is nothing compared to many of the people who graduated with honors. You should have read my school's newspaper. It would make your head explode. You would think it was from an ESL school in inner city Baghdad.

Education

DirtySyko said:

I didn't know where else to post this...

What are your opinions when it comes to education and writing? To be a successful writer do you need a college degree? If someone doesn't have an education what should they do to try to get their name out there?

With a world so focused on whether or not somebody has a piece of paper they aquired by spending thousands of dollars in school, it's kind of nerving to wonder if it's possible to get anywhere without one.

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I'm firmly on the side of as much education as possible. You can always go through history and find exceptions here and there, but they really are the exceptions, and you can bet every last one of them gave themselves the equivalent of a college education, and then some.

Now, I started selling fiction as a high school drop out, but once I started college I also learned more about writing well in six months than I had in all the years before college put together.

It is certainly possible to be a highly successful writer without a college degree of any kind, but I seriously doubt it's possible to be a highly successful writer without giving yourself at least as much of an education as you would get by going to colllege, and that isn't easy.

College simply has too many advantages, too many like-minded people around, too many experts, too much grade-instilled discipline, too many great libraries, too many professors, too much knowledge on any subject, to easily duplicate the college learning experience on your own.

Just run down the list of the top one hundred or so bestselling writers and look at their education level. It's astounding how many have college degrees.

I agree with UJ about the number of MFAs who can't begin to write a commercial story, but I don't think this has much to do with the value of a college education. No college education can teach talent, and those without talent will fail, MFA or not. But my experience is that if you do have the needed talent, a college education can greatly reduce how long it takes you to put your talent to good use.

I suspect there are two reason for why college grads seem to dominate the successful writers list. One reason is simply because college is a great place to learn, a wonderful place to gain skills to match your talent. The other reason is probably because those who find a way of getting a college education regardless of their circumstances are more likely to be people with drive, ambition, talent, and above average intelligence.

Anyway, my answer is that while a degree is certainly not mandatory for success, at least for a fiction writer, I think getting one will flatten your learning curve tremendously, and will probably take you further than you can go without one. So while a degree absolutely is not mandatory, it is very valuable, and can make the writer's rad a great deal less bumpy.

DirtySyko said:

How could they just not care if you have a degree or not? Wouldn't an agent or publishing company be more prone to accept a MS from somebody who actually has an education in the field?

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For nonfiction, they care. You have to know the subject you write about, and that usually means credentials. For a novel, they don't care. Colleges don't exactly train novelists.

A general education helps with writing. You need to learn something about everything. Pepperland girl made this point; it's worth repeating.

You see, I've always liked testing people's limits, going over the line, and just being a nuisance.

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Try that here and I'll be the first to lose patience with you.

college

reph said:

For a novel, they don't care. Colleges don't exactly train novelists.

.

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I'd say the number of successful writers who have college degrees, particularly in English lit and journalism, is pretty good evidence that colleges really do train novelists, and do so pretty darned well.

pepperlandgirl said:

I do think having a college degree is important to be a good writer. I don't think it matters what the degree is in. But it's important because:

1) Getting through college and obtaining a degree is all about discipline. Can you get all your reading done on time? Can you write multiple essays and turn them in by the deadline and get a high grade? Can you commit yourself to attending all the class periods? BIC is a popular mantra around here, and that's all about self-discipline.

2) A scope of knowledge. Attending a liberal arts college will give you an oppurtunity to take classes in many, many areas. I know that my sociology, philosophy, astronomy, and history courses helped me just as much, if not more, than my English courses.

3) I know I said it doesn't matter what degree you get, but I think an English degree is particularly helpful. The worse writers I've read are bad because they don't understand the mechanics of writing. They don't know what's good and bad because they've never read good or bad! They don't know how to break a story down and build it up. Some people know this naturally, some people need to learn.

4) Meeting people. Lots and lots of people. People you love, people you hate, people you are indifferent to, people who change your life for the better and the worse. And with lots and lots of people come lots and lots of experiences, and all of that is fodder for your writing.

5) A sense of accomplishment. Finishing that first novel and that second novel is pretty goddamned satisfying. so is walking with your degree. It's worth it and it'll give you a taste for it and it'll make you want more.

6) Practice! Write as much as you can, either by yourself, with a group of like-minded people you meet on campus, or in a class environment. Also, connections...it's a good time to make them.

Nobody is going to care if you have a degree, it's true. Nobody asks. And it won't make you a great writer or a good writer. But the experiences you pick up on the way? The things you learn? The people you meet? The self-discipline? Yeah, all that stuff will make you a good writer.

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Actually, the same arguments can be made for not going to college. Going into the workforce and paying the bills right out of High School takes as much discipline as finishing assignments. As with getting a high grade, getting a large paycheck has to do with how quickly you can adapt to a job, and how willing you are to clock some overtime.

More importantly, I'd say that the long string of jobs I've held over the years has given me more practical insight than college ever could have. For instance, I worked for a few years as a cable & telephone lineman. You wouldn't believe the "behind the scenes" views that job gave me. It took me into homes of both the rich and the poor, into every conceivable place of business, and always I got to see the attics, the basements, the places normal people don't get to go.

That's invaluable knowledge for a novelist.

