Thank you so much for all of this! I am so sick of the elitist treatment and gatekeeping and snobbery in the publishing world. This is the most practical, no frills, do the work, substantive advice I've seen in a long time. Do you follow Steven Pressfield by chance?
You seem to be a writer who writes novels of ideas; I think the MFA advice isn’t aimed at writing such novels, but at novels that concentrate more on action and events.
That's right, and that's why MFA programs won't ever teach you to write a great novel. If they taught both, perhaps that would be fine, but they actively look down on novels of ideas (AKA the vast majority of great novels in human history, even those that focus on plot).
First of all, I apologize for this post being so long - I don’t have the time to go over it and make it shorter (as Pascal, I think, said.)
I think what the MFA might be afraid of, although they won’t admit it, is that people may attempt to write a “novel of ideas” not because their ideas are interesting, or insightful, or true… but because they just don’t know how to plot, create believable characters, and sometimes even to spell without a spell-checker.
You’d be surprised - or perhaps not - how many people think they found a shortcut to literary fame: just write up your “great idea” and you’ll be the next Salinger! (H’m - I’m not sure why anyone would want to be J. D. Salinger, but you get my point.)
Those are the hacks that bothered Isaac Asimov. One day he received yet another letter containing the usual offer: the correspondent has a “great idea for a novel,” Asimov will write it, and they’ll share the proceedings.
Annoyed, Asimov asked his editor, John Campbell: “why do they give me the idea and expect me to do all the work? Why do they think the idea is so important?” Campbell replied: “Did it occur to you this is the only idea they ever had, or are likely to have? Naturally, they overestimate its value.”
So, without at all putting down the novel of ideas, whether in mainstream or science fiction, perhaps it would be a good test for people to start with action plots and novels, MFA-style, even if they want to write novels of ideas later on, just to show they have the basics down.
That, after all, is what most great writers of novels of ideas actually did do as young writers, with the exception of a few geniuses for whom all bets and formulas are off. But such geniuses don’t go to MFA workshops anyway.
Quite interesting! I didn't know that - but he was hardly typical. Nothing is more common than "a great idea for" a novel, a story, a research paper, a history book, or what have you. It's *necessary*, sure; but not nearly sufficient. What makes the writer a writer is *how* they express the idea.
This is true... but I fear we've reached the stage in this tragedy where 'MFA advice' has become 'all advice' and 'the advice' has become 'the rules', at least, so it seems - maybe mistakenly?, he says, fingers crossed, etc. - in the heads of those that stand between manuscript and publication.
As someone who also is also writing 'novels of ideas' (and indeed who doesn't really understand, beyond a crass intellectual way, the point of a non-ideas novel) and who's thus spent more than a minute or two trying to find an agent that supports such things (or anyone that's got one published in the past 50 years - chasing those leads for comp titles is a harrowing tale in itself), I feel Liza's frustration.
In the long post above, I suggest that the MFA isn't *quite* saying that novels of ideas are bad, but it's easy to see why people might understand it that way.
The big questions tip is so true—basically every novel I've written (though failed to finish) has been about a question that I've been trying to figure out in my own life. Often, writing it is like teaching myself a truth I do not want to hear.
What do you think of the proclivity of modern writers that are always in the first person as if the word ‘I’ is the most important in the Oxford Dictionary. Does the ‘I’ gendered generation actually think their personal biased views are relevant facts ?
Hi Liza! That was an amazing article, thanks for putting that out for writers!
I really agreed with the 'live life' aspect of writing because it's advice that is never seen in the writing world, ironically. I do believe that a story should have a believable resemblance to real life, and if you're stuck at a desk all day, you just won't have anything to write about, and if you do, you'll most likely write a 2-D story.
However, I would say: Though I understand that writing advice for character development can seem very generic, it is following a method that many authors have subconsciously written into their stories since stories began being told. Therefore, in a certain sense, these 'formulas' hold some weight in their use in novel writing. It can be a great start for someone who might be stuck with their character-development journey. However, where many writers go wrong is failing to add layers on top of that generic 'want vs fear' dynamic, making their character flat.
