Yuffie's Writing How-To's

College majors

I've had several people ask me or comment on what to study in college if they want to be a writer. The obvious choice seems to be some English or Creative Writing major, but I have a very different opinion on that.

While majoring in English may seem appropriate if you want to be a fiction writer, there are other options to make you a more well-rounded writer. Keep in mind this post is my personal opinion on the matter and shaped by my personal experiences. There are some great authors out there with English degrees. But I will shed light on a different approach.

It's my belief that aspiring authors should look into areas of study in addition to English in college. While an English degree does require you to take core classes and electives other than English-related ones, those core classes are generally just "Introduction to _____". You only get a brief overview of the subject. If you want to get to the heart of the subject, more advanced classes are necessary. For example, part of my Kinesiology degree includes advanced classes on neuroscience, anatomy, psychology, biomechanics, etc. that I wouldn't be allowed to take if I was an English major.

Now, why would you need a knowledge base outside of English to be a fiction author? I'm using a lot of what I learned in all this sciency stuff in my stories. Neurology and brain pathways goes heavily into VENGEANCE. Anatomy goes into Guardian Redemption. A lot of my wound and injury care knowledge, biology, and organic chemistry has gone into Stray. Mental disorders have gone into Stray, Guardian Redemption, and SuperHero. Physics went into SuperHero. I only came up with the idea for Citali because I was taking a "how environment shapes culture" class.

I've heard published authors say this too: broaden your horizons in what you're studying, because you can extend the scope of your stories that way. We tend to write about topics we know, or we end up heavily researching the topic. If you have a major/minor in a certain area of study outside of English, you'll have a solid knowledge base for that topic that you can utilize in your novels. While you can research all this on your own, there's also a lot of insight professors give on topics that you likely can't find through a Google search.

If I'd been an English major, most of my stories wouldn't even exist right now. I'm not saying you go out and get a science degree if you despise science. You can do this with anything: anthropology, political science, business, religion, art, architecture, agriculture, psychology, mathematics, etc.

So if your heart is still set on English and Creative Writing for your major, that's great! But also consider at least minoring in some wildly different subject. Or major in something different and minor in English/Creative Writing. Or double major with an English degree. Anything so you can get an in-depth look at a topic you're interested in.

Take home message: avoid narrowing your focus to only writing and literature. You could end up studying something that will inspire or help you write your masterpiece novel(s).