The first thing you will notice – if an MFA program thinks you’re good enough to fill one of their yearly vacancies, and if you think they’re good enough to hand thousands and thousands (and thousands) of dollars to – is the great skepticism with which your new colleagues comport themselves. So refined is the MFA student’s sense of doubt that, like true professionals, very little escapes it. MFA students are a disinterested lot, impartial to the point of near-objectivity, and it is enlightening – and pleasurable as only enlightening things can be – to witness with what deft, with what cunning and aplomb, they will unsheathe their swords from their scabbards and give battle to any ambiguity regarding their work.

This would be a fine thing, but for a curious inversion, which is – as well as being the first thing you will notice – the strangest thing to be found: such poise is most plentiful in the moments immediately prior to the distribution of their composition to their peers, and, rattling on, descends along a greased precipice toward a practiced diffidence. And, as often as not, their eyes descend further toward their lap as their mea culpas accumulate.

The most common form of this levelheadedness, known to MFA students across the galaxy: apologies.

You see, everyone produces substandard work. And, often enough, they produce work that is outright offensive to read, and can’t help but be a waste of everyone’s time.

That, anyway, is what you would think if you took these apologetic authors’ word for it.

These apologies take many forms.

There are statements of humility, which are probably the most reasonable caveats to be given, if one insists. Such as: “I don’t really know anything about colon cancer, but I thought I would take a stab at it. So, if any of you have colon cancer, and if you think I didn’t quite capture the grandeur of the disease, I’m sorry.”

And they pass their work around.

Then, there are hostile statements: “I really don’t know what I was doing here, but, you know, it was Tuesday night, and I had to shit something out for Wednesday, so here it is.”

And they pass their work around.

And then there comes shyness, which is simultaneously the most forgivable and the most aggravating form of apology. Forgivable because often people cannot help their shyness, and aggravating because these types are usually the ones who have the least to apologize for. Modesty and meekness conflict with one another as these words are whispered: “I… I just wrote this. This… little thing. Um… I’m not sure if it’s so good. Yeah. Here.”

And they push the stack of their work just a tad to the right, so their neighbor can take it up and begin the process of passing it around.

And then there’s the excuse, which can’t help but be both insulting and self-effacing: “I got really hammered last night…” (here an optional glance at fellow-revelers in the room may be employed, perhaps with a round of knowing giggles to – as they say – punctuate the moment) “… and I didn’t really get to edit this as much as I wanted to. You know how it goes…”

And they toss their work, such as it is, in the general direction of the person closest to them.

The feelings these apologies can produce in an audience range from pity to disdain, with a few combinations and variants in between, disinterest being the pivot.

But, feelings aside, what are the consequences for the apologetic student? Beyond merely begging the question, prior restraint so freely expressed has a tendency to devalue the work of the one speaking. Lost in this misdirected energy is the realization that apologies, almost always, have the opposite effect than the one intended. Not only can they create an unwelcome reflection of the reader’s own feelings of inadequacy – for which they will never forgive you – but (and this is the gravamen) it also takes agency away from the reader. It inserts the author into the piece, where s/he should normally step out of view. Reading their work, one can picture them in the act of composition, plugging and slaving away, committing themselves to mediocrity for something as temporal and meaningless as a deadline.

But the sword of the unsure is double edged. If they’re right and their work sucks, then one cannot help but wonder why they – writer and reader – bothered. And if the author is wrong, then the reader ends up not trusting their judgment, which can be dangerous in the context of peer review.

My first professor in composition had (and presumably still has) a rather elegant way of dealing with this perennial irritant. I can only speculate as to how many apologies this professor had to suffer through before devising this stratagem. In any case, the tactic was as near to being foolproof as such tactics can be.

He would, first, agree with the petitioner, and restate their pleas for leniency so they could hear what their own words sound like when played back.

So, if a student began by saying: “Now, I just did this in a rush, and I don’t think… Well… I’m not sure if I got the relationship between the murderer and her victim right. I’m not sure if the quadruple homicide was predictable, or…”

Without rancor, the professor would say: “We know that it’s bad. Pass it around.”

“Well, okay. I just wanted to say that I might not have gotten the scene with the falling piano right, and…”

“We know that you aren’t a good writer. But, please, pass it around.”

It would be unfair to omit with what grace he would deliver this rejoinder. He would say it kindly and dispassionately, almost as a matter of course. And, as though the student’s concerns were genuinely quieted, they would relent – and would sometimes derive some pleasure in doing so.

If a student had handed something worthwhile over and, nonetheless, persisted in their apologies when it came time to discuss the piece, the professor might do something like put his chin in his hand and stare at the student. Time would pass. Sometimes a full minute – which is longer in real life than it ever is in the movies or, indeed, in literature. He would then say something tailored to what they needed to hear. Something simple. Something wise. Like: “Own it.”

The student might lower their eyes. But when they saw fit to raise them again, the professor’s eyes would still be there.

“Own it,” he would repeat. And he would persist until the point was made.

If not quite with total conviction, some internal shift would be effected. Hopefully, at home or out at the bar that night, confidence would take root. And, hopefully, eventually, yield fruit.

By the measurements of an MFA program, such an insight is worth at least $5,000.

And that’s a bargain.

The point: let your readers decide whether you are a good writer or not. Do not conclude the matter before the proceedings have begun.

And here is Nietzsche, who excels in such matters: “It is neither good manners nor clever to rob people of their insights. It is, however, very good manners and very clever to allow one’s readers to pronounce the ultimate quintessence of one’s wisdom.”