MFA Writers Vs NYC Writers, What?

by Jack Richards (Guest Writer)

There is this notion going around literary circles, MFA circles, and the circles of NYC that people have found a distinct difference between academic writing and genre fiction. This chatter claims that the economics and culture of writers in America are split between basically NYC and everywhere else. The argument is twofold, and some of the people writing about this subject do not seem to be aware that others are making any argument about American writing being Bipolar. Funding for writing in different parts of America comes from various sources, and it is undoubtedly the case that literary Fiction and genre fiction are other. Still, the reasons why these two worlds exist are completely twisted in rhetoric. So why do some writers write literary Fiction in universities, and some writers write blockbuster novels in NYC?

To answer the question, I do not want to get all tangled up in the arguments of others, but I want to point to a couple that have come across my radar just recently. First, an article was published in the Huffington Post: “Literary Fiction Vs. Genre Fiction.” The article breaks down how the two types of writing differ. The author (Steven Petite, batting from the world of literary Fiction at Cleveland State University) argues that literary Fiction and genre fiction are different in what the works and writers try to accomplish thematically. He ends his article with:

“The best genre fiction contains great writing to tell a captivating story and escape from reality. Literary FictionFiction is comprised of the heart and soul of a writer’s being and is experienced as an emotional journey through the symphony of words, leading to a stronger grasp of the universe and of ourselves.”

Does that seem skewed to you? There may be a poke here at genre fiction writers. If I were writing genre fiction, I might think I do more in my writing than entertain. Petite’s intentions here were not to be offensive. He was trying to come up with a distinction between literary vs. genre writing, and sometimes it does seem that one entertains and the other enlightens, but I don’t think that is the point of the creation of the work. Both literary writers and genre writers work hard at their craft. They are both dedicated to creating a work that speaks to people. Academic writers try to entertain a bit, and genre writers try to enlighten. I understand the distinction on how some works work out, but it’s not a good way to categorize writing or, better yet, these writers.

The second article: “Which Creates Better Writers: an MFA Program or NYC,” is from The New Republic. You might need a dictionary and a flame retardant suit to read this article. Leslie Jamison examines the two worlds of NYC (8.3 million people) and the rest of America (300+ million). I know Jamison is pointing to the publishing houses and the culture, and I’m sure they are much different, but making the distinction between NYC writers and “the rest of the world” is at least a little elitist. Indeed, a writer writing in, say, Portland, Maine (just as an example) might not attribute all his success to NYC. Maybe NYC funded his writing, but Stephen King, I’m sure, would not say that NYC “created” him.

There is, for sure, a different way in this country that literary writing and genre writing are funded. There are many differences in the creation and construction of these two writing categories, but it doesn’t have anything to do with where the writer lives.

Again and Again and Again

Many of these nonsense theories have been written with a thesaurus in one hand and a mace in the other. The old message boards (popular before the days of Facebook) are filled with flame wars over this subject. Petite and Jamison might be too young to remember those days, so I’m cutting them slack. People have been fighting about this for four decades or even longer. I wouldn’t have said there was a distinction between literary writing and genre fiction when Hemingway was writing. You might point to the pulp industry back then, but Ernest was entertaining and enlightening at the same time.

So, there might be a lot to be said about the fact that MFAs tend to edit their own work, and people who publish their works through large publishing houses have a lot of help in editing. This might be a distinction, but I wouldn’t stick to it. I wouldn’t take away from NYC writers that way. Sure, publishing houses might want to change their works to be more appealing sometimes, but many of those writers are highly skilled and could write circles around many MFAers. It might sting a little less for MFAers making a living at a university to claim that they have all the skill and genre fiction writers have all the money, but that isn’t the case.

If you want to see why these distinctions exist and why we have some people who write literary Fiction and some who write horror fiction, science fiction, or romance fiction, you only have to meet ten writers.

