Wednesday Writing Work Review: The Portable MFA in Creative Writing by The New York Writers Workshop

For this Writing Work Review, I am only discussing the Fiction writing aspects of this work. There are sections included for Personal Essay and Memoir, Magazine Writing, Poetry, and Playwriting that will be addressed in upcoming Wednesday Writing Work Reviews.

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MFA’s are expensive, a hassle, time-consuming, expensive, hard to get into, and if I forgot to mention it they’re extremely expensive for what you get out of them. The cheapest program I found was available 100% online and cost $30,000. (SNHU)

This book costs a cover price of $21.99 though I found it in the bargain bin of my local used book store for a steal of $5.79.

If a book is capable of saving you tens of thousands of dollars it just might be worth the investment of a few cups of coffee.

Introduction:

The Portable MFA in Creative Writing by The New York Writers Workshop claims to give readers the “core knowledge of a prestigious MFA education without the tuition,” as well as “improve your craft with the core essentials taught to MFA students.” The New York Writers Workshop is a teacher-founded and run writing collective, teaching writers of every level the craft of writing in fiction, nonfiction, and short stories.

Overview:

The book starts off by listing the pros and cons of an MFA in Creative Writing and they’re about what you expect, they wrote a book on it so you can be sure the cons outweigh the pros.

While the pros of an MFA in Creative Writing include, time to write, a sense of community, connections, and a fancy piece of paper with your new degree title, the cons are many.

• Candidates are treated like, “full blow artists” before they have been taught.
• Teachers say writers can’t be taught to write. (Lack of Feedback)
• Teachers with Moses complexes… their word is the law.
• The program leaves you with a draft, not a finished project.
• Unguided workshops will be useless for improvement.

Many of these flaws were also present in my Bachelor's program for Creative Writing so I can understand why they wouldn’t improve just because the degree cost a few thousand more per credit hour.

The Portable MFA in Creative Writing teaches writers the essentials to story writing such as Story Structure and Plot and breaks down novel writing into its basic components.

Plot being: Motivation- Choices- Change, and your story structure being

(1) Set-Up->(2) Increasing Complications->(3) Climax/ Reversal->(4) Resolution

1. Have you introduced the principal character, setting, and conflict?
2. Does the Protagonist's struggle increase?
3. Does the Protagonist make a dramatic action?
4. Is all tension resolved?

This writing work goes on to give examples of the different types of story openings to help you choose which is the best for the story you wish to create. My favorite explanation was Expectation vs Actuality- where expectation collides with your protagonist's reality and disrupts their implicit routine.

If you’ve written a story without an outline or you're not sure if your story is complete the MFA guide gives troubleshooting tips to help you get your work back on track with only three questions you need to ask yourself about your novel.

The Portable MFA in Creative Writing not only helps you craft the begging of your novel but the middle as well where most writers commonly get stuck. We have a great way to begin our tales and we know where we want our characters to end up, but the middle bits can sometimes become a bit fuzzy.

However, if you’re stuck at the end The Portable MFA in Creative Writing gives tips and tricks to help you wrap your work up in a neat little bow for your reader.

With important tips on dialogue, setting description, and point of view The Portable MFA in Creative Writing doesn’t leave a stone unturned when it comes to writing your novel from beginning to end.

Even when you get to the end The Portable MFA in Creative Writing is there for you as well with important revision tips to help you self edit your work to the best of your ability before you hand it over to a professional.

Assessment:

I would never normally claim that any work is an ‘all you need’ writing guide to craft a novel, but The Portable MFA in Creative Writing is about as close as you can get. This book not only contains more information that I learned when completing my Bachelors in Creative Writing but even as a seasoned author this work taught me many things about storytelling that I was able to take away from this and improve my novel writing.

Conclusion:

Whether you are brand new to the idea of novel writing, a seasoned author, or a student wondering if they should sign their soul away in loans for an MFA in Creative Writing, this book can give you need-to-know information when it comes to writing a novel.

With helpful tips, tricks, and writing exercises this book may not complete the entire experience and pros of an MFA in Fiction Writing, but if you’re looking for a reference book on writing to improve your skills this would be the one for you. It has an honored spot on my bookshelf and has become one of my go-to reference books.

Best of luck, and get writing.

With love,

B.K. xo

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If you believe this book may be helpful to you and you would like to support me you can purchase this book from Amazon here (The Portable MFA in Creative Writing) where I will receive a small affiliate payment. I was in no way asked by anyone to review this book and all options are solely my own.

If you’re like me and you do not mind books being purchased second hand I recommend using BookFinder.com which compiles a list of where you can find this book used and in what condition it will be. I receive nothing from you using this link, but it will help you find the best price for this book whether new or used. (The Portable MFA in Creative Writing)

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