Good writing is good writing, and industry norms are industry norms (with minor tweaks in some of the genres). As a graduate of Seton Hill, I can tell you first hand that the focus overall is not on how to write in X genre, it's about good writing and the business of writing (as a whole). Only three of the classes are explicitly genre specific (although there are also genre residency modules and genre-specific critique groups). Many of the students write in many genres. My focus when I went was Horror, but I'm now writing Romance. I wouldn't be as good as I am in Romance if it wasn't for Seton Hill. Instead of putting the blinders on me, they opened my eyes to the various genres in a way that I hadn't experienced beforehand.
So, you are correct in your statement, but incorrect in assuming that that is the type of instruction that actually happens in an MFA program such as Seton Hill's.
As for how beneficial an anti-genre program is to a genre writer, ask Orson Scott Card about his experiences. I remember him addressing this exact topic when he was a visiting professor at Seton Hill.
Well, Orson Scott Card impresses me greatly as a writer, but I'm not sure I trust his opinion on this matter. My memory may be faulty, but has he actually been through an MFA program? I don't think he has.
Anyway, I do think good writing is good writing, and I think the top MFA programs can teach anyone a great deal about how to write well. I think pretty much any college creative writing course that has good professors can teach any writer much more than the writer is likely to learn on his own, and Seton Hall seems to be wonderful.
Even long before I could even think about an MFA, I learned more about writing in college in six months than I would have thought possible. I was already a selling writer, and writing paid my way through college, but I still learned more in six months at college than I had in five years on my own.
But I also believe each genre has its own needs, its own tropes, and these can best be learned from top pro writers in whichever genre it is you want to write. Good writing is good writing, but good writing alone seldom gets a writer anywhere. Front to back, any top MFA program is filled with writers who write very, very well. One story after another is written beautifully, but even many of best
writers in MFA programs never manage to turn that great writing into novels that sell.
I'm all for MFA programs, and all for any type of college creative writing class. Anyone who wants to be a writer really should do whatever it takes to go to college, and take as many classes and programs as possible.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I firmly believe creative writing classes and MFA programs matter, and help any writer who has the talent to take advantage of them, but it isn't good
writing that sells novels, it's story, character, and the demands of a given genre.
Writing that would give an MFA professor a severe headache frequently becomes a bestselling novel because the writer understands story, character, the demands of a given genre, and knows what general readers actually want.
Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer are good examples of what I mean. I'm not sure either could provide writing samples that would get them into a good program, or keep them there if they got in, but I'd rather talk to either about story and character, about the demands of their respective genres, and about what readers actually want, than any MFA professor I've ever met.
This is my only complaint about such programs. All I've been around put so much emphasis on
writing that the kind of story and character most readers want never happens.
MFA programs? Absolutely wonderful, and extremely helpful, but few of them give writers hands on experience with bestselling genre writers, at least to the same degree that good seminars and workshops provide, and even someone with a MFA should still attend these seminars and workshops, if they want to be successful in a given genre.
