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  • The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."
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March 05, 2007

BYAN & the MFA

I'm an advocate of MFAs, for many of the reasons well-articulated here by Julia Glassman. Time, money, institutional support, and if you're lucky, good teachers.

I went to the University of California, Irvine, and I came away strong in the conviction that there are specific, if finite, things a good teacher can teach about writing. These things have to do entirely with craft and nothing with invention or memory or empathy or curiosity or human understanding. But ... craft's important.

When Granta announced its new list of Best Young American Novelists, I was curious how many had MFAs. Here's what I came up with: fifteen of the 21, and one with a PhD in Comp Lit. I wonder how this contrasts with the first round of Granta BYAN announced in '96 (I'm too pooped right now to run those numbers).

Does the new list elevate the stature of MFA programs, or reinforce a low opinion? Please discuss in gross generalities.

Posted by Josh Ferris at 09:01 PM in Guest Bloggers |

Comments

I'm curious. I have been torn between an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in Literature. Either way, I want to write, but I have the feeling my writing would be better with more of a foundation in literature. Any thoughts?

Posted by:Gina | May 03, 2007 at 10:17 PM

I'm curious. I have been torn between an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in Literature. Either way, I want to write, but I have the feeling my writing would be better with more of a foundation in literature. Any thoughts?

Posted by:Gina | May 03, 2007 at 10:17 PM

To the fiction editor saying MOST of the non-MFA work was unoriginal, it sounds to me like you already had a bias against those without formal educations. This is why people are so frantic to get in these programs. Its obvious how the work of those without MFAs are automatically devalued.

I find a large percentage of what you read in literary journals to be works of conceit geared towards academics only. I see it as pretty words leading to boring conclusions.

I'm not saying there aren't brilliant MFA writers or their work is uninspired. I just don't believe all good fiction comes from workshops. I believe there are good writers without degrees out there that will never send a story to a magazine because they automatically assume the elite will refuse to look at it.

Posted by:Tim | February 07, 2008 at 12:03 PM

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