Like any tool, writing formulas can be used well, especially if the project does not have literary ambitions. However, I believe that these days, profit is put over quality story-writing. Tropes and formulas are put over complex, intriguing novels. No matter what type of story, it can definitely be deep and nuanced, but, sadly, most writers stop at 'the formulas'.
Hmm 🤔 This was fantastic. I wrote a couple of how-to guides, and we not only essentially said the same thing, but our writing heroes were quite similar. I was especially attracted to your steadfast appeal to philosophy. My first time reading that. Certainly made me feel less alone, as my books rely heavily on philosophy:
1. Heidegger’s throwness, Dasein, and das Man concept. All my characters are thrown into a world that is already formed, with its own rules and logic, that they have to wrestle with to realize some aspect of authenticity.
2. All my novels begin with movement. Here I appeal to Marx and one particular Socratic dialogue: Charmides and how movement/doing allows you to experience the world, other people, and nature, to move toward their definition of Sophrosyne (temperance, self-control, restraint). I use a dialectical engine that moves them through the world: thesis, antithesis, synthesis. The external event, internalizing it and exploring it, and then giving it some type of meaning that results in some type of change, and the process repeats. Often in fractals. Also, with Marx, the characters self-actualize in some way and, to some extent, take control of some version of the means of production as they grow and understand the world they were thrown into. And like with Marx, each change opens up or restricts the landscape of choices and opportunities. Always a cause and effect.
3. I use my readings of Nietzsche: Will to Power and Genealogy of Morals and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Self-explanatory, but essentially environment reveals moral/ethical code; the characters have to overcome themselves and their environment and create their own ethics. The characters, through sheer will and orientation to a distant goal, can transform themselves and, in their own way, be that better version of themselves in their authentic way.
My stories never fully resolve because the world’s only resolution is death. The book ends on a more identifiable synthesis, but the flow is still there.
It sounds complicated and pretentious written down, but this is the explanation of ideas I have internalized after various degrees and how they appealed to my personality. Nietzsche, Marx, and the Socratic dialogues are my muses, and I see them quite clearly as the philosophical foundations of my economics, political science, philosophy, law, and grad school degrees. Imagine visiting France and discovering butter and heavy cream and the concept of sauce and the wonders of bread beyond the Keizer roll and Wonder bread. Your relationship with food will change, and it will inform how you cook, eat, and view the content of your fridge in whatever state it’s present. Last month, I was hungry and wanted to eat immediately and did not want to order in or go out. I opened a box of spaghetti, sparkling water, thousands of packets of condiments, and half a brick of an Italian butter. A word flashed before my eyes: Beurre Monté. I boiled spaghetti. Took a bit of the water and folded the cold butter into it until chemistry produced joy and folded the pasta into it.
All of those philosophical ideas underpinned and drove that vignette.
Oh, writing heroes: Dostoyevsky, Hemingway, Cormac McCarthy and Nietzsche. Nietzsche for writing style sounds weird until I explain that, for me, he is freaking hilarious. Seinfeld series level hilarious. That exists, buried, in the heights of his aphoristic writing style. I love that. So humour is buried in my prose for those with eyes to see it. Or maybe its just for me 🤪🤡🤷♂️
Ok this was an unexpectedly lengthy meandering response. Wonder if anyone made it to this point. If you did, the secret to life is butter, jump squats, laughter and touch. No particular order, but be mindful of being moderate. Sophrosyne, after all.
Reading this gave me an idea for a book. I just looking at myself, a thought I had last night, my past and realised there is a hard lesson there. One that I’m still learning.
I have felt suffocated by modern literature trends, devoid of feeling. I received feedback saying everything was too big, but I don't want to write small. I want to read about life or death themes that bend and twist your mind to come out on the other side with a brighter perspective. That said, the original feedback on my manuscript was that it read like a 19th Century novel, because I only read the classics. So a mix is necessary, but your list has given me the confidence to go with my gut.
Thank you so much for all of this! I am so sick of the elitist treatment and gatekeeping and snobbery in the publishing world. This is the most practical, no frills, do the work, substantive advice I've seen in a long time. Do you follow Steven Pressfield by chance?
I didn't know Mahler was your favorite composer, too. You have excellent taste.
You seem to be a writer who writes novels of ideas; I think the MFA advice isn’t aimed at writing such novels, but at novels that concentrate more on action and events.
