What is taught on Creative Writing degrees?

[Brian G Turner]

I've noticed a number of literary agents have degrees in Creative Writing, but I'm curious as to what the actual content of those degrees might be. I've checked out a few at UK universities, and they mention about teaching for writing for a wide range of media - short stories, blogs, radio, theatre, poetry, etc.

However, here at chrons we tend to push on learning about technical issues such as POV use, character development, overall structure, opening hooks, and character experience. I don't tend to see any of this specifically mentioned on any Creative Writing course I've looked at.

Is it the case that these are concerns mainly just for genre fiction? Are people with Creative Writing degrees left with a great understanding of textual analysis while left clueless about character development issues?

My cynical side doesn't see how a Creative Writing degree can adequately prepare for genre writing, except as a dedicated degree topic.

However, I'm especially thinking in terms of the UK - certainly universities in the USA may do things very differently.

Does anyone have any experience they can share on the issue? I'm simply curious, nothing more.

 

[Loren]

I can't answer your question, but I am equally curious.

The best source for such answers would probably be from the source, professors at those universities that teach the subject.

If we don't have answers here I would love to hear what you discover.

 

[Zoe Mackay]

Here's the syllabus (or at least the description) for the OU Creative Writing module - seems pretty reasonable to me:

A215 - Creative writing - Open University Course

 

[Loren]

Brian,

A quick search online in the US seems to define creative writing as follows from this university:

"B.A.s or B.F.A.s in writing may find that pursuing an M.A. or M.F.A. in professional or technical writing is a more practical approach. These degrees teach the finer points of grant writing, writing white papers, writing press releases and other types of writing that major corporations value. Writers with this degree can go on to careers in advertising, authoring of technical manuals and fundraising for major charities."

I suspect that creative writing is considered a much broader subject than simply fiction, as describe above. Courses are probably tailored in fields that actually offer salaried incomes.

Creative writing degrees are a relatively new academic thing (last 30 to 40 years), so the focus seems to be on more practical writing careers. It's almost like trying to get a degree in basketball. Many kids would love to be a professional athlete, but the actual number of slots available in the big leagues is rather small and not a realistic goal unless you have the innate talent.

I suspect that things like POV, character development, structure, opening hooks, and character experience are in there somewhere, but lost among a sea of other topics that are given more weight.

 

[millymollymo]

Graduated last year, so I can offer a little insight. Firstly, you need to consider how do you grade "creativity" and that other thing, talent. Once you've decided on the non-answer for those you can move on.
Every uni offers different content. Mine sampled content from Novel, Short, Play, Film, Radio, Poetry, and Non-fiction. Bath, York, East Anglia and now Manchester Uni all have a reputable "post degree" publication reputation.
I know a grad of the OU course that has since gone on to publication.
Each aspect addressed a technical area. POV, Tense, Grammar, Character Dev etc and your final dissertation was left to you to pick a preferred genre/media.

Mostly however I would say that it allows you to discover your way of writing, and shows you (if you wish to see) how to approach it. It's up to you what you do with it.

Genre writing... up until my final year, I spent my time trying to make the fantastical fit the norm, while figuring out how to make a character believable and a world solid enough to carry it. This very issue of writing for your audience therefore is why I am now having to unlearn infodump. For a piece to reach the non-genre aware tutors, I had to establish twice as much in the same amount of word count as those in writing in other genre.
Yes they cover how to develop a character, it's left to you to show in a creative writing piece, that you were paying attention.

Don't even talk to me about poetry.
I don't think I've ever 'properly' analysed text. So what the curtains are blue, aliens invading and the dwarves have sealed the mine!
(I was a reluctant student in some modules )

ETA: I was writing copy before I started the degree, completing it has improved my income a great deal. I did have one story published while doing the degree. Publication ... that's a whole different level of subjectivity/objectivity with editors.

