14 Reasons (not) to Get an MFA In Creative Writing (And Two Reasons It Might Actually Be Worth It)

To m'fay or not to m'fay, that is the question.

Edit: Since it keeps coming up, let me explain that this article is blunt, but I am NOT anti-MFA. I'm anti-most-of-the-reasons-people-get-MFAs because they just end up fifty thousand in debt and doing exactly the whatever they were going to do after graduating anyway. Here is an article about some of the benefits of an MFA program.

Before Google started tailoring its results to your own personal algorithm, you could pretty well count on a consistent experience with someone else. And back then one of the things I discovered as I was doing research about where to go to school is that if you punch in "Reasons to get an MFA in Creative Writing" a lot of what you sift through after a few gushing testimonials and maybe a page of some pro/con is a lot of reasons NOT to get a degree in creative writing. Even most people who have MFAs seem to be screaming out "Don't do it! Learn from my mistakes, Grasshoppers of writing!" However, there are a few pages you can find that sing its praises.

What gives?

Well if anyone's going to go blog about their degree, it's probably someone who just got one in writing. But sometimes creative writing MFAs are sort of like when my step-dad looked at me and my mom after I had blown up the kitchen or set the garage on fire and said, "I got the package deal!" He would say it with a tiny quiver in his voice, his lip would tremble almost imperceptibly, and his fists would be clenched so tightly that blood rivulets ran down from where his nails bit into his palms. This is the same pose and tone of voice that MFAs strike when they are telling me their degree was "really great" and they "really got a lot out of it." Though, to be fair, I usually don't see lip quiver until I mention how long it took, and the rivulets of blood don't show up until I ask if the debt was worth it.

Like most things it has fans and detractors, and you can probably find just about as much as you want to confirm your bias. (Did you know there are three MILLION pages that assert that aliens wrote the Bible?) Fortunately I, Chris Brecheen, have done the grunt work to present you with a composite list, right here on Writing About Writing of about fifty or so of these articles from the first twenty and change pages of Google.

Here are the main reasons (in their own words) ordered from most to least by how often I found them listed) the fans mention for getting an MFA:

1-You want to teach Creative Writing at the college level
2-The deadlines your classes will impose upon you/discipline
3-The time to write/the opportunity to write
4-Develop your voice/Develop "who you are" as a writer
5-Join a community of writers
6-Get readers to help you critique your work/criticism
7-Meet authors
8-Get information on getting published
9-Make connections (possibly agents if your program is prestigious enough)
10-Find yourself (believe it or not, more than one lists this)
11-Get "permission" to write (I'm not making these up)
12-You aren't sure what to do next (Yeah, that's actually in print in multiple places)
13-Have an advanced degree (any advanced degree)

and lastly...

14- Improve your writing  (No I'm not kidding. Yes this is real.  Improving your writing is listed the fewest number of times*.  In fact, many of them were strong with disclaimers that the sort of improvement would be "literary" improvement or "language" improvement, and not improvement in storytelling.)

Now before we look at this list, let's talk about the things that are conspicuously ABSENT from the usual list of reasons to schlep through two or three more years of college:

• Get a marketable skill (Nope.)
• Improve your job prospects (Not listed even once)
• Earn more money (This is actually debunked in several places. You read that right. DEBUNKED.)
• Internships or professional opportunities (Not even mentioned.)
• The sheer pleasure of the pursuit of knowledge (Pfffft. What kind of nerd goes to school for this?)

No one mentions ANY of these things.  Not even once.

Actually, that's not 100% true. In most cases, you can find that with a terminal degree, you can teach, and so many of these programs do mention that you might become a college professor teaching creative writing. So that may be your job prospects, higher pay, and professional opportunity. But OTHER than teaching, these usual reasons to shlep BACK to college for two or three more years are conspicuously absent with MFAs in writing.

And let us also consider the conspicuous absence of many of the reasons people say they want to get an MFA before they have actually been through the program.

• Genuinely increase one's chances of publication
• Undoubtedly improve one's writing

Arguably, most any MFA would have the same deficiencies in the guarantee department. And while technically no MA comes with a job offer stapled to the diploma, I shouldn't need to explain why "fine arts" and "marketable skills" don't usually wind up in the same sentence unless there's some kind of negation phrase between them.  But there is one benefit to most MFA programs that is totally worth mentioning because it is the NUMBER ONE reason that most of our CW-MFA fans suggest.

