I just completed my MFA in fiction writing. Here are the ten most important things I learned.

Consider this your ten-minute MFA!

images from pinterest; collage by me

In May, I graduated from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington with my MFA in Fiction Writing. People have differing opinions on the value and efficacy of MFA programs, but for me, my three years spent at UNCW were transformative in the best way. During my MFA I learned lots of technical skills that improved my writing dramatically. Just as importantly, surrounded by working authors, aspiring authors like me, and publishing professionals, I learned so much about what it takes to really be a writer and make a career as an author.

But because not everyone is able to get an MFA, I wanted to share ten of the most important lessons I learned while getting my degree. Consider this your ten-minute MFA. For a limited time, this newsletter is free to all subscribers. All of the resources linked for further learning are unlocked for paid subscribers. Upgrade to paid for just $5 to access them all, plus unlock the entire Aspiring Authors Resource Library, and join our monthly Zoom writing club.

1. Resilience in the face of failure is the most important skill you will develop as a writer.

In one of the first classes of my MFA my professor asked us, “What will you do if the book you write in your MFA doesn’t sell?” He told us that our response to this question was the best indicator of whether or not we would “make it” long-term as writers. He told us that if we want to be writers we have to be able to sit back down at our desks after devastating failure. We have to be able to say “even if I spend years writing a book and it doesn’t get published, I will keep writing until I succeed” —and we have to mean it.

Over the course of my MFA one of the most valuable skills I built was resilience in the face of failure. I submitted to—and was rejected by—hundreds of literary journals and magazines. I applied for—and was rejected from—many conferences, residencies, and workshops. I was rejected by agents, publishers, and more. Each time it happened, I returned to my desk and kept writing. And I reminded myself the rejection was not for nothing; I was flexing and strengthening my most important writerly muscle: resilience. So, even if you don’t get an MFA, you can build this skill by putting yourself out there. Submit to things. Apply for things. Aim for more rejections to build your resilience, and inevitably the acceptances and successes will come too.

You can read more about how to weather rejection as a writer here.

2. Your first novel will likely not be your debut novel.

This is one of the biggest misconceptions I see in online writing communities that my MFA quickly disabused me of. There are countless TikToks of authors saying they’re writing their “debut novel.” What these aspiring authors fail to understand is that it is highly unlikely the first novel they write will be their debut publication. In my MFA, almost every single one of my professors could speak to a “retired novel”—a project in a drawer somewhere that never sold. Often these were the novels they wrote when they were first starting out.

Nobody wants to hear this, but writing a novel is no different than any other skill simply because it takes years to do. In almost any other area, we would never expect our first attempt at a new skill to be fit for broad public consumption. The first poem I ever wrote was crap. The first pasta I ever made was mushy garbage. The first time I ever got behind the wheel I drove my mom’s car into a tree at 2 mph. Writing a novel is a thing, like any other, that takes practice. The more novels you write, the better you will get at writing novels. This is bittersweet news. It means if you stick with it, you are likely to become a strong novelist in time. But it also means that your first novel is unlikely to be strong enough to earn you a book deal and publication.

I don’t say this to be mean, but because it was something I never realized before my MFA. Learning this hard fact made it easier for me to accept and bounce back when the first novel I attempted to publish didn’t sell. Preparing yourself for the possibility that your first novel might never be published is one of the best ways to guard against the despair that could stop you from picking your pencil back up and trying again.

You can read more about my failed first novel here.

3. Writing short stories is one of the best things you can do for your writing.

In the literary world, there is so much importance and focus placed on the novel. But the page limits for workshop submissions in an MFA force you to write short stories. At first I was skeptical of this. I was here to write a book, I thought. Why was I being forced to waste my time with short stories?

But the more I wrote short stories, the more I saw why they’re such a focus in MFA programs. Short stories are the most efficient training exercise for writers. Unlike a novel, you can write—and receive feedback on—multiple short stories in a single month. You’re able to learn more, and more rapidly, improving as a writer with each successive story.

In my MFA, I took a break from writing novels for my first year, focusing instead improving my writing skills by writing short stories. Ironically, taking a break from novel-writing is probably what made my next novel so much stronger. So, if you want to practice writing short stories, you can check out my short story syllabus for a great collection of exemplars and writing prompts, or you can jump straight to my thirty-one writing prompts designed to get you writing short form! If you’re searching for feedback on your short stories, I highly recommend Gotham Writers Workshop online courses. I took them when I was starting out and loved them.