 

[Kylara]

I'm currently on one all UG at my uni are CW joint honors (with either English lit or drama). Very flexible, and some very excellent tutors. The offerings are fiction, poetry, playwriting. Then it gets to choosing so you drop one then finalists specialise further, and take a selection of options - screenwriting, kids/YA, writing men (this year's options!) luckily we have a genre specialist at my uni so not too bad, but I've only had bad genre feedback from one tutor (1st yr).

Whilst grammar etc isn't really discussed, you look at how to write to make a compelling piece. In addition you have non creative assignments discussing this process, doing research into your topics, lit crit etc. There are workshops, however the benefit of this in my experience is dubious, purely because some of the people studying English and CW seem to have absolutely no clue about how to construct a sentence or that that is even a thing.

I have taken to reining back my editorials die to the horrible looks I get from people after copy editing. And the fact that no-one else seems to properly workshop my own work. I am however a mature student and find that my PT is very good and always happy to look over and give constructive criticism. They are all very well qualified (and published) and it is very interesting.

My course in particular is incredibly flexible (why I chose it) and well regarded, it's just some of the students who are insufferable

The course is in the first year half creative and half academic, discussing a wide range of texts on writing, by authors, philosophers, critics etc. It has helped a little with my writing, and more so with having to write different things regularly, but some of the tutors are fabulous. It's encouraging I think. You get to have a play get feedback, improve, and then see how it goes really.

Most of the best courses are the MA as you have time to write an entire novel. But there is also the crit essay to go alongside. It's not a doss, and in my opinion poor SPAG and sentence construction is not marked harshly enough, which makes people with good literacy skills somewhat unrewarded

 

[Denise Tanaka]

Way back in the ancient days of long, long ago, when I was earning my bachelor's degree, my college did not offer a creative writing major per se. My only choice was English Literature with a self-created minor degree in what they called an independent study. I named it creative writing. The majority of my courses involved classic published novels and plays. I've read all the usual. That actually helped me quite a bit, to dissect what the "masters" were doing in their writing. In order to write well, one must have a clear idea of what good writing really is. When you pull out a chapter or a scene from Madame Bovary and discuss and critique what Flaubert is doing on the page, it is incredibly useful. As my husband the computer programmer likes to say, good input = good output. On the creative writing aspect, the college offered 1 or 2 courses that were a guided workshop format. I was able to repeat those a couple of times to earn units.

 

[HoopyFrood]

Towards the latter half of my degree I started moving towards creative writing and I then followed it with a Masters in Creative Writing. I took it specifically to learn scriptwriting but I did also have to take core modules, including poetry which is not my thing at all

While no, we weren't taught the tools of writing, as such -- though I do recall looking at POV, and structure was a big one that we looked at for a while, and specifically how you can play around with it -- we did do many things that were useful to me because of how they made me write in ways that I would not have done otherwise. We'd have seminars where we'd do 'plot kernels' where we'd think about the little ideas that can set off entire stories, or once we were sent off to Totnes to do travel writing, or having to write a piece that used real life events to propel the story. We would also read a book a week to look at other authors and their styles and how they used the particular technique that we were looking at that week.

During the undergraduate course one of the things that we were graded on was a writing journal that we had to keep and fill during the year.

One of the main modules in the Masters was research and we had to devise an entire piece of work based on a particular thing that we had researched.

Oh, and you also have to write an accompanying essay for pretty much every piece of work which makes you examine yourself and your choices for things, and constructively criticise yourself.

So it was more imparting things that are useful to being a writer -- research, keeping a writers book, trying techniques and styles that you'd never even considered previously (this worked especially well for me as it was only during my course that my love of scriptwriting developed. My dissertation was the first script I'd ever written).

I suppose the scriptwriting aspect of the course was more along the lines of teaching exactly how to write scripts, considering they are more technical pieces of work. I can say for certain that everything I learnt on my course in regards to scriptwriting I will remember for the rest of my life and are the techniques I use for my scripts. The course was taught very well and our seminar leader really broke everything down into dynamic, easy to remember concepts. When I finally write my cult classic script I'll owe it all to him

On the other hand, one thing I did find difficult is that you can get seminar leaders with whom your style just doesn't gel. We had a guy who is a well-known writer, writes for the Guardian and Independent and has been shortlisted for the Man Booker prize...and then there was me with my sometimes rather odd stories and struggling attempts at Wodehouse-esque silliness

 

[Kylara]

Yes! Reading at least one book a week for each CW module (in addition to english modules reading) - Can be quite hard work!