In most arts, an MFA is the terminal degree.

When you're done with your MFA, you are deemed capable of teaching at the college level.

Or at least...you are deemed capable of competing with the twenty or so graduates per program, per year for what amounts to perhaps one teaching spot that opens up in a department every decade or so (maybe more if you're at a liberal arts school). You are put in an arena with all the other candidates and a cornucopia with weapons and shit is in the middle....  The last one standing gets a lecturer position, and then gets to go through the process again in the quest for tenure, but this time with caustic fog...

Or at least...that's how it used to be.

In Creative Writing, due largely to the massive numbers of MFAs flooding the streets and competing for the tiny number of jobs that require an MFA in Creative Writing (like CW professor) or the few that might privilege such a degree (like literary magazine editor), there has recently been an addition of a further tier of Creative Writing scholarship. Creative Writing PhD's are now popping up all over the country, and those CW doctors will be scattering like dandelion seeds to fill the openings for faculty positions everywhere almost as quickly as such positions open up. "Mere" MFAs can look forward to adjunct positions or none at all until/unless they are willing to schlep back to school for a few MORE years, as well as frustrating years of being edged out and hearing: "We decided to go with the candidate who had the PhD."

But what about those other reasons?

"Not being sure what to do next" or "finding yourself" are great reasons to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, join a monastery, help Nicaraguans build dams for a year (without once trying to convert them, I swear to fuck...), or fall into bed with a partner that isn't the usual gender you go for and then take mescaline after all the consent is enthusiastically secured. But dropping the cost of a pretty fucking decent car's worth of money (or a down payment if you're not coastal), and committing to years of something requires a focus and dedication––the focus and dedication that comes from drive and ambition...not the lack of anything good on Netflix.

"Get 'permission' to write" is the sort of mealy-mouthed, touchy-feely crap that pisses me off about all writing programs. I'm not pissed at YOU for wanting permission. I'm pissed at a culture that hasn't done its level best to divest you of such notions. No program is ever going to give you permission to write, and you will struggle with the idea that you don't have permission to write long after you've finished ten writing programs. You don't NEED permission to write. Just write.

Just fucking WRITE.

"The time/opportunity to write."  Allow me to, with deepest respect, call bullshit. Or at least "cowdung." I understand that life is distracting, and people don't understand or respect your desire to write. I work a fifty hour week at two jobs, and I've heard the "you just sit around all day" argument and all its variants as reasons I should do something with or for someone more times than I can remember.  I get that the world doesn't respect writing as "real work."  I do. But this is like the quote "people think when they buy books that they are buying the time to read them."  Except in our example, instead of $9.99, you'll be paying tens of thousands of dollars.

If you want the time to write, block out the time to write. Get assertive about your boundaries! Now I'm not saying that everyone has the privilege to quit their job or cut down to part time, but how were you going to go get a masters degree in the first place without setting aside a whole shitload of time? Set aside time from the family (you would anyway to get your masters).  And spend that time writing (you would anyway to get your masters).

You don't need a program to give you time.  This is just trying to use the program to validate the excuse for spending less time doing other stuff.  If you want to write, write.  Don't hide behind an obligation that you yourself chose to be fettered to.  That's a luxury a serious writer just can't afford to have.  Look life, and all its distractions, in the eye and say "No, I'm going to write, kthxbai." You don't need the program to give you "the time to write" just like you don't need it to give you permission.  If wanting to write burns fire in your blood, then prioritize your life in a way that gives you the time to do it.

Because here's the problem, and there's no getting around it: if it you don't learn to give YOURSELF that time and permission, you will ONLY EVER write until the moment you have that MFA in your hand....and then go right back to working as a manager at the local pizza place or being a housespouse. Then what have you gained?  (Except for maybe "finding yourself"....at a pizza place or as a housespouse...and a really big bill.)