4. Writing outside your genre will make you a better writer in your genre.

One of the most attractive things about UNCW’s writing MFA was their “out-of-genre” requirement. To graduate, we were required to take at least three classes outside of our home genre. My genre was fiction, so this meant I had to take nonfiction or poetry workshops. I was very scared to step outside my comfort zone, but my first semester I signed up for a nonfiction workshop—and we wouldn’t be here today if I hadn’t!

I ended up taking four workshops in creative nonfiction, falling in love with CNF, and launching my Substack so I could write more of it. This never would have happened without UNCW forcing me to write outside my comfort zone. Much like short stories, I was worried that writing which wasn’t explicitly focused on my novel was time wasted. But writing more broadly—different forms, different genres—helps you build skills, approaches, and perspectives you wouldn’t otherwise have, and sometimes the things you learn are exactly what you need to get unstuck in your primary genre.

One of my favorite professors was a huge advocate for writing across genres and had a sign on his door that said “Poetry fixed my fiction.” So, if you’re attempting to become a better writer on your own, make sure you are studying other genres too. Take a poetry workshop. Try writing personal essays. Experiment with flash fiction. Attempt a retelling. Give your primary project time to breathe and come back to it armed with skills from other genres.

5. If you don’t love your characters and your story, no one else will.

After submitting my writing to countless workshops over the last three years, there was one thing that I always found to be true. If I didn’t enjoy writing a piece, it was never well-received in workshop. If I wasn’t interested in my characters, nobody in the class was either. If I felt “meh” about a piece, readers could always sense that.

In contrast, I turned in messy-as-hell pieces that I was really excited about or else pieces I loved but had written quickly, and those always garnered more enthusiastic positive reception than the piece I’d slogged through meticulously for weeks but didn’t love.

So now I always write towards my passions. I write the weird shit I’m so excited about. And, most importantly, if I’m slogging through a story and I don’t feel that spark, that energy, I put it aside and try something else. The old adage is “write what you know,” but I think the much more important advice is “write what you’re obsessed with.” In a recent writing club meeting, I had club members write down their obsessions. I told them to refer to that list whenever they didn’t know what to write about. The best writing is writing where the author’s enthusiasm shines through.

You can access recordings of all our club meetings in the resource library.

6. Outline your long form projects—but don’t forget to embrace the messiness of the first draft.

There is much debate among writers about being “pantsers” vs. “plotters” but after taking a year-long class on writing long-form projects in the second year of my MFA, I really believe that the most effective approach is midway between pantsing and plotting. You do need a rough outline of your long-form project before you begin. The hardest part of long-form projects is the middle, and your outline is what will help you persist through that miserable middle. For your first draft outline, I recommend just writing a short summary of each chapter. You can check out my guide to story structure and plotting here.

But—as important as I think outlining is—you also have to give yourself room to play. I keep my outlines pretty high-level and skeletal and am a huge proponent of the messy first draft. Writing a novel is very hard, but it’s much easier if you take the pressure off your first draft and tell yourself it will be messy—and that, in fact, messiness is a good thing.

Before my MFA, I wrote a novel where I tried to get the first draft perfect. But when you think of your first draft as polished, you’re less able to make the large, sweeping changes you must make to go from a first draft to a second, and this novel barely improved after my first draft. But thinking of your first draft as a shit-show, by contrast, frees you up to make all the daring, important changes in your second draft that will actually make your book good. This is how I wrote my most recent novel, and it was amazing to see how much it improved from the first draft to the second—because I felt empowered to make the changes I needed to. You will need to make changes after your first draft, so don’t waste time trying to get everything perfect.

7. Being a writer is hard. You need to make writer friends who get it.

The process of querying and submitting my novel has been the biggest reminder for me of how important writer friends are. My non-writer friends, of course, have been so supportive to me throughout the process of trying to publish my novel, but it’s so important to also have people who just get it, who are going through the same thing, who understand how it all works.

