Is It Necessary to Go to School (College) to be a Writer?
If you consider writing as a casual work that requires no formal experience or educational qualification, as some of the freelance writing sites point out, you can straight away reply to this question simply in the negative. But if you consider writing as a serious business, then you must consider it from a wider perspective.
Is it necessary to go to school (college) to be a writer?
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Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
If you consider writing as a casual work that requires no formal experience or educational qualification, as some of the freelance writing sites point out, you can straight away reply to this question simply in the negative. But if you consider writing as a serious business, then you must consider it from a wider perspective.
Writing can be classified into two formal categories:-fiction and non-fiction, while the former is creative writing and the latter is non-creative writing. Creative writing has a number of genres like poems, short stories, novels, dialogue or screen play writing etc and the non-creative writing includes academic writing, essay writing, article writing, resume writing, copy writing and writing for columns and journals etc.
Even the freelance writing sites which offer to provide varieties of service in academic writing in various disciplines and topics call for writers with special skills and academic qualifications in various disciplines. Similarly, newspapers, publishers of books and magazines recruit their employees like reporters, sub-editors, copy editors, proof readers and journalists etc only with requisite academic qualifications preferably a degree or diploma in journalism or mass communication with an emphasis on relevant work experience.
The creative writing category is the only area, in which a writer has to rely upon his own talent, ingenuity and imagination rather than a formal educational qualification. Though in the creative writing category, no formal schooling is required, the writers are expected to possess exceptional skill and exquisite style in their writing.
Popular writers or novelists who excel in their writing and who have made writing as their full time career, have a strong grounding in developing their skills in writing. R.K.Narayan, a fine Indian English novelist who had written a number of best selling novels like ‘the Guide’, used to be a voracious reader of English classics before he embarked upon into the writing career. Thanks to his mentor Graham Greene who introduced Narayan to his publisher.
Aravind Adhika, who won the Booker Prize for men in 2008 for his ‘White Tiger’ had been a column writer in a number of magazines including the Time magazine.
Therefore, if you wish to become a writer exclusively in the fiction category using your creative talent, you need not have to go to school or college to acquire a formal degree and become qualified. However, you must have flair and extraordinary skills in the language in which you wish to write. In the non-fiction category, if you wish to become a freelance writer especially in completing academic or technical projects; or if you wish to pursue a career in journalism as a column writer or a journalist or an editor in a journal or a newspaper, you must necessarily go to school or college to acquire a requisite degree. In other words, it can also be said that the degree or a diploma obtained from a school or college serves as a passport to be a writer in the non-fiction category, especially in pursuing a career in journalism.
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Tags: creative writing, Graham Greene
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October 18th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
I don’t feel it’s necessary. I feel college is a rip off in general.
October 19th, 2010 at 2:12 am
Even with creative writing there is still a need to know grammar, sentence construction etc. A very interesting debate.
Christine
October 19th, 2010 at 5:27 am
Knowledge is the backbone.. and can come from school or outside, it doesn’t matter
October 19th, 2010 at 9:39 am
Nice Post
October 19th, 2010 at 9:49 am
Nice Share.
October 19th, 2010 at 10:21 am
True. Learning to do the right way is the best.
October 19th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
Great discussion here. Education is still needed, but if you’re really that knowledgeable when it comes to writing, it depends – in my opinion.
November 11th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Very true to say that if you want to become a salaried employee in publishing or journalism then a qualification will probably be required, But not so necessary as a writer, most of whom are freelance. There are still plenty of areas of non-fiction where experience of what you are writing about counts for more than a qualification. If one wanted to write about, say, touring by bicycle, then what’s important is that
a. you can write good English
b. you can write engagingly
c. you have experience of touring by bicycle
Qualifications don’t matter in that example. Only in the more technical fields do they become important, when a publisher won’t trust your expertise in the subject without qualifications, as well as wanting some qualifications to put in the blurb so the reader will trust you too and buy the book.