"Develop your voice/who you are as a writer"  This happens by writing. It will happen when you write. Writing is what makes this happen.  Your degree will not make this happen, but rather writing will. I guess the thesis I'm getting at is that this is going to happen when you write. Regardless of whether you are in a program or not, this will happen when you write is what I'm trying to say. However, I will say this as well....consider what kind of writing you want to develop INTO because the pedagogy of your department's faculty will be steering your development whether they are subtle as Machiavelli or hit you with a freight train of "real art" bullshit on day one. But even if that happens, your voice is still going to develop when you write. By writing...that's how that will happen.

Your voice develops by writing is...I guess...my take-home message.

Okay take a breather.  Maybe grab a snack. 

Before I go further down the list, I want to stop and mention something that will become more and more relevant as we go on.  An MFA will cost you at least $20,000 (SFSU––a state school––will cost you $8,600 per year on just tuition; books and other costs are not included in that figure) as well as a minimum of two years, and probably a lot more of both depending on the program you take and where and how quickly you can finish your coursework. This is time and money that a lot of people don't have sitting around. A lot of stuff on this list is stuff that could help any writer. Of COURSE a structured community of writers and a professor with a whip standing over you will help you. That would help anybody get better at anything. Just like having a personal trainer will help almost anyone get more out of their workouts or having a private tutor will help them do better at their studies. The question isn't if it would help. The question is whether the reward is worth the cost. For a hundred bucks, you can tell your roommate to get on your case if you don't show them a short story every month. Congratulations, you can now take the extra $19,900 dollars you saved and just....blow it all on hats.

"Join a community of writers" and "get feedback and criticism on your work"  I've bundled these together because there's an important point to make about both.  You will want to be aware of what kind of community and feedback you will get in an MFA program.  You won't get anything that even remotely resembles a mainstream perspective. You will get feedback, criticism, and a community of members who all.....GEEEEEENERALLYYYY, have the same blinders as each other.  They will be relatively smart, relatively educated, predominantly white, upper middle class; they will value academics, be driven in an institutional kind of way (and possibly will all be trying to find themselves and get "permission" to write). They will have read a lot of the same classics. They will also be heavily influenced by the school's pedagogy about what "counts" as real art--usually avant-garde, experimental, language-focused work that most readers would use only when Valium wasn't helping them get to sleep, and evokes a single tear from any agents who read it because, while often very good, it will never sell.

In other words, the very process that hazes out "good candidates for the creative writing program here at Soandso University" is exactly the same process that ensures you are getting a very narrow strip of extremely limited feedback that encourages you to write in the same way.  They may know HOW to give feedback well, but they are almost literally the most homogeneous group you could get it from. The fact that you can do either of these things––join communities and get feedback––without an MFA may not only make the MFA useless for this reason, but may shift it more into the column of doing more harm than good to any hope of a writing career.

"Get informed about publishing."  Yeah, I took that class. The difference between the undergrad version and the grad version was that the grad students had to turn in more busy work at the end of the semester. We all got to meet the same guest panels and ask questions--the grad students didn't get "more serious" guests.  It's a cool class.  It's not $20,000 dollars worth of cool, though. And someone willing to spend maybe half a dozen afternoons on Google and practice a couple of query letters from a template is going to be able to get much of the same information. We met with people in the industry and got to ask them questions, but I'll tell you what....over half that class was just jazz hands and mindless work designed to hit the university's requirement for a three-unit course. That's really wasting everyone's time, honestly, but we went through the motions anyway. You can get the same thing from a good, quality seminar, and not have to deal with a TA who says shit like "I bet if you pitched a book on Kickstarter, you could easily make 50k a year."

"Meet authors?"  Yeah, I took that class too. Again, it's pretty cool, but again not worth twenty grand and filled with bullshit busy work designed to hit the state requirements for a three-unit course curriculum. The grad students got to read and give feedback on the undergrad's busy work. (And if that doesn't convince you to run screaming, nothing will.) Most of the authors you have probably never heard of and 2/3 of them are writing in a different genre than you (unless you write in multiple genres). Depending on the program, you might get to meet a few big names––that's "literary" big names, not household names. My biggest name was Dan Handler who writes YA fiction as Lemony Snicket. But most of them were poets and playwrights I'd never heard of and a frustrating number of these authors who "visited" us were just other members of the faculty. (And a particularly cynical me couldn't help but notice that being responsible for the reading would require the 200 or so students taking the class to buy said faculty member's book. Nice little feedback loop.) Again, a cool class, but not worth-half-a-down-payment-on-a-house cool. You can also meet authors by attending local readings, and hour-per-hour, it will actually cost you less.