That's right, and that's why MFA programs won't ever teach you to write a great novel. If they taught both, perhaps that would be fine, but they actively look down on novels of ideas (AKA the vast majority of great novels in human history, even those that focus on plot).
First of all, I apologize for this post being so long - I don’t have the time to go over it and make it shorter (as Pascal, I think, said.)
I think what the MFA might be afraid of, although they won’t admit it, is that people may attempt to write a “novel of ideas” not because their ideas are interesting, or insightful, or true… but because they just don’t know how to plot, create believable characters, and sometimes even to spell without a spell-checker.
You’d be surprised - or perhaps not - how many people think they found a shortcut to literary fame: just write up your “great idea” and you’ll be the next Salinger! (H’m - I’m not sure why anyone would want to be J. D. Salinger, but you get my point.)
Those are the hacks that bothered Isaac Asimov. One day he received yet another letter containing the usual offer: the correspondent has a “great idea for a novel,” Asimov will write it, and they’ll share the proceedings.
Annoyed, Asimov asked his editor, John Campbell: “why do they give me the idea and expect me to do all the work? Why do they think the idea is so important?” Campbell replied: “Did it occur to you this is the only idea they ever had, or are likely to have? Naturally, they overestimate its value.”
So, without at all putting down the novel of ideas, whether in mainstream or science fiction, perhaps it would be a good test for people to start with action plots and novels, MFA-style, even if they want to write novels of ideas later on, just to show they have the basics down.
That, after all, is what most great writers of novels of ideas actually did do as young writers, with the exception of a few geniuses for whom all bets and formulas are off. But such geniuses don’t go to MFA workshops anyway.
Jack London, on the other hand, solicited story ideas and paid a fee for ones he liked.
Quite interesting! I didn't know that - but he was hardly typical. Nothing is more common than "a great idea for" a novel, a story, a research paper, a history book, or what have you. It's *necessary*, sure; but not nearly sufficient. What makes the writer a writer is *how* they express the idea.
This is true... but I fear we've reached the stage in this tragedy where 'MFA advice' has become 'all advice' and 'the advice' has become 'the rules', at least, so it seems - maybe mistakenly?, he says, fingers crossed, etc. - in the heads of those that stand between manuscript and publication.
As someone who also is also writing 'novels of ideas' (and indeed who doesn't really understand, beyond a crass intellectual way, the point of a non-ideas novel) and who's thus spent more than a minute or two trying to find an agent that supports such things (or anyone that's got one published in the past 50 years - chasing those leads for comp titles is a harrowing tale in itself), I feel Liza's frustration.
In the long post above, I suggest that the MFA isn't *quite* saying that novels of ideas are bad, but it's easy to see why people might understand it that way.
My big takeaway is you write to think and the modern literary world eschews thinking.
Some good advice for starting out. It doesn't hurt to have some talent also. I look forward to sampling some of your prose.
The big questions tip is so true—basically every novel I've written (though failed to finish) has been about a question that I've been trying to figure out in my own life. Often, writing it is like teaching myself a truth I do not want to hear.
What do you think of the proclivity of modern writers that are always in the first person as if the word ‘I’ is the most important in the Oxford Dictionary. Does the ‘I’ gendered generation actually think their personal biased views are relevant facts ?
The more you talk about your novels, the more I look forward to buying and reading them.
Hi Liza! That was an amazing article, thanks for putting that out for writers!
I really agreed with the 'live life' aspect of writing because it's advice that is never seen in the writing world, ironically. I do believe that a story should have a believable resemblance to real life, and if you're stuck at a desk all day, you just won't have anything to write about, and if you do, you'll most likely write a 2-D story.
However, I would say: Though I understand that writing advice for character development can seem very generic, it is following a method that many authors have subconsciously written into their stories since stories began being told. Therefore, in a certain sense, these 'formulas' hold some weight in their use in novel writing. It can be a great start for someone who might be stuck with their character-development journey. However, where many writers go wrong is failing to add layers on top of that generic 'want vs fear' dynamic, making their character flat.
