How to Reuse Your Creative Writing Course Work

Your Creative Writing Course Work is Raw Material

If you took a creative writing class in college, in an MFA program, or in a workshop, you probably submitted pieces now sitting in some digital folder or Google Drive graveyard. Maybe you got a low grade in those submissions, or the red ink of a critical professor. But don't be discouraged, those papers are reusable, obviously. But just how will you reuse them?

You wrote a short story, or a chapter that now reveals itself as part of a longer work-in-progress, and each piece you’ve set aside is not finished, so you wait to reshape and reframe them until every work you submitted can become fuller, readier. Many literary journals gather voices around a theme and issue calls for submissions, and you may already have what they need, if you revisit what you’ve written, adjust a line, reconsider the ending, and probe its truth. A poem you once brought to a Palihan was critiqued so heavily you could no longer look at it, but distance matters in revision, and the farther you step away, the more you begin to see it again, steadier, clearer, and closer to its most publishable form.

No Grade Mark Can Define the Value of Your Writing

Academic feedback can bite. Creative writing courses are graded, after all, and some rubrics can feel too rigid for the kind of writing you are attempting. But you can’t stop at that low mark, nor should you accept it as final. Literary merit, when measured against a grading sheet, is always relative.

In class, you’ll often be told to imitate, echo master writers' voices. Of course your professor use that master's voice to assess your work. The benchmark for anything after all can't be just anyone. But let this not unsettle you. Your piece needs its time. When you return to it, you will notice that enduring 'youness'. Believe this, that master's voice imitated still surfaces you.

And since professors are often looking not for perfection but for a kind of “mastery” of elements, getting a low grade simply means you may have missed some of those points in the rubric. But the draft will remain in its modesty, humble in its incompleteness, lingering in the folder like a patient servant, eventually showing you a way to fill what is lacking. So after giving it time, go back and redeem the time.

Your Thesis Could Be a Bestseller (Seriously)

Here are some books that started as academic theses or dissertations, school projects honed over time, rewritten, abandoned, revived, and eventually published.

1. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath – Originally submitted as her undergraduate thesis at Smith College.

2. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng – Developed during her MFA at the University of Michigan.

3. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz – Parts of this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel were drafted during his time at Cornell.

4. The Hours by Michael Cunningham – Inspired by his academic engagement with Virginia Woolf’s work.

5. Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong – Much of this groundbreaking poetry collection was written during his MFA studies.

How to Reuse Your Course Work

1. Revisit old folders. Pull up past assignments to read with fresh eyes.

2. Sort by theme, relevance, and potential. Which pieces still resonate? Which ones hold a voice or idea that remains timely?

3. Get feedback or review. A best reading can tell you how lacking it is. Don’t be afraid to leave your original draft behind. As one mentor editor's post-it says, "murder your babies".

4. Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. Revisiting the old work means reworking it before releasing it into the world.

5. Ask, will it be a short work, or will it become part of a long work? It could be the seed of a novel, memoir, or anthology. This means deciding on genre, possibly drift, or form.

6. Submit for publication. Consider literary journals, anthologies, or even self-publishing platforms.

7. Join a workshop. You never know how a community will read your past work, and then updating its resonance.