"Make connections––possibly with agents"  Maybe. Agents don't really troll creative writing programs for writers except for maybe the Iowa Writers Workshop and a couple other top programs. Pretty much you're going to have to dazzle them with your writing, just like you would if you didn't have your fancy MFA. You can do the exact same thing by going to readings and talking to people and meeting other writers. (Writers become editors and agents, you know.)

So what does that leave us with?

Getting any degree.

Listen..... If you want to spend twenty thousand dollars for bragging rights, I guess that is your business, but (almost literally) every single possible masters degree you could get would be more marketable and be worth greater bragging rights. Most people hide an MFA in shame, and if you try to brag about one, you'll probably understand that proclivity by about hour four. Masters aren't like Bachelors either. You don't get opportunities just for having an advanced degree in anything, even if it's underwater basket weaving, the way you sometimes do with ANY BA degree. People will actually pay attention to what your degree is in. And Creative Writing isn't going to get you very much mileage in very many businesses.

Now you may be worried that what this means is that the best damned thing anyone can say about an MFA in Creative Writing is that it's better than sitting with one's thumb positioned deep within their own ass, and perhaps that it ends up being incrementally better than NOT taking a degree for those who like farming out their motivation, itinerary, and structure to others.

So here is my REAL list of reasons to get an MFA in Creative Writing.  All snark aside:

1- $20,000-$50,000+ bucks is seriously no big deal and you have two to three years to kill. (Or you get a free ride.)
I'm actually not kidding here.

If you get a full scholarship, you have a rich grandparent offering to send you on their dime, it's a condition of your trust fund, you fall into a big chunk of money that you don't want to invest in mutual funds, or you are independently wealthy or something, and you can afford the cost (that's a cost in money and time.....and though it is more abstract, tremendous effort), go for it. A small benefit is a lot more "worth it" if you're not going to spend the next 30 years paying off the loans.

It does seem that getting an MFA is probably actually more helpful than NOT getting an MFA. Somewhere between a third and a half of published writers have an MFA and that number goes up for more modern writers. An MFA will give you exposure to good writing, modern writers, and intense feedback. Your craft will improve.

The question isn't if it's useful. The question is if it's WORTH IT.

Just remember to stay grounded if you want to do mainstream writing when you're done.

2- You really want to develop the kind of writing that an MFA program tends to foster.
If you want to write "literary genre" based writing and if you like the kind of writing that shows up in literary journals, you should get an MFA.  It's not the most popular, but it does have an aesthetic about it that some consider to be "high art."

I kind of love it myself, but I can also totally see why it doesn't sell.

And, though only one or two writers do this each year and they usually graduate from Iowa or Michigan, if you get pegged as the next big literary thing by publishing short stories in literary journals, the advance on your first novel could be in six figure range. Stick THAT in your pipe and smoke it.

Really, that's about it.  So think that one through. An MFA is not the gateway to being the next Stephen King. It's not a guarantee of publication. It's not going to get you a better job. It might not even make your writing that much better than just some practice and discipline.

Don't forget....most "great" writers since the dawn of time have never even heard of an MFA (these programs didn't show up until about sixty years ago). There were no creative writing programs back then. You read a lot and then you wrote some yourself if you wanted to be a writer.

Now that everyone just read the bullet points is pissed at me, it seems like a great time to point out that I actually do know a lot of people who speak highly of their MFA program, but most of them weren't ever "looking" for reasons to go. They didn't Google it and think about it. They weren't weighing the pros and cons. It wasn't their "don't-know-what-else-to-do" step.

They really wanted to be there. They wanted to be there so badly that a list of reasons not to do it like the one you just read wouldn't even faze them. And that's really the only reason that ought to matter.  If not doing it would kill you, that's when you know it's time to brush up your portfolio and get some letters of recommendation from your undergrad profs.