If you have chosen to be a writer, you have chosen a career where the odds are against you—a career filled with doubt, uncertainty, risk, and rejection. Other people can empathize with this, but it’s other writers who will help you through those most difficult moments because they get it, because they’ve chosen to do the same crazy thing you have. When the going gets tough—and it will—you need a community of other writers who you can lean on for advice, encouragement, and good, old-fashioned venting.

One of the most valuable things my MFA gave me was writer friends, but there are still ways to make writer friends without getting an MFA. In fact, I met some of my closest writing friends outside my MFA at writing conferences and residencies. Check out my guide here about what those are and how to apply. And read this diary for other ways to build creative community.

8. Writing is a skill most of us cannot learn by osmosis through reading. To be good at writing, you must study it.

When you tell people you’re getting an MFA, people will inevitably say to you that they plan to write a book someday. These comments infuriate me because they treat writing as if it’s just something you can sit down and do without training. Of course, there are a few rare examples where people have been able to do that. But for the vast majority of us, if we want to be good at writing, we have to study and practice it intentionally like any other skill.

You cannot just read and write. You have to read and write with intention and attention. As you read, you have to pay attention to what you like, what you don’t like, the moves the author is making, and their effect on you. You have to read books on the craft of writing. You have to take classes. You have to receive feedback on your work and edit it to make it better. You have to read your own work critically and analyze its efficacy. You have to write multiple drafts. You have to study writing. If you write every day, but don’t do the metacognitive work to think about your writing and how to improve it, your hours of practice will be less effective and you will improve less quickly.

You can check out this reading list for my favorite books on writing and also consult this resource library for more lessons on how to strengthen your writing.

9. Participating in the literary community is a virtuous cycle.

Before my MFA I knew obliquely about “the broader literary community.” I knew there were writers conferences and residencies. I had heard of literary journals and magazines. I saw writers on social media going to book events and readings. But despite knowing this literary world existed, I didn’t feel equipped to access it. It all felt a little opaque to me as an outsider without a job or degree in writing.

But over the course of my MFA, I was taught by the people around me how to access these parts of the literary community that had felt so inaccessible. I learned how to submit my work to literary magazines. I learned which conferences I should attend. I learned about residencies, fellowships, and opportunities in the literary world I hadn’t known existed.

And what I realized through all of this is that while the literary world can feel inaccessible and gate-keepy, once you figure it out and start participating, you realize how small and welcoming (for the most part) it is. For example, submitting to a few lit mags and getting published made attending AWP, a big writing conference, so much more fun because now, suddenly, I knew editors at the different lit mag tables. After attending a short week-long conference, I felt brave enough to apply for a month-long residency—and actually got in! You’ll be amazed by how your first, cautious forays into the literary world will over time lead you to feeling like you’re truly part of the community.

You can read my guide on how to submit to literary magazines here. It’s a great first step to participating in the literary community! Plus—being a literary citizen is a great way to make more writing friends.

10. Above all, you must spend time writing. But the best writers also spend time thinking about their writing and why they write.

None of the other nine pieces of advice matter if you’re not logging hours with your butt in a chair, at your desk, writing. Ironically, this can be one of the drawbacks of an MFA. It’s easy to get distracted by all the shiny “opportunities,” and then suddenly you look around and realize you’re spending more time working that publishing internship, organizing readings, or editing your school’s lit mag than you’re spending writing. All the other stuff matters, but your writing should always be your first priority, and creating a routine that sets you up to write for hours every week is essential to your growth as a writer.

Finally, you can make these writing hours even more effective if you’re also putting in the time to think about your writer identity. To be the best writer you can be, you need to consistently ask yourself the big questions around your writing: Why do I write? What do I want to write? Why do I want to write it? Who do I write for? What impact do I hope my writing will have? What are my strengths as a writer? My weaknesses?

Honing your identity as a writer over time is what will ensure that your writing isn’t just good, but uniquely yours. It’s what will give you a distinct writerly voice, which is what makes readers return to an author’s work again and again. There are so many writers. But there are no other writers who are you. Find what makes you and your writing special and lean into that.

I include journal prompts to uncover your writer identity in every writing club meeting if you’re interested. You can access all recordings in the resource library.

If you enjoyed this ten-minute MFA, you can check out my essay on how to decide whether an MFA is right for you. And for more newsletters where I share the technical writing skills and lessons I learned in my MFA, visit the Aspiring Authors Resource Library.