Writers are Writers

In my 30-plus years of writing, I have known 1000s of writers. I have been in university programs, workshops, and writing groups. Believe me when I say writers are so strange, varied, and beautiful that it makes you believe that humanity might survive by only the miracle of these people’s existence. I knew a writer once who was so completely neurotic that she shaved all her hair so she wouldn’t twirl it anymore. She wrote romance fiction in a university writing program. I know a writer who wrote comic books in a MFA program, and he would curse and spit every time he had to read Raymond Carver. He works in NYC. I have known writers who have drunk themselves to death. Writers who looked like businesspeople carried a briefcase and only wrote poetry. I see a writer who was a chemical engineer and hid all his writings from his father for over a decade. When his father died, he left his 6 figure engineering job and started teaching and publishing his work.

This may be why the writers of 1920s Paris were existentialists; they knew the patterns they found in the universe were assigned from the inside, not by the cosmos’ conspiracy. It might have been in the stars that all those excellent writers and philosophers would come together to create a better work of literary writing and genre fiction. They, rubbing elbows, were pulled by the gravity of a zodiac that was…. I’m kidding; it was because it was cheap. We know this.

We also know that writers today are weird people. They don’t always show it on the outside. Do you want to see how you can tell that these arguments are more defensive jabs written by writers who are broke and who are wealthy, one saying, “I have all the talent,” and the others saying, “But I have all the money,” simple, you don’t see it in poetry. Just because a poet writes a poem that has a computer in it, we don’t call it science fiction. Is love poetry romance poetry? Notice, too, that the only two genres/distinctions in the type of poetry are love and erotica. These are the only two categories of poetry that bookstores think might have a chance of selling.

A Brick and Mortar Problem

We are being duped! No surprise. I have seen writers (literary writers) become exceptionally mad because John Grisham has mistakes in his plot. This writer threw a book across the library because of this. It is evident that the writer thought that Grisham wasn’t good enough to earn the money he was making, but what he should have been asking was why was Grisham’s stories so compelling or his voice so memorizing that people didn’t even notice the mistake, and still bought the book and loved it. I don’t know a lot of writers who sit down and say, “Let’s entertain someone today” or “Let’s enlighten the world today.” Writers are haunted by the stories and words in their heads. They are endlessly preoccupied by the people they make up and situations that fascinate them but do not exist. They are tormented at night, right before bed, about the words they did not write and the worlds they did not create. It doesn’t matter if you are a novelist or a poet, this is always true. The world is what makes the distinction. Sometimes, you get lucky, and your writing is worth money, and sometimes, you are the only one who wants to read what you write. We assign meaning to it.

We have to have a reason that the writer who is a genius who only writes one beautiful sentence per day and is so right about all human insight and entertainment can’t make a living simultaneously. Still, the guy who churns out 100s of pages in a story that sounds much like 100 other books makes millions. Writers are haunted. They are more procrastination and self-doubt than they are tricksters and marketeers. All writers are haunted; if they live in NYC or Missoula, Montana, they are haunted by the words they do not put on the page, so how can we judge them? We would only if there was an economy, selling, and money. MFAers would labor with the help of other writers, and NYCers would wander the streets looking for their next blockbuster or thriller with the confidence they were doing something that brings us together much more than it divides us. We would be okay with our following grant or book deal. We would write.

The world is coming more quickly than you would think. With all the self-publishing going on, popular and unpopular might be the only thing we as writers have to worry about. At this point, the argument over literary Fiction and genre fiction is like arguing if a stagecoach driver is more skilled than a single-house rider. Who makes more money, the self-published author or an author writing for a big publishing house? That’s something we have to ask. Literary Fiction and genre fiction are brick-and-mortar bookstore problems; sadly, that issue might solve itself soon.

Can you sleep soundly at night if you haven’t written all the words you wanted to write today? That really should be the only question that means anything. The genre is writing. The payoff is immortality; boom, let’s go.