It was those friends and colleagues who just thought it was maybe the next step and did it because they didn't know what else to do that truly ended up miserable. It turns out the reasons to get an MFA are very similar to the reasons to pursue anything in higher academia--because that's really, really what you want to be doing.

Because here's the punchline, and there's no getting around it:  someone could come up with a very similar list about the reasons not to ever be a writer.  They could come out with an identical list--arm length, snarky, sobering, and spot-on. The kind of list that I would laugh at while blood rivulets ran down my clenched fist. I'm sure as shit not doing this because the money's good and the groupies are totally real.

It's accepting all that reality, understanding it, and then STILL not caring that is exactly the reason to pursue arts in the first place. If we're looking for reasons––if our blood is burning––we're already in trouble.

Attacked by Cephalopods

We apologize for the missing entry here.

It was here for a nanosecond, and then was stolen by genocidal cephalopods.   We are currently in the process of recovery.

We are not sure what they're trying to accomplish.

Potpourri, Texas Mom Style

I'm posting this Potpourri from Texas, where I am visiting my mother.

In that spirit, here are Texas and Mother themed links that have to do with writing.  It...uh...is sort of a LOOSE theme since there aren't a lot of spot on themes.  So bear with me.

Grown don't mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What's that suppose to mean? In my heart it don't mean a thing. 

Toni Morrison, Beloved


Mothers are all slightly insane. 
J.D. Salinger








The University of Houston has a great post graduate writing program.  Seriously...an aspiring writer should be so lucky.  It ranks 19th in the nation and earns some of its points with things that are extremely important to students like offering full funding and being in a local with a very low cost of living.

I'm not sure, but I think this is a homemade meme for The Uof H's writing program.

Here's a blog I actually follow called MotherWriter.  She's just getting started, so we'll see, but she is a freelance writer who home schools five kids.

Texas might love writing, but you know what they love even more?  Rewriting and Revising.  Here's a CBS podcast about Texas politicians rewriting history.

Cheap shot?  Okay, have some Shakespeare to wash the taste out:

Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee

Calls back the lovely April of her prime.

~William Shakespeare

This is more about "Chris as a kid" than "moms" per se, but these are pictures of (some of) the books I grew up around as a kid.  I swear this is one of the reasons I fell in love with books (and one of the reasons I think e-readers will never extirpate books completely from tech-cultures).  I fell in love with BOOKS because of these books--with their bright colors and wonderful illustrations.

Later the mystery was held in the lush, decadent leather bound books on the shelf above.  I think they were just some Time/Live "Big Thinkers" series or something, but they drove me to learn to read more and more, dreaming of the time when I could wrap my brain around the ideas in those beautiful books.

A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest.  

Irish Proverb

Motherhood and art will always share a very special bond...

Assaulting The Ivory Tower

I remember exactly where I was when I decided there was no way in hell I was going to pursue a traditional MFA program*. I was sitting in Saturn Cafe in Berkeley celebrating a friend's birthday and discussing Creative Writing and the gaping flaws in the MFA system--how it had begun to look like Ponzi scheme, and their particular antagonism towards anything genre (as defined of course, by them).  Still, I admitted that there still might be a chance that I would still get a traditional MFA from a respected school because I love teaching, and it would be amazing to get to teach creative writing--even if I had to teach pretentious undergrads who all wanted to be Stephen King.

That's when I heard the horrible truth.  A truth so horrible, I had to run home and look it up on Google to confirm its horribleness.  But it was indeed not only horrible, but also true.

He told me MFA's were no longer the terminus degree of Creative Writing.  Now there are PhD's as well, and it won't be long before teaching CW at the college level will require a doctorate.

And that dashed it. That was it for me.  I wasn't going to spend years of effort, tens of thousands of dollars (probably of debt), compete with hundreds of other MFA students for the same couple of dozen opportunities, be contrite with a snobby faculty about their vision of "what is art," and lose my sense of what actually appeals to wide bodies of readers (and generally what actually tends to become an important work of literature) in favor of the Avant Garde self-congratulatory world of literary "high art"....and THEN, after all that, have to deal with the fact that academic inflation had made my fine arts degree even more useless and unmarketable unless I spent another half decade doing the same.

No thanks.