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Wouldn't the standard answer be how to correctly say - "Do you want fries with that Sir?!"

Cheers, Greg.

 

[LittleStar]

I actually just finished an MA in CW in September as well as my undergrad before that, joint with eng lit.

I can only speak for the uni I went to, but they didn't really teach me much about anything, to be honest. Not in technicalities of how to write. We had one module which ran through week by week the beginning/middle/end, but that's pretty much it. The rest of the time was spent looking vaguely at some texts to see how they did things and (badly/mild-manneredly) 'critiquing' each others short story samples for that week.

It was four years focussed on short stories for the most part (nothing longer, but there was poetry as well as prose). With the modules being marked on a short 1500-2000 word story with an adjoining analysis of our choices and why we made them... But what i figured out they actually wanted for this last part was an essay on the engagement with literary theory, and how our story interacts with genre or plays with language etc. (none of which they explained to us in enough detail until the MA).

For the first two years some core modules involved poetry, which I didn't enjoy at all, I had never written/read poetry, and that Probably showed in the work I submitted for them... And they never told us any of the technicalities that go into poetry, more than running through iambic and it's ilk. I made sure I didn't choose a poetry module for my third year.

The MA however, I found much better. Maybe it was the smaller groups, or because the ones that do the MA they know are there for more than just 'reasons' etc. The teaching I found was much more in depth, we analysed texts in greater detail, and delved further into the stories themselves... Still very little technical speak though. And strangely I really enjoyed the two core poetry modules I had to do, because they spent time explaining things and running through things with us, that just didn't happen in the undergrad. We looked at a wide array of different types of poetry and were encouraged to try these types, which I enjoyed as well. And I actually learnt how to craft a good poem, although I know my tastes in the poetic differ from a lot of people's, free verse is my thing, I don't need specific rhythm or music in the lines, but I also want a story told... but that's another topic.

My point is the MA was, for me a good investment I feel.

Having said that, Over the four years never once did we get spoken to about POV, character development, etc... Only vaguely about structure and hooks (see beginning/middle/end). And one module was specifically for SFF, so not focussed on genre fiction isn't an excuse there. They were more focussed on getting us to critique stories, and as I said there was very little constructive feedback, certainly not on the level that is gone into here.

I think in the summer before my third year, I came back to the Chrons, and start to read the discussions here, and found a link to Brandon Sanderson's lectures... And they thought me more in 12(?) hours than I had in three years course. And just the Chrons in general has been so much more helpful in developing me as a technical writer.

But I will say that I developed my interests greatly during my course... I figured out what I like to write, and how I like to write it, and maybe I wouldn't have done that otherwise. On top of this having to write to a regular schedule and deadlines is only helpful, the more you write the better you get etc. But I'm a fast writer, so during my three years I drafted three novels, a novella and other shorts in my spares time, that's on top of the two dozen shorts I did for the course. It gave me time to write and grow and not be worried about life in general.

And for the most part i can see the great improvement in my work, and that has been appreciated by others with tutors and external markers encouraging me to strive for publication etc. and it can't be all that bad considering I've had two shorts published, one poem (another accepted and pending) and I acted as co-editor for an anthology that the MA students put together each year.

Overall I'm very happy with the work I have produced over the years, and think I used my time well, even if they didn't teach me everything needed.

That's my view anyways

 

[Serendipity]

Hello Brian,

I did an MA Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, which is acknowledged as one of the top five Creative Writing courses in this country, though some would (and did on the course) tell you it's the top one. It's recently produced to my knowledge, one overall Costa Book Award winner (Nathan Filer) and several best sellers (e.g. Daughter by Jane Shemilt). In doing this course I followed in the footsteps of people like Colin Harvey (who, alas is no longer with us).