Like any tool, writing formulas can be used well, especially if the project does not have literary ambitions. However, I believe that these days, profit is put over quality story-writing. Tropes and formulas are put over complex, intriguing novels. No matter what type of story, it can definitely be deep and nuanced, but, sadly, most writers stop at 'the formulas'.
Somerset maugham said “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
Hmm 🤔 This was fantastic. I wrote a couple of how-to guides, and we not only essentially said the same thing, but our writing heroes were quite similar. I was especially attracted to your steadfast appeal to philosophy. My first time reading that. Certainly made me feel less alone, as my books rely heavily on philosophy:
1. Heidegger’s throwness, Dasein, and das Man concept. All my characters are thrown into a world that is already formed, with its own rules and logic, that they have to wrestle with to realize some aspect of authenticity.
2. All my novels begin with movement. Here I appeal to Marx and one particular Socratic dialogue: Charmides and how movement/doing allows you to experience the world, other people, and nature, to move toward their definition of Sophrosyne (temperance, self-control, restraint). I use a dialectical engine that moves them through the world: thesis, antithesis, synthesis. The external event, internalizing it and exploring it, and then giving it some type of meaning that results in some type of change, and the process repeats. Often in fractals. Also, with Marx, the characters self-actualize in some way and, to some extent, take control of some version of the means of production as they grow and understand the world they were thrown into. And like with Marx, each change opens up or restricts the landscape of choices and opportunities. Always a cause and effect.
3. I use my readings of Nietzsche: Will to Power and Genealogy of Morals and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Self-explanatory, but essentially environment reveals moral/ethical code; the characters have to overcome themselves and their environment and create their own ethics. The characters, through sheer will and orientation to a distant goal, can transform themselves and, in their own way, be that better version of themselves in their authentic way.
My stories never fully resolve because the world’s only resolution is death. The book ends on a more identifiable synthesis, but the flow is still there.
It sounds complicated and pretentious written down, but this is the explanation of ideas I have internalized after various degrees and how they appealed to my personality. Nietzsche, Marx, and the Socratic dialogues are my muses, and I see them quite clearly as the philosophical foundations of my economics, political science, philosophy, law, and grad school degrees. Imagine visiting France and discovering butter and heavy cream and the concept of sauce and the wonders of bread beyond the Keizer roll and Wonder bread. Your relationship with food will change, and it will inform how you cook, eat, and view the content of your fridge in whatever state it’s present. Last month, I was hungry and wanted to eat immediately and did not want to order in or go out. I opened a box of spaghetti, sparkling water, thousands of packets of condiments, and half a brick of an Italian butter. A word flashed before my eyes: Beurre Monté. I boiled spaghetti. Took a bit of the water and folded the cold butter into it until chemistry produced joy and folded the pasta into it.
All of those philosophical ideas underpinned and drove that vignette.
Oh, writing heroes: Dostoyevsky, Hemingway, Cormac McCarthy and Nietzsche. Nietzsche for writing style sounds weird until I explain that, for me, he is freaking hilarious. Seinfeld series level hilarious. That exists, buried, in the heights of his aphoristic writing style. I love that. So humour is buried in my prose for those with eyes to see it. Or maybe its just for me 🤪🤡🤷♂️
Ok this was an unexpectedly lengthy meandering response. Wonder if anyone made it to this point. If you did, the secret to life is butter, jump squats, laughter and touch. No particular order, but be mindful of being moderate. Sophrosyne, after all.
YES SUBSTACK FEED MY LITERARY AMBITIONS FROM THE GOAT HERSELFF!!!
One of the most concise, helpful How-tos on how to write a novel. Where might I read one of your novels, or are they not yet out?
Reading this gave me an idea for a book. I just looking at myself, a thought I had last night, my past and realised there is a hard lesson there. One that I’m still learning.
I have felt suffocated by modern literature trends, devoid of feeling. I received feedback saying everything was too big, but I don't want to write small. I want to read about life or death themes that bend and twist your mind to come out on the other side with a brighter perspective. That said, the original feedback on my manuscript was that it read like a 19th Century novel, because I only read the classics. So a mix is necessary, but your list has given me the confidence to go with my gut.
Excellent advice! And speaking of tragic composers: https://frankfrank1967.substack.com/p/wee-little-anton?r=46nn33&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web