JB, I'm suprised you didn't slit his throat with that razor. (I've been blogging about metaphors...) My first degree was drama, but I admit it took A Level history to put me off my absolute determination from the age of 6 to be a historian. My CW qualification/s are definitely after the fact - I was a writer long before I did them.

Emma

I find it interesting that Steph Swainston and China Mieville have a formidable collection of degrees between them - but not in English Lit or creative writing.

They also have a high level of 'life experience' - SS who is my latest heroine has expertise in everything from archaeology to pharmaceuticals to 'whatever one does at the MOD' to hang gliding and more. Scary stuff anyway.

I was lucky - growing up in the grant era when you could still go to university and study something like English literature for the fun of it - attend 4/5 lectures a week, a tutorial once a fortnight and write 3 to 4 essays a term. (It was meant to be 5!)

I seem to recall we only ever had lectures on Tuesdays and Thursdays because of long weekends and Wednesday being the university sports day...

I suppose it was no wonder real life came as such a shock - but hey - we were good at things like Risk and Trivial Pursuit

Sarah

I'm not really surprised that, statistically speaking, published novelists are more likely to have a degree than the population at large. But I'm not convinced it's just the having of a degree that creates that bias: I suspect it's because people who grow up to become published novelists become addicted to reading at a very young age, and people who do lots of reading as children tend to not only do well at school but enjoy it too. So they have a higher than average chance of being both able and wanting to go to university.

I've also noticed that a lot of published novelists also have a work background in 'wordy' professions: copywriters, journalists, the legal profession, teachers, etc. That doesn't surprise me either.

a lot of published novelists also have a work background in 'wordy' professions: copywriters, journalists, the legal profession, teachers, etc.

I'm sure this is true. No shortage of journos (Claire) and teachers (Kate) on WW, Rosy's a lawyer, RogerM's a copywriter, and those are only the ones I can think of quickly. I'm none of these, but I am the product of a lawyer/diplomat and an English teacher...

Emma

I'm a journalist, former English teacher and have law degree so seem to fit the profile if only I could get my novel published (Finding an agent would be a start!)

I don't think degrees necessarily mean what they used to. With the cost of educaiton these days, all they're often saying is 'My parents have got money'.

To give an example, I was interviewed recently by a 3rd year student on a journalism course at a respected University - when he mailed the interview over for me to look at I was *beyond shocked*. Spelling mistakes, huge innaccuracies - even *lols* within the text.

Insane, totally insane. How did he ever make it so far in the academic system when he was clearly so unsuited? Why didn't tutors, etc tell him?

My mother, if she were still alive would be an 85 year old ex-cleaning lady who left school at 15 and her spelling and ability to express herself were impeccable (and done in a beautiful copperplate hand, as well).

I think you can either write or you can't. Yes, it's important to spend time perfecting your craft - which might involve practising by yourself, a local adult ed course, distance learning, feedback on forums - or even a degree - but at the end of the day it's the words on the page which count.

I'm sure some people's degrees are useful. I'm surrounded by people who have them and don't use them or can't find work in the industry they've studied for. I don't think they have much bearing on whether you can write a decent novel or not.

JB

It depends what you mean by useful, though, doesn't it. Nowadays people do a media degree, say, because they want a job in the media, and if they don't get one they regard the degree as useless. And now they're paying for the degree they demand practical, visible value for money. That's a good thing if it means that the quality of university teaching is scrutinised - the idle, complacent, tedious don of yesteryear can't (I hope) get away with it any more. But I do think that in some ways it misses the point of what universities and degrees, arguably, should be for.

Until recently, most degrees weren't seen or designed as training, at least not in the humanities. They were about education in a much broader and less specific sense. Apart from the handful who went on to become academics, and the larger handful who went on to train as teachers in that subject, most graduates hoped to take away broader skills - research, logical and analytical thought, discussion and debate, a mental map of history and culture, a willingness to question everything and prod into the cracks in an argument, even one in a textbook. I'll rue the day that there's no time or curriculum for that kind of education in universities, because where else are you going to get it? And, assuming they're already reading voraciously, what better education (not training) could there be for a writer?

Emma

I don't think they have much bearing on whether you can write a decent novel or not.

I think this is true - I also agree with Emma's point that education is the key - and it doesn't have to be 'the traditional route'?

Many of the more brilliant and interesting people I knew at school left at 16 - didn't stay on for A'levels but went on to do other more creative things - may well have caught up with their formal education later.

I think Stephen King says in 'On Writing' that a major in English doesn't hurt but goes on to make the point that things like grammar can always be learned and arguably more easily when you are no longer nineteen and easily distracted

Sarah

I googled all those people (King, Koontz and the other guy) and, yes, they DO all have degrees.

I think most published writers probably do, but it's not a pre-requisite for writing well at all. Sometimes it can even get in the way, in that someone can write beautifully but isn't really a story teller.

I did an Arts degree and so, obviously read a lot and was able to write essays. But the writer in me was there from childhood, I think.

The trouble is with a lot of writers though, is that because they live in a cocoon and only mix with other writers, they can't always write convincingly about other ways of life.

Presumably you have to be reasonably bright to write a novel (myself excluded;I'm a fuckhead), and presumably you need to be reasonably bright to get a degree (unless it's from the University of my Armpit or some of those other dubious places), which might be why lots of writers have degrees.

I do think my best training came from my degree, thoguh - which was in ENglish - studying others writers in detail is a way of learning how to write.

Not sure what I got out of my Creative Writing MA, in all honesty. Just a year off from the day job.

Didn't I read somewhere that you're off to do a PhD, Sapph?

<Added>

I haven't got much use out of the degrees I've got, so I can honestly say degrees don't have that much use in the outside world (unless you work in that specialism and need it on your CV).
If you read books, write, and remain curious about the world and the people in it, what more does a writer need?

Do you mean a degree in anything, or a creative writing degree? I actually think I'd have got much further in my writing career by now if I'd had the confidence to just go for it as a writer as soon as I left school, instead of doing a degree. I did my BA because it was was 'expected' of me and there was a sort of feeling that 'you'll starve in the gutter without one', which is pretty scary when you're 18. In the event, I got seriously depressed for the time I was at uni, at least part of which I think was down to just not seeing the point of what I was doing. As a result of the depression I ended up chopping and changing degrees and spending 5 years getting a first degree. I was much happier and more motivated in my two masters' degrees because it was specialised, it was what I was really interested in (children's lit. and writing) and it was at a level that challenged me.
I don't think that publishers and agents care if you have a degree or not, but I have noticed that the overwhelming majority of agents/ publishers I've met have been unbelievably posh, plummy, self-confident middle-aged women. They are terrifying and horribly off-putting even to me, who am relatively posh myself. For many, many people, this innate atmosphere of elitisim must be a terrible barrier. Some publisher/ agent people I've encountered don't even seem to come from the same planet as the average person on the street. I do wish publishers could at the very least employ a few people with accents from somewhere outside of Kensington. If the BBC can do it...

Know what you mean Steerpike's Sister. I remember sitting in Caradoc King's office, of A P Watt and being terrified by his charm and suavity. He said he liked to get letters from 'ordinary' people. Didn't quite know how to take tha!

I remember sitting in Caradoc King's office, of A P Watt and being terrified by his charm and suavity. He said he liked to get letters from 'ordinary' people. Didn't quite know how to take tha!

Eek! Yes, publishing is horribly like that at times. The older ones are the product of a world when most people doing anything cultural were posh, and the younger ones of a world where, I gather, the only way to get a job in publishing is to be able to afford to keep yourself while you do an unpaid internship...

Emma