My creative writing courses, and the English classes around them puffing out my degree, have been forcing some odd ideas onto me about writing, and how it works on the publishing end. The department at my university is extremely prejudiced against some types of fiction—they divide everything up into “Genre” and “Literary,” but they can’t adequately define either term for me. Or if they can, they’ve so far refused. I picked up on this odd prejudice almost immediately, but I don’t mind. Different perspectives make the world go round, and nothing they say will ever convince me that fantasy and horror are not worth writing.
But some of the other ideas in the classes are new, outlandish, or—to my knowledge—wrong. I’d like to bounce some of these off of the AW community.
1) An MFA in creative writing will make my query letters more attractive.
This one is probably true, but I kind of get the feeling that it’s just as often not true.
2) Literary agents scout MFA programs for new clients.
I had never heard this before. If it is true, it makes an MFA program very attractive.
3) Literary agents represent short stories.
This is about where I started cocking my eyebrows up and going, “Huh?” Do literary agents keep contact lists of editors at magazines?
How could this possibly be profitable? For me OR the agent?
4) In my query letters, it’s a good idea to include with my credentials that I’ve taken the class with my specific teacher, and to mention the title of his / her book. Essentially, name-dropping.
This one seemed a bit outlandish to me. “I have studied creative writing with Joe Smith, author of ‘Space Cakes,’” just looks like it would waste space on the paper. I didn’t argue with this specific piece of advice, because the teacher in question (who hasn’t been named. If Space Cakes by Joe Smith exists, it’s an odd coincidence) was suggesting that we name drop her in our query letters, and I had a feeling that suggesting it was a bad idea might have been a bad idea, since creative writing grades are somewhat subjective. But would this really make a story more attractive? Why?
5) It’s better to establish a reputation as a short-story writer before attempting novels.
This seems odd. Are the markets closely related? I mean, a reputation as a good writer couldn’t hurt in any case, but why start with short stories and then move into longer ones?
6) “Sell” your short stories to non-paying markets first to establish credentials, and then work your way up to paying markets.
Another strange piece of advice, one I argued against. Wouldn’t it be smarter to work your way down the pay scale with queries? Give Playboy first shot at everything, just in case?
This advice came attached with encouragement to submit our work to the university’s student-run (sort of…) literary journal. I refuse to give my work away, frankly, mostly because I’m too used to getting paid for it by now. This attitude is seen as pompous, for some reason, so I keep it to myself.
7) If you place a story in a non-paying market, it’s OK to try to sell it to a different, paying market, without informing the editors of either journal.
I freaked out when this was mentioned (by the teacher!) especially as she seemed to be encouraging folks to do it. Dishonesty bugs me, especially dishonesty that flies in the face of (to my knowledge) an industry standard. Is it really OK to publish a story with a student-run journal with circulation all over the city, and then act as if it’s never been published? Sounds doubtful to me. Apparently, people have gotten away with this before, and more power to them, I suppose, but it still seems like shoddy advice.
8) A positive web presence makes editors more likely to accept your work.
This makes sense to me, on one level, but on another, it really doesn’t. While I can see how an editor would prefer an author with an active twitter page, since those might be readers she normally couldn’t reach, I somehow doubt that an editor has a whole lot of time to go wading through the internet looking up every name in the pile of not-bad submissions for the day.
9) Furthermore, if you do not have a web presence, it is very difficult to sell your writing.
This one scares me. Why does an editor care if I’m not popular on facebook yet? If I write and sell a few good stories, my web presence will grow. Should I really be focusing on building the web presence first? New content for blogs isn’t easy, and doing it for free in hopes of becoming famous enough to maybe sell a short story one day seems absurd. Please, someone, tell me this is wrong.
10) You have to learn how to write literary fiction before you can write genre fiction.
Another piece of confusing advice. I think this one is the department prejudice showing through, but maybe there’s something to it. I can’t see it, though. The more I study good fiction, the more I realize that what makes it tick isn’t quantifiable, so suggesting that I have to learn how to write the things Toni Morrison writes before I can tell stories about volcanic squids seems a bit outré.
11) It's ok to simultaniously submit stories, even if the editors specifically say otherwise. They'll never know, anyway.