Don't get me wrong, I sing the praises of higher education, and I know a lot of MFA students (current and graduates) who value(d) their experience.  But there are huge problems with the current MFA system in Creative Writing.  Some are shared by the whole fine arts/MFA system in general, but many are unique to the newer creative writing programs and their more recent explosion of popularity.  None of these issues would be solved by a PhD program, and in fact I can't think of one that wouldn't be exacerbated.

So at the risk of enraging my more educated friends, I assault the Ivory Tower with a mirror shield in hand.

"Reasons" (not) to get an MFA in Creative Writing
The Big Changes ARE Happening in Literature, You N00bs.
The Mailbox: Are you jealous of the "real writers" in the MFA programs?
Bioshock Infinite: Your Argument is Invalid


*I haven't ruled out an advanced degree altogether.  I may do a MA in Lit or a non-traditional MFA program.  But it would have to be something I really wanted to do for its own sake--not a means to an end.

House and Pet Sitting

Hi everyone! 

I have kept this link so that it's not a "dead link" but my updated pricing guide is here: 

http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2017/06/housepet-sitting-price-rates.html

Nora Ephron in Memorium (Thursday's Three +)

Nora Ephron was not a household name until Tuesday--not unless you had a fairly Hollywood-focused sort of house, but her death profoundly affected a lot of people who are household names, and they have echoed their laments far and wide. She wrote the screenplays for movies that almost everyone in the world has seen like Silkwood, Heartburn, and of course, When Harry Met Sally.

That's right, you owe the "I'll have what she's having!" joke to Nora.  

She also co-authored Sleepless in Seattle and Julia and Julia as well as being an award winning essayist, novelist, and playwright.  She also directed and produced a number of her films, but it is her writing that inspires me.  Without a throng of mindless zombie fans willing to defend excrement or an insane legacy that generated a can-do-no-wrong green-lighting of her every linguistic ejaculation, she still managed to produce work that moved a generation again and again.

Nora Ephron, we salute you.

"I try to write parts for women that are as complicated and interesting as women actually are."

Nora Ephron

"I don't care who you are. When you sit down to write the first page of your screenplay, in your head, you're also writing your Oscar acceptance speech."

Nora Ephron

"I am continually fascinated at the difficulty intelligent people have in distinguishing what is controversial from what is merely offensive."

Nora Ephron

And here's one more that I love, but I won't be putting in the reliquary:

"Like most of my contemporaries, I first read The Fountainhead when I was 18 years old. I loved it. I too missed the point. I thought it was a book about a strong-willed architect...and his love life....I deliberately skipped over all the passages about egoism and altruism. And I spent the next year hoping I would meet a gaunt, orange-haired architect who would rape me. Or failing that, an architect who would rape me. Or failing that, an architect. I am certain that The Fountainhead did a great deal more for architects than Architectural Forum ever dreamed." 

Nora Ephron

Leela Bruce Kung Fu Fights the Active Voice Wanks

Leela Bruce here, and hello. Time for another round of Kung-Fu fighting really bad writing advice.

If you say something is a suggestion, most inexperienced writers will ignore it.  Completely.  Utterly.  They, of course, know better. Unfortunately, if you say something is a rule, they internalize it upon a steel plate of commandments within their brain, and in a few years when their writing career tanks and they become some kind of editor or agent, they run around power scoffing at anyone who breaks the rule--even when it is the better choice.

This is pretty much exactly how passive voice got such a bad rap.  Perhaps with a few more tweed jackets from Cornell thrown in there. (Oh that's right Strunk!  I'm looking at you!)

That's why today I'll be taking on legions of Active Voice Wank's.  What famed kung-fu fighter hasn't taken on dozens of opponents at a time at least once in their career?

First, a cerebral attack akin to starting out with battle aura (in order to ensure that everyone is too intimidated to attack me more than one or two at a time).  Think of active and passive voice like a transformer (that's transformer with a little T so I don't get sued, but I'm not talking about the electrical boxes).  Imagine you're a giant robot that can turn into a Lamborghini. If you need to get across town because someone thought they saw Harold Bloom, you don't go on foot.  You turn into a car, and zip across town.  When you GET to Harold Bloom, you don't stay in car form.  You transform into a robot so that you have prehensile thumbs with which to grab him by the lapels and a fist that you can drive into his trachea.  I mean maybe if he's in the middle of the road you can just run over him, but if he's behind some of those cement pylons or there are innocents, you're going to need a different mode.

