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.
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.
If you get a publisher for your novels (they don't appear to be published yet), dm me. I do reviews for an imprint of Franciscan University Press called Colosseum books and am reviewing the winner of the 2026 New Criterion Prize in a few weeks. Mostly poetry reviews, but novels are doable.
I didn't know Mahler was your favorite composer, too. You have excellent taste.
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.
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.
👏👏👏 Also, hope things will get better for you after what you told me about the situation on Reddit last week! ❤️❤️❤️
If you get a publisher for your novels (they don't appear to be published yet), dm me. I do reviews for an imprint of Franciscan University Press called Colosseum books and am reviewing the winner of the 2026 New Criterion Prize in a few weeks. Mostly poetry reviews, but novels are doable.
https://www.colosseuminstitute.com/colosseum-books.html