What Kind of Writer Do You Want to Be?
[image error]
Hi, all. This is another chapter for my writing book for children. Any feedback is much appreciated.
*****
Saying you want to be a writer is a bit like saying you want to be an athlete. There are lots of different kinds of sports. And there are lots of different kinds of writing. Most kids start out by writing fiction (such as stories about aliens or adventures or animals) and non-fiction (such as essays about what you did over the summer). But by the time you’re all grown up, you’ll realise that there are a lot more – sometimes very specific – options for the kind of writer you might want to be.
Here are a few that you will have heard of and maybe a few that you’ve never even thought about.
Academic writer: To be an academic writer, you need to choose a subject to focus on such as medicine, physics, psychology or geology and become an expert. Then once you know everything about your subject, you do research to try to discover new things that nobody else knows yet. An academic writer usually works for a university and has to write about what new things they have discovered.
Agony aunt or uncle: An agony aunt or agony uncle asks people to send in a story of a problem they are having in their life (something they are “agonising” over) and will respond by providing advice on what they should do (like your “aunt” or “uncle” might do).
Biographer: A biographer tells the story of someone’s life. Usually, the person they are writing about is famous (such as a politician, an athlete or a businessperson) or has done something amazing that readers are interested in reading about (such as being an astronaut, surviving a disaster or climbing a really tall mountain).
Blogger: A blogger is someone who writes a blog, which is a personal website. They can write about anything they want to. They can write about themselves, about their favourite hobby, about their favourite TV show, anything! Anyone can set up a blog.
Did you know…? There are over 500 million blogs on the internet as of 2019 and bloggers post over two million blog posts daily.
Columnist: A columnist usually writes for a newspaper or magazine (named after the “columns” that their writing was formatted to fit into when newspapers and magazines were printed) and they mostly write their opinions about the topics that everyone is talking about.
Did you know…? Even though a columnist appears in a newspaper or magazine like a journalist, they are very different from journalists. A columnist’s job is to tell you what they think. A journalist’s job is to tell you what other people think.
Comedy writer: A comedy writer tries to make us laugh by writing jokes and funny stories. They might write these jokes or funny stories for a stand-up comedy routine, for a sketch show, for a sitcom on television or for a comedy movie.
Did you know…? “Sitcom” is short for “situational comedy” and the term is usually used to describe a half-hour television show that follow the lives of a group of people and contains a lot of jokes.
Comic writer: A comedy writer and a comic writer might sound almost like the same thing but they are very different. A comic (which can also be known as a graphic novel) tells a story using words and pictures (like a picture book but for adults). Batman, Superman and most of your favourite superheroes all started out in comics.
Copywriter: Copywriters prepare smaller pieces of writing, usually for advertising purposes.
Corporate writer: Big businesses need writers for a variety of types of writing so a corporate writer could work on proposals (also known as bids or tenders), reports, case studies, articles, prospectuses, speeches, newsletters, websites, brochures and other general marketing materials. A corporate writer’s main goal is to make the business they work for look good and deliver the messages the business wants to convey.
Critic: A critic is someone who writes reviews – what they liked and what they didn’t like – about restaurants, movies, books, television shows, holidays and other things to help readers to decide if they would like to eat at a restaurant, see a movie or television show, read a book or go on a holiday.
CV writer: A CV writer writes CVs. What’s a CV? CV stands for curriculum vitae, which is Latin for “the course of my life”. A CV is also known as a résumé, which is French for “summary”. A CV or a résumé is a short description of you, your education, any work you’ve done and other interesting things about yourself that you give to an employer when you are applying for a job. A lot of people write their own CVs but a CV writer knows how to do it really well to make you look amazing!
Diarist: A diarist is someone who keeps a diary, usually with the intention of publishing it as a book later on.
Encyclopedist: An encylopedist helps write and put together an encylopedia.
Essayist: An essayist is someone who writes essays. Essays are a common assessment tool used in high school and university but they are also used in the broader writing world to present thoughts or arguments in a reflective, often literary manner.
Food writer: A food writer writes about food and recipes. They will often write about going to restaurants and where certain types of food come from. If the food writer is also a good cook, they might even write a cook book.
Ghostwriter: A ghostwriter is given a story and asked to write it on behalf of the person who had the idea. When the book is published, they won’t be listed as the writer of the book. A lot of people who aren’t very good at writing but who have a story that they want to tell will use a ghostwriter to help them do it.
Grant writer: A grant is money available to fund research or support artists or projects. There are more people wanting grants than there are grants available, so applications must be written and submitted so the government departments, charities, foundations and corporations offering the grants can decide who to give the money to. Grant writers work with the people wanting to be awarded the grant money and prepare the grant applications on their behalf.
Greeting card writer: A greeting card writer comes up with the messages on the front and inside of birthday cards, get well cards, congratulations cards, mother’s day cards, father’s day cards, Christmas cards and all those other cards that you see in the store. They work closely with designers so that their messages get matched up with the right pictures.
History writer: History writers write about important events in the past. There is a famous saying that history is written by the victors so sometimes history writers have to do a lot of research to discover true history. History doesn’t change but often our understanding or perspective of history can change as society changes and as additional information comes to light.
