It's the Writing, Stupid

A good friend of mine had an interesting e-mail exchange with a successful author and writing teacher at a well known MFA program. In the back and forth, the teacher lamented the loss of students that may befall many creative writing MFA programs. The traditional publishing model of large advances for many authors is ending. Ending as well is the large publishers desire to publish a certain number of “good books,” that is, those considered to have great literary merit but little commercial potential. My friend asked me to comment on the exchange. What follows is more rant than direct response to that teacher, but perhaps edifying, nonetheless.

We may lose many MFA programs? Fucking hooray! There are several factors that have led to the decline of publishing, but among them must be counted the proliferation of Purple Patch Factories, everywhere giving succor to impatient or untalented writers willing to fork over tens of thousands of dollars to feel like they are progressing in their dream, and encouraging and propagating a terrible style of writing These ubiquitous MFA programs allow naïfs to rub shoulders with “real writers,” defined as such by four figure hardcover sales of their only published novels.

I don’t think writers should be teaching writing at all. MFA programs have sent thousands of mediocre or untalented writers into the world to teach writing at other MFA programs, the unsellable teaching others to be unsellable. Editors should be teaching writing. They were the defacto writing teachers back when editors were more than underpaid talent scouts. In the old days it was the editors who shaped talented writers into the accomplished authors we know. They did not try to push the writer toward a certain style, but reined in creative excess, taught the writer how to better tell their story, and made sure there was a story there to begin with. . . .

To paraphrase Bill Clinton, it’s the writing, stupid. Storytelling has always been a meritocracy. While the vehicle for delivering the story has changed again and again, from oral storytelling around campfires to epic poems to novels to films, the best storytellers rise to the top. If there is a message or moral or a deeper understanding of the human condition to be had, it had better be wrapped in a good story that people want to read or hear. Even traditional mythology wraps its moral or societal lessons in great adventure.

Some of the authors we most admire—and still want to read—wrote to make a living. To do that, they had to be mindful of their audience. Dickens wanted to be read and make money. Melville and Maugham and Conrad, too. They are thought of as literary greats now, but they sold, they were popular writers, because their styles served great stories. They didn’t expect to sell on style or demand that their audience change and accommodate them. They had to find a way to do great work and sell at the same time.

While there is definitely a place for experimental writing, one of the worst things to happen to the novel was the deification of experimental writers by literary critics. Virginia Wolfe, James Joyce, et al, tried to follow in Flaubert’s footsteps, expand on the internal focus of Madame Bovary, but left the story behind. Cheever and Updike followed suit, stripping the last vestiges of adventure and action from their novels, forcing us to slog through the mundane stories of suburban life already too well known to their audience. Then Roth and Barthelme dragged us further down the path to abstraction and irrelevance.

And now it has all filtered down to MFA programs as the unquestioned aim of those writers who wish to write “good books.” When these books don’t sell, their writers and enablers look everywhere to lay blame but at their own feet. They bemoan the degradation of the culture at large when their masterpiece doesn’t sell but Harry Potter sells 100 million copies. The public who reads Twilight are unsophisticated consumers of the inane, boors with no taste. Writers on the outside of this phenomenon don’t stop to examine what it is in their own writing that is lacking. They don’t consider that they can write great books that have adventure, action, a strong story, but can go deeper than Harry Potter and Twilight.

The business model of publishing is changing. The way stories are bought and sold and disseminated will change despite all the kicking and screaming. In what other artistic endeavor does an artist get paid before his or her work sells? Yes, the days of huge advances may be over, but great stories will always be at the heart of the business and will always sell. There was always a market for pulp writing, just as there is today. I don’t think that has changed. Citing the popularity of pulp writing as evidence for the decline of civilization and culture is self-defeating. Guys like Dickens and Maugham and Conrad and Hemingway had what audiences loved in pulp writing—action, adventure, danger, romance—but gave them so much more besides. Perhaps all the whining from “literary” writers has more to do with their inability to do great work than the deterioration of culture.

And since when is producing a great book and having it sell supposed to be a smooth and well known path? No one has a right to produce great work. No one has a right to huge sales. No one has a right to have fewer obstacles to publication or fame or riches than the generations before them. Writing a great book is incredibly hard. Getting enough people to read it and recommend it to others is even harder. That there was a short time when someone else—the great publishing houses—shouldered many of the burdens for writers was nice, but not sustainable. There will always be a market for great writing, no matter how it is delivered to the audience. The delusion sold in MFA factories is that there are far more potentially great writers than we previously believed. It’s a fucking lie. Publishing lowered its standards for a long time because a booming economy allowed them to do it. Well, now the economy can’t sustain the literary dreams of every high school English teacher who thought they had a novel or two in them. If they can’t abide the time, practice, poverty, disappointment and risk of utter failure that is inherent to the process of becoming a great writer, then they can get a regular job. There’s a good goddamn reason so many writers develop into alcoholics.