Passive voice is exactly like that.  Exactly.

Now, let me start with some quick punches.  Passive voice is a grammatical construction.  It is not "anything you think feels weak or callow," consisting of verbs without "spine," it is not any sentence with "to be" as a verb, it is not any sentence written in perfect tense, and it is not it a way to refer to writing that generally takes a passive stance.  It's an actual grammatical construction that consists of removing the agent or actor.


[Okay here's a lightning quick lesson in passive voice--just to show all you active wank assholes that I totally know what I'm doing: 

You can't use just regular old high school grammar to unlock what the hell passive voice means.  Because "subject" is a word that has to do with the geography of a sentence and if you try to talk about what happens to the subject in passive voice, you will get confused since another subject comes along and takes its place.  English sentences have to have a subject (unless they're a command with the implied subject of "you").  Even if there really is no subject we put in a filler subject.  "It is raining."  It has NO antecedent in this sentence.  "There is a book on the table."  There has no meaning.  It just wouldn't be grammatical in English to say "Is book on the table."  (Which you can do in other languages.)

So saying "move the subject into the object position" with passive gets funny, since a new subject shows up to take its place.  It's easier if you understand the linguistics concept of an "actor" or "agent."  This is the person DOING the action of the transitive verb.  (Another reason that subject thing can get weird is that intransitive verbs can't be passive.)  So in a sentence like "I punch Dead white authors," I am the agent or actor.  

Got it?

Okay, so in passive voice the agent goes away and the object swings around into the subject position. "Dead white authors are punched."  It requires some tweaking of the tense that is a grammar lesson I'm not getting into here.  You can add the agent or actor back in with something called a By Phrase.  That would look like this.  "Dead white authors are punched by me."  You can see how this can get really clunky and weird when you're describing action.  But I'm not here to validate the Active Voice Wanks.  I'm here to do various kinds of spinning kicks into their spleens and pancrei...um.... pancreases....whatever.

The problem is, young writers do this a lot, so experienced writers tell them to expunge passive voice, as a reactionary swing, and all the really good reasons for using passive voice get thrown out as well.  And those writers go on to become passive voice equivalents of ED-209s.  Big, nasty, and with no ability to walk down stairs.   Um....metaphorically speaking.]


I'm not here to tell you why passive voice is bad, because the style and grammar equivalents of the Puddies from Power Rangers can tell you all about it.  Over and over. Suffice to say that if passive voice is used when it isn't appropriate, it sounds a little strange. (See.) What I am here to do is kick ass and eat sushi. And the gas station just ran out of sushi.

Let me move from punches to some quick kicks. Passive voice is not a grammatical error. Get that out of your brain. While saying "The book was read by me," might seem quite odd, it is grammatically correct. Passive voice is a stylistic choice that has to do with clarity and the emphasis English speakers place on the agent, which culturally mirrors the emphasis English speaking cultures put on agency in general.*throw one attacker into another*


Reasons you use the passive voice:

1- You don't know who did something.  Maybe you don't KNOW who did something.  Coming up with ambiguous subjects rather than using the passive voice gets weird really quickly.  *sidekick*

("My house was broken into," sounds a lot better than, "An unknown person or persons broke into my house.)

2- You don't care who did it.  Often the action is much more important than who did the action, and an actively constructed sentence will draw emphasis from where it belongs.  *hammer-fist*

("The Golden Gate Bridge was completed in 1937," reads a lot smoother--despite being passive--than "A bunch of construction workers working for the McClintic-Marshall Construction Co. completed the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937.")

3- To emphasize the object or recipient.  Sometimes the object of an action is more important, and you can get a shift in meaning you don't intend by forcing it into active voice.  *spinning back kick*

("Our Marketing Strategy was adopted by several multinational conglomerate," properly emphases the awesomeness of the marketing strategy where "Several multinational conglomerates adopted our marketing strategy" pulls the focus away and places it on the companies.  The meaning clearly shifts.    "Fifty one votes are required to pass a law in the Senate," puts the focus on the number of votes whereas, "Passing a law in the Senate requires 51 votes," puts more emphasis on what happens if they get the votes.)