Journalist: A journalist usually writes for a newspaper or a magazine about what is going on in the world each day. There are many kinds of journalism including politics, crime, sports, health, transport, entertainment, environment, science and many others. Journalists play a very important role in keeping the general public informed, making sure people in positions in power follow the rules and giving a voice to people who aren’t in positions of power.
Lexicographer: A lexicographer writes dictionaries. “Lexicon” is another word for “dictionary”.
Did you know…? Samuel Johnson was one of the most famous lexicographers. In 1746, he started writing A Dictionary of the English Language and in 1755, it was published (yes, it took him nine years and he wrote it all by himself). It was considered the best English dictionary for over 150 years until the Oxford English Dictionary was published.
Medical writer: A medical writer writes about medical stories and issues and is usually a doctor, a nurse or a medical researcher. A writer who writes about medical stories but doesn’t have medical qualifications is more likely to be referred to as a health writer.
Memoirist: A memoirist is like a biographer but writes about their own life (they are also known as an autobiographer).
Non-fiction writer: Non-fiction is a very broad subject area but is basically everything other than fiction. Journalists, history writers, medical writers, biographers, true crime writers and travel writers all write non-fiction.
Novelist: A novelist (also known as an author) writes made up stories that are usually quite long and there are many novel genres including crime, science fiction, fantasy, horror, historical, western, comedy, romance, thriller and mystery.
Obituary writer: An obituary writer writes mini biographies about well-known people when they die.
Did you know…? Obituary writers sometimes write obituaries for famous people – such as presidents and pop stars – and for well-known people who are sick or do risky things before they die so they have them ready to publish as soon as the news of their death becomes public.
Picture book writer: A picture book writer writes picture books for children. Sometimes a picture book writer will write the words and draw the pictures and sometimes a picture book writer will write the words and work with an illustrator who draws the pictures to go with the words.
Playwright: A playwright is someone who writes plays, which are then performed on a stage in a theatre with live actors (as opposed to a movie which is filmed previously with actors and shown on a screen in a theatre).
Did you know…? The reason it’s spelled “playwright” and not “playwrite” is because “wright” is an old English word for a craftsman or a builder. So a playwright is someone who crafts plays.
Poet: A poet writes poems. Some of the oldest writing that still exists in the world is in the form of poetry. Poems are hard to describe but they are like songs without music.
Proposal writer (aka bid writer or tender writer): Governments and big businesses request proposals from potential suppliers outlining what they can provide, how much it will cost and why they should be chosen to supply it. Proposal writers compile all the required information from the specialists in the business and write any additional information needed, then finalise and submit the proposal.
Report writer: Big businesses, especially those with multiple shareholders, have to write reports to keep their investors and business regulators informed on how their business is going. Report writers are specialists in preparing this kind of information, especially for annual reports.
Satirist: A satirist uses writing to poke fun, usually at people in positions of power like politicians and especially when they do things that regular people don’t think they should be doing. Wikipedia describes satire as a genre “in which vices, follies, abuses and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, governments or society itself into improvement”.
Screenwriter: Screenwriters write films and televisions shows. It is a unique form of writing because it is not written to be read, it is written as a set of instructions to be interpreted by actors, set designers, lighting designers, location scouts, producers, directors and all the people involved in making films and television shows.
Short story writer: A short story writer is like a novelist but prefers to write things that are quicker to write and read. They write stories that don’t need as many words as a novel needs. Short stories are more likely to be published in magazines and journals or as part of a collection of short stories in a book.
Social media writer: Do you read messages on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? Well, somebody has to write them. Yes, a lot of them are from your friends and family but companies and organisations are on social media as well and they need someone to write their messages for them. A social media writer is usually part of a marketing team.
Songwriter: A songwriter (also known as a lyricist) writes the words for songs. A songwriter will need to work very closely with a musician or composer to make sure the words and the music fit together perfectly.
Speechwriter: A speechwriter writes speeches, usually for other people like business leaders, politicians, kings and queens, and activists. These people often have important messages they want to convey to those listening to their speeches and to ensure their speech is impressive and has a lasting impact, they hire someone who is a specialist in writing speeches.
Technical writer: A technical writer writes instructions on how to do something, like learning how to use new software or how to apply for a home loan.
Textbook writer: All classes need textbooks and all textbooks are written by textbook writers. To write a textbook, you need to be an expert in your special subject and you need to be able to explain your special subject in a way that makes it easy to learn.
Translator: A translator is someone who speaks and writes and reads another language well enough to be able to translate a piece of writing from one language into another. This book is written in English. For people who don’t read English to be able to read it, it would need to be translated into a language they can read and that is what a translator does.
Travel writer: A travel writer visits places all over the world and writes about them so we can decide if we would like to go on holidays in that place.
True crime writer: A true crime writer writes about real-life crime (as opposed to a crime novelist who writes about pretend crime). Reports about real-life crime usually appear at first in newspapers or on television but true crime books delve deeply into all the details to tell the complete story from the history of the person committing the crime, the victims, the crime itself, how it was solved, the resulting court case and the verdict.
Video game writer: A video game writer works closely with video game designers to write the scripts for video games. This kind of writing is very collaborative because you rely on others to bring your vision to completion.
Web content writer: Web content writers prepare the text for web pages. They will work closely with website designers to make sure it goes together well with the images and the format.
