Creative writing, as the name suggests is a way to express oneself creatively through the
use of imagery, narrative, and drama. Moreover, in recent years, creative writing is getting accepted widely as a full-fledged profession. You can find a wide range of creative writing careers today. But before that, let’s take a deep dive and discuss what this field is all about.
Definition of Creative Writing
It as an academic discipline is still a fairly new thing going around the world. Whereas, it’s the last 10 years that creative writing exploded on the surface. That is what triggered the career opportunities for creative writing.
It is any literary piece of work where the writers or the authors engage audiences and get the readers’ attention through their imagination and creativity. Creative writing can be divided into two major categories fiction and non-fiction. Both of them offer lucrative creative writing careers.
Fictional Creative Writing
This form of writing is where the author writes purely based on their imagination, ideas, or references taken from other fictional writing. Fictional creative writing is what someone calls a ‘fantasy’ in the genre language. This form of content writing has a huge fan base as it allows the readers to escape from the real world and experience the dreamworld and lands.
Non-Fictional Creative Writing
Non-fictional writing is basically writing that is based on reality. The things that we see around ourselves. From something as a real-life issue, or an instance. It is something that is much more realistic and closer to actual life. This form of writing is more based on facts than the imagination of the author.
Creative Writing Careers
The best part of a career in creative writing is that one doesn’t mandatorily need to have a degree to begin as a creative writer, although Literature and Journalism degrees are preferred in some cases.
1. Copywriter
Copywriters are the people that perform the art of crafting words for the sole purpose of conversion. Good copy convinces people to take action. Copywriting is the messaging that fuels an entire business, that is what the copywriters do.
2. Blogger
Blogging is currently one of the most effective and used marketing strategies to grow businesses. This is primarily why people blog these days to get free traffic from Google to make money online. A blog technically is a section of your website. This is is the scope of blogging in today’s world, therefore, being a blogger is not a bad idea.
3. Book Writer (Author)
An author is simply a person who writes books or novels. For example, JK Rowling is an acclaimed author, JK Rowling is famous for her Harry Potter series that was successful throughout the world. Being an author is one of the traditional professions of creative writing but is still influential.
4. Scriptwriter
Those who favour writing dialogues can become scriptwriters. Scriptwriters are the people who write scripts for a movie, tv series, short films and so on. It is a very creative field and also one of the most crucial factors as it determines the quality of the show that a scriptwriter is working on. Scriptwriting has a good scope for people with interests and relevant skills.
5. Content Writer
Content writing is a profession where you create content for a client based on their set needs. With the digitalization of businesses and services, almost all companies need content writers to present themselves to the online audience. Hence, this is one of the best creative writing careers out there!
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How to become a Creative Writer?
There is no fixed pathway to becoming a creative writer. You can become a creative writer by following these steps –
Step 1 – Read More about Creative Writing
The people who read more actually tend to write better. People who have been reading often especially since they were young tend to have better expression, which is arguably the most crucial aspect. Reading widely only helps your brain to widen its range of thinking capabilities. For instance, the range includes legal, experimental, creative pieces, essays and so on.
Step 2 – Find Inspiration!
Inspiration is all around us. Following on some reading creatively can help find inspiration in what you can create and everything around you. You will be surprised where you might find the inspiration. Think of it like any other skill, for instance, sports or music. The more inspired you are, the better and more driven you are to become.
Step 3 – Doing Writing Exercises improves creative writing
Do short creative writing exercises. For example, you might take a few minutes every single night before bed to write about your day or just anything in your mind that comes through. Writing about your day or anything that is in your mind is called ‘Stream of Consciousness’. Or you might have to spend five minutes after thinking about an idea to write about it in your journal. Whatever it is, every single piece of writing no matter how little you get into it, no matter how long it is, can often become something amazing later. Because whatever you write, can become a basis of a creative writing piece that you might end up doing.
Just remember, there is no right formula!
Step 4 – Share Your Writing and Get Feedback
There is no better way to improve than to get feedback from people. Don’t be shy and think people won’t like your piece. Any type of feedback is always positive and constructed feedback for you to use and to improve and implement into your next piece. You might ask your friends, or your teacher to help you read your creative pieces. Another way to share is to post it anonymously online through a blog, or any website.
Conclusion
Starting is always hard but just like with anything else, once you finally get started and do it over and over again, it will get ten times easier. Whether it is for school or just for yourself, It is an amazing way that can help you develop as a writer but also helps you grow as a person, as cliche as it sounds. Also, it is a great platform for people who love to write and want to express themselves. Most importantly, the need for creative writers will only grow with the development of the internet and multiple websites. Therefore, making creative writing your full-fledged profession is not a bad idea.