The course comprised several elements:

• Producing samples of your own work for critiquing and critiquing other fellow student examples of work. This lead to an understanding of your weaknesses and tried to train you to counteract them.
• Investigating and commenting on specialist topics / genres. The topics you did aligned with your interests. So you gained more depth of understanding in your area.
• Writing half a novel (which was basically you final semester project) under the guidance of a tutor specialising in what you're trying to do.
• Sitting in on talks and question and answer sessions given by invited people from the publishing trade e.g. agents, publishers, etc to give you an idea of how the publishing trade did its business and to let you work out what your next steps should be after your course.

I suspect that the first bullet point, practising and understanding the art of critiquing could be why so many agents have a degree in MA Creative Writing.

Hope this helps.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I suspect that the first bullet point, practising and understanding the art of critiquing could be why so many agents have a degree in MA Creative Writing.

Did you do much on POV use, character development arcs, and structure (3 act, Hero's Journey, etc)?

 

[Serendipity]

Did you do much on POV use, character development arcs, and structure (3 act, Hero's Journey, etc)?

Yes and no...

POV continually came up in our critiquing - was it the right POV? - was POV reliable of unreliable? - what could you do with one POV that you couldn't do with another? - what was cost of having multiple POVs versus the penalties of having a single POV? POV also came up in some of the specialists topics where relevant.

Character development - came up mainly in our specialist topics - what changed in the character and why?

Structure - not really at all. We tended towards the literary end of things. This kind of meant if you had something to say through your fiction you used the best techniques you could - more like experimenting until you found the the writing that had a kind of resonance with the topic.

At the end of the day, standard writing techniques etc were expected to have been covered at the undergraduate level or you were expected to pick up that knowledge in your own time - which when you think about it is perfectly reasonable.

In other words we were encouraged to push the boundaries of what was accepted as the norm.

Hope this kind of makes sense.

 

[HareBrain]

My MA sounds much like Littlestar's and Serendipity's. I learned a lot from it in terms of experimenting and critiquing, but almost nothing specifically about how to write a novel, genre or non-genre. It definitely broadened my outlook as a writer, though, which was probably worth the ticket price by itself.

 

[Kylara]

It is worth mentioning I think that it depends on tutor/module as well. But also that they may be assuming that you know how to write "properly" (sentence structure, grammar etc) before you go, or that that is something you should work to improve always in your own time. Biigest gripe for me would be that some of our tutors are american - which is fine, but they will insist on complaining about spelling and contractions etc. I had a err lively debate with one last year in our fiction seminar about how in UK English we have the words until and till, and that his insistence on the Amercian 'til was wholly incorrect, especially considering we are in the UK I got poor marks one module (poetry, which was a shocker - my poetry usually got excellent marks) because the American marker did not like my writing style or how I constructed sentences in my accompanying lit & theory essay. Ah well, the majority of my course is good. In my children and YA CW course the tutor is focussing on specific things each week (as well as workshopping) so we have had, structure, character, opening for children, time, setting etc and will be moving onto "trickier" things each week. Something I knew about, and engaged with, but interesting to see it in kids lit perspective - how much faster setting and character has to happen, how important it is to understand how kids pro/antags work. How careful you have to be with sentence structure and word choice etc. Something I never really thought about before - so his module is excellent in terms of teaching how/why etc to do stuff. Unfortunately way too many people in the class have no idea, and I try to avoid being the know-it-all as most of them already hate me for various reasons (grammar fixing, going to a public school, having a posh accent, understanding how writing and words work among other things)

I think a huge part, especially of undergrad degrees is giving you time to flourish as a writer - to find a voice and style if you haven't already and to allow you to ocme into contact with theories and thoughts about writing, looking at what works, what doesn't, being able to work with your pieces to make them better, all without worrying about doing it on the side.

As I was told when discussing MA with my PT - he said you have to go into those things with the right frame of mind - you get a year to write your novel, to play with it, get "free" constructive criticism. They won't teach you what to write, but will help you make your writing as good as you can in that year. You can write for a whole year without worrying about anything else.