Careers in Writing

[Androxine Vortex]

Are there any good careers that you can have with writing? And by that I mean an actual job that pays you to write. I would really like to make writing more that just a hobby. Please give me as much information and adivce as you possibly can. Perhaps you or someone you know has a career directly involved with writing? I'm preparing to go to college soon and I don't think I want to major in creative writing or something like that because frankly you don't need a degree in writing, per say. However, I would like to know what job opportunities are out there for a good career in the writing field. Thank you very much for any help you can offer.

 

[Graham Irwin]

Well...

Something to do with advertising might involve writing, or journalism, or law, or entertainment, or telecommunications...

Honestly, your question's scope is a little large... It's like asking "what can i do with my hands?"

Narrow your interests down to a little more than 'writing'

Or, be a broke writer like most of the greats, and work as a mailman or patent clerk to pay the bills.

 

[Telcontar]

As a programmer, I work often with technical and documentation writers. They are the most common 'professional writer' types I encounter. Most of them have English or Communications degrees, I think. You're right - Creative Writing degrees are not helpful to a hopeful novelist or other form of fiction writer. In fact, I'm not really sure what they ARE helpful for. Can't ask those friends of mine who have them, cuz they all think it'll help them be novelists...

 

[ShortHair]

I'm sorry, but if you want to make a living at writing, you will most likely do it writing nonfiction. For a while I was a technical writer. Unless you are very lucky or very well connected, you can't survive writing fiction. It's a hobby, nothing more.

 

[Codey Amprim]

That's a little too much encouragement for one thread!


I was in your shoes. Well, I still am. I am in my 2nd semester of college persuing a bachelor's degree in creative writing. I do plan on making a living out of it one way or another. I wish you the best of luck!

 

[Devor]

Are there any good careers that you can have with writing? And by that I mean an actual job that pays you to write. I would really like to make writing more that just a hobby. Please give me as much information and adivce as you possibly can. Perhaps you or someone you know has a career directly involved with writing? I'm preparing to go to college soon and I don't think I want to major in creative writing or something like that because frankly you don't need a degree in writing, per say. However, I would like to know what job opportunities are out there for a good career in the writing field. Thank you very much for any help you can offer.

Technical writing. Journalism. There are plenty of blogs and other web communities which make a livable income, in nonfiction. Even non-fiction books sell better.

There are people who make it in scriptwriting for television or film, and I imagine some video game writers do alright. The number of novels which turn in a livable income is smaller than one would expect, and that can be disheartening.

Marketing can, at times, blend the creative and nonfiction side, and there's a lot of jobs in marketing when the economy is doing well. But most of them involve writing emails and updating Facebook and Twitter. Still, of the lot of them, marketing and technical writing are probably the surest way to an income in writing.

 

[Philip Overby]

I'm one of those folks that got a Master's in English (Poetry emphasis) which I found to be essentially useless without some form of license. But I lived in Mississippi for a long time where any sort of writing job is pretty rare. I've been teaching Japan for a couple of years now and it gives me freedom to do writing and blogging and such. I have a blog I use for Japanese and writing stuff, but I've yet to make any money from it (of course.)

But I have heard there are loads of careers in doing anything with language, so if you're interested in studying language and using it some fashion, that may help you. Of course non-fiction is really the way to go. If you want to make bank anyway. I like fantasy though, so I'll just see where it takes me.

 

[zizban]

I am a technical writer, so I get paid to write.

 

[Androxine Vortex]

Thanks for the responses, and yeah I knew that fiction writting wasn't going to be a big option here. I truly feel like I have a talent for writting, and so many people tell me so too. (Not intentionally trying to boast here) In my final year at High School we had to do a big English project where we would take a book and we had to analyze it, review it, add our own chapters to it, rewrite things, etc. Overall it was about five individual projects. It was worth 250 points and I got a 100% on everything. The teacher even told me that he was surprised I did such a good job and that he has never given that high of a grade before, and believe me, it's hard to get A's with him.

All I really want is a job where I can use my skills in writting. I really don't have anything particular in mind because well, I'm not really sure what's out there. From what research I have done, a lot of people join online website and type articles and submit papers, or they become columnists or they are critics. From what I have read, a lot of people are critics and was wondering how that might be. I think that might be a good choice for me because every single time I read anything, watch anything, or listen to anything, I always critique it. I even love watching commercials and rating them in my head. The only problem is, I don't know if this field is something that's good to get into, especially in today's ecconomy.

@Zizban, could you tell me a little bit about your profession and how you got started?

 

[zizban]

I'd be happy to.

I am a technical writer for a not for profit. I go out and see clients and write evaluations regarding their needs. Depending on certain criteria the reports could be 3 to 10 pages. I also wrote my own course work for the computer classes I teach at the agency. While technical writing in some aspects is far away from fiction, a lot of it is the same: the need to be clear, to be descriptive and to use proper spelling and grammar.

I have a degree in English and I simply applied for the job. My love of technology and my ability to write got me this job.