4- When it is obvious within a multi-clause sentence who is taking the action.  Sometimes your sentence contains multiple clauses, but it could become repetitive and strange if you insist on active voice.  *crescent kick#

("I punched the snobby academic in the face, but being pummeled didn't seem to affect his ability to accept other voices into the canon." It is clear who is punching, and you would have to have a repetitive sentence and force pummel into a possessive gerund to keep it active, which would be clunkier than the passive. "I punched the snobby academic in the face, but my pummeling didn't seem to affect...")

5-General Statements.  General statements often sound more universal and less personally directed in the passive voice.  *spinning kick that hits three attackers*

("Mail should be sent prior to 5pm," seems like a rule everyone has to follow. "Everyone should send mail prior to 5pm," or "You should send mail prior to 5pm," both feel like they are encouraging people to send mail rather than discussing a rule.)

6-Process descriptions.  An agent would often muddle the idea in a process description and cause confusion in meaning.  *flippy reversal*

("The two mixtures are combined to form nitroglycerin."  Describes how to make nitroglycerin.  "Combine the two mixtures," feels more like instructions since it is using the command exception to avoid having an agent at all, and adding in agents creates unneeded confusion. "The person in question combines the mixtures to form nitroglycerin.")

7-Verbs where the agent is obvious.  Certain verbs always have the same agent/actor.  Always.  *super power punch to the brain pan*

(If any of you write "My mother bore me on September 29th," you will probably get some very strange looks.  Pretty much that verb is always in passive voice.  "I was born on September, 29th.")

8-Academic detachedness (also journalism) confused for official or objective.  Careful, this is where newbs get into trouble.  Journalism and politics use a lot of passive voice, but journalists (usually) know what they're doing  ("Saddam Hussein was found!") when they leave out the agent/actor for emphasis and politicians are usually trying to obfuscate blame.  ("Mistakes have been made in this process.")  People think passive sounds "official" and "objective" and drift towards it because of this.

Don't.

However from time to time adding an agent to a sentence can undermine its intention, and then you need the passive voice.  The rule of thumb here is that if the by phrase in any way clarifies the meaning or intention of the sentence, you should probably put the sentence in active voice.  *foot sweep and subsequent ax kick*

("Kafka was thought to be a terrible writer in his time," convey's the full scope of meaning more than, "Literary critics thought Kafka was a terrible writer in his time," and doesn't take away the focus from what's important the way adding in all the necessary agents would: "Literary critics, agents, editors, MFA graduates, and 'high art' sophisticates thought Kafka was a terrible writer in his time.")

9-Diplomacy.  Sometimes saying who did it really points fingers and raises hackles.  This is sort of the nobly motivated version of what politicians do.  *Muay Thai spinning leg kick*

("We only militarized because we were attacked," tends to assign less blame than "We only militarized because you assholes attacked us.")

10-You are Herman Melville.  Seriously!  *The never-before-seen Melville secret attack*


Oh, and by the way, three of the Strunk and White example sentences of why passive is bad aren't actually passive, and George Orwell used the passive voice when he told people it should not be used.  *grabs last standing attacker by head and twists*  Just sayin....

As I stand in the wake of this fight, with hundreds of active voice wanks unconscious around me.  Some struggling for medical attention; others dead or dying; most saying some variant of "I got the crap kicked out of me," in an obvious moment of sheer passive irony, I just want to leave you with this:  passive voice doesn't just have "a few uses."  It has several.  It has many.  And it is positively bizarre to try to make certain constructions into active voice.  Doing so will change your meaning--sometimes slightly, and sometimes greatly.  Even a purely objective narrator needs passive voice sometimes.

And this is to say NOTHING of all the myriad of narrative voices within fiction that might have their own reasons (psychological, educational, or just wanting to sound official) for leaning towards passive constructions.  Don't be an idiot.  Learn what passive voice is and how to use it effectively and don't just join the h8er zombies that I've just decorated the room with who unimaginatively limit themselves.

This is Leela Bruce.  See you next month when I will Kung-Fu fight some more bad writing advice!