One of my instructors said this. It troubles me. I imagine that this is a good way to end up on a bad list.
Some of these are obviously rubbish, and I’m just ranting, but others are genuinely confusing me, or else I hadn’t heard of them until this set of courses. I am extremely interested in how the community perceives these.
Thanks!
But some of the other ideas in the classes are new, outlandish, or—to my knowledge—wrong. I’d like to bounce some of these off of the AW community.
1) An MFA in creative writing will make my query letters more attractive.
This one is probably true, but I kind of get the feeling that it’s just as often not true.
2) Literary agents scout MFA programs for new clients.
I had never heard this before. If it is true, it makes an MFA program very attractive.
3) Literary agents represent short stories.
This is about where I started cocking my eyebrows up and going, “Huh?” Do literary agents keep contact lists of editors at magazines?
How could this possibly be profitable? For me OR the agent?
4) In my query letters, it’s a good idea to include with my credentials that I’ve taken the class with my specific teacher, and to mention the title of his / her book. Essentially, name-dropping.
This one seemed a bit outlandish to me. “I have studied creative writing with Joe Smith, author of ‘Space Cakes,’” just looks like it would waste space on the paper. I didn’t argue with this specific piece of advice, because the teacher in question (who hasn’t been named. If Space Cakes by Joe Smith exists, it’s an odd coincidence) was suggesting that we name drop her in our query letters, and I had a feeling that suggesting it was a bad idea might have been a bad idea, since creative writing grades are somewhat subjective. But would this really make a story more attractive? Why?
5) It’s better to establish a reputation as a short-story writer before attempting novels.
This seems odd. Are the markets closely related? I mean, a reputation as a good writer couldn’t hurt in any case, but why start with short stories and then move into longer ones?
6) “Sell” your short stories to non-paying markets first to establish credentials, and then work your way up to paying markets.
Another strange piece of advice, one I argued against. Wouldn’t it be smarter to work your way down the pay scale with queries? Give Playboy first shot at everything, just in case?
This advice came attached with encouragement to submit our work to the university’s student-run (sort of…) literary journal. I refuse to give my work away, frankly, mostly because I’m too used to getting paid for it by now. This attitude is seen as pompous, for some reason, so I keep it to myself.
7) If you place a story in a non-paying market, it’s OK to try to sell it to a different, paying market, without informing the editors of either journal.
I freaked out when this was mentioned (by the teacher!) especially as she seemed to be encouraging folks to do it. Dishonesty bugs me, especially dishonesty that flies in the face of (to my knowledge) an industry standard. Is it really OK to publish a story with a student-run journal with circulation all over the city, and then act as if it’s never been published? Sounds doubtful to me. Apparently, people have gotten away with this before, and more power to them, I suppose, but it still seems like shoddy advice.
8) A positive web presence makes editors more likely to accept your work.
This makes sense to me, on one level, but on another, it really doesn’t. While I can see how an editor would prefer an author with an active twitter page, since those might be readers she normally couldn’t reach, I somehow doubt that an editor has a whole lot of time to go wading through the internet looking up every name in the pile of not-bad submissions for the day.
9) Furthermore, if you do not have a web presence, it is very difficult to sell your writing.
This one scares me. Why does an editor care if I’m not popular on facebook yet? If I write and sell a few good stories, my web presence will grow. Should I really be focusing on building the web presence first? New content for blogs isn’t easy, and doing it for free in hopes of becoming famous enough to maybe sell a short story one day seems absurd. Please, someone, tell me this is wrong.
10) You have to learn how to write literary fiction before you can write genre fiction.
Another piece of confusing advice. I think this one is the department prejudice showing through, but maybe there’s something to it. I can’t see it, though. The more I study good fiction, the more I realize that what makes it tick isn’t quantifiable, so suggesting that I have to learn how to write the things Toni Morrison writes before I can tell stories about volcanic squids seems a bit outré.
11) It's ok to simultaniously submit stories, even if the editors specifically say otherwise. They'll never know, anyway.
One of my instructors said this. It troubles me. I imagine that this is a good way to end up on a bad list.
Some of these are obviously rubbish, and I’m just ranting, but others are genuinely confusing me, or else I hadn’t heard of them until this set of courses. I am extremely interested in how the community perceives these.
Thanks!
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