Just think what the mailroom, printshop, and local drug store taught me, not to mention that year I was a freelance web designer. As for book education, I gave that to myself over the four years I worked shelving books at the public library.

Lately I've been doing general maintenance, so you can add plumbing, electrical, HVAC, carpentry, and appliance repair to the list of things I'll never get caught misrepresenting in a story. And again, this job takes me into, under, and over the homes of a wide variety of classes, ethnic groups, and religions. Great for character development and scene setting.

I'd say it is definitely possible to round yourself without ever getting a college degree.

Susan Gable said:

Sunandshadow, you've got to expand your romance selection. <G> Most of mine have featured some very topical issues in them. (from surrogacy to organ transplants to teen pregnancy.) They're not just "fluffy" stuff.

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Well topical is not really what I'm looking for - I meant more like elaborate worldbuilding and exploration of philosophy and sociology. But if you know or any particularly brainy historical or sff romances I'd be happy to hear recommendations.

Jamesaritchie said:

I'd say the number of successful writers who have college degrees, particularly in English lit and journalism, is pretty good evidence that colleges really do train novelists, and do so pretty darned well.

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Begging your pardon, sir, but it might instead show that kids who wanted to write novels chose lit or journalism as their major. The English courses I took sure didn't tell me how to write fiction. They gave me a lot of practice in writing term papers, though.

DirtySyko said:

So during school I got into a lot of trouble, and sometimes I would miss many, many days in a row, just for s**** and giggles.

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You do realize, don't you, that writing a novel takes a lot of self-discipline and patient, determined daily effort?

Susan Gable said:

I'd actually recommend that someone who wants to write and get a college degree get a degree in something other than English. Because as long as you have all the basics down, it's all those other things that are going to feed your writing. The English stuff gives you the tools (which you can get from English classes without making it your major)

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That's not entirely true - 400 and 500 level English classes, the cool small seminars, are generally reserved for English majors and grad students.

reph said:

For nonfiction, they care. You have to know the subject you write about, and that usually means credentials. For a novel, they don't care. Colleges don't exactly train novelists.

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You do know that this was posted in the "Writing Novels" forum, don't you?

reph said:

Try that here and I'll be the first to lose patience with you.

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You sound surprisingly like my English teachers. It didn't sound like the original poster was trying to be a nuisance. Just think that for everyone's attitude you dislike, there's someone who dislikes yours.

Everyone's philosophy is different

Personally, I'm going back to college 23 years after I got my degree in History. I wasn't a great student back then, but it's amazing what a stint in the military will do for you.

I figured if I'm going to be serious about this writing stuff, (and since I do it anyway for my day-job (techwriter/editor for a government contractor), I might as well get some training in it. So, I'm going back to get a degree in English (yeah, another degree I can starve with) and this time, I think I'm going to go all the way through to my Masters.

Going to take a bit at 6 credits a semester, but at least I get to skip most all the general studies classes since they're crediting the work I did for my original BS in History.

Figure while I'm there, I might as well take some interesting electives too to round out some of the blind spots I've spotted in my writing so far.

Yeah, there's a lot you can learn on the outside. The School of Hard Knocks is still a valid school, but a little formalized focus on things never hurt either.

Ace said:

You do know that this was posted in the "Writing Novels" forum, don't you?

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Oh, yes, but many people write novels and other forms. For instance, some decide to take day jobs as technical writers while working on novels.* Giving the information can't hurt. Besides, DSyko seemed incredulous that publishers wouldn't want to see a degree. I assured him that sometimes they do, just not for novels.

*Richard White, just above, provided a real-life example while I was writing this post.

Just think that for everyone's attitude you dislike, there's someone who dislikes yours.

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I'm not sure the numbers are equal, but if someone dislikes my attitude, that's his or her privilege.

Jamesritchie wrote:

College simply has too many advantages, too many like-minded people around, too many experts, too much grade-instilled discipline, too many great libraries, too many professors, too much knowledge on any subject, to easily duplicate the college learning experience on your own.

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Speaking purely in terms of North America, I disagree strongly.

You learn to write college papers in college, especially with an English degree. If you're lucky, you might learn close reading, or how to take apart a text and put it back together, but generally the sorts of literary analysis undergraduates are taught to engage in today isn't going to do a damn thing for them in terms of writing novels or plays or earning a living.

If you take creative writing classes and workshops, you might, if you're lucky, learn something about revision and possibly, about crafting a story or play or poem, but it's not likely. You certainly aren't going to learn anything useful in most undergraduate programs about writing that people will pay to read. In fact, you may have heaps of scorn piled upon you for indicating an interest in writing for money, or, worse, genre fiction.

An adult with an income to earn and contemplating a first undergraduate degree would do much much better to read a lot, write a lot, revise a lot. Repeat until published, then start over.

After a lot of read-write-revise, try to go to the better writing workshops, Clarion, for SF, for instance, or Viable Paradise, also for SF. I suspect that there are others for other genres, but those are workshops where people I know who have taken them have benefitted, and the teachers are people who actually write for a living.

It's astonishing to note how many professional writing teachers who teach poetry/drama/fiction college classes aren't themselves published in a commercially viable or widely distributed form. The reason for that is that, in general, they see themselves as teachers who write, not writers who teach; there's a profound difference.