Do you still have hope of becoming a professional writer without a degree backing you up?

[Alfir]

Do you still have hope of becoming a professional writer without a collegiate degree backing you up?

 

[MyukiMruieast]

No.

 

[Alfir]

No.

Yeah, I know that it's kind of a stupid question, but still asked cuz why not?
Anyways, I guess this is also why web fiction proliferated

 

[MyukiMruieast]

Yeah, I know that it's kind of a stupid question, but still asked cuz why not?
Anyways, I guess this is also why web fiction proliferated

I'm 14, and I dream of being a professional artist rather than being a writer.

 

[KiraMinoru]

Who even wants to be a professional? Being a professional is overrated. Being an amateur means nobody has any expectations of you and it's way less pressure. Professional means you've got deadlines to meet and standards to uphold. You can't go around experimenting. As soon as you become a professional, the fun just disappears and everything comes down to whether something is profitable or not.

 

[IDKWtWrite-San]

I want to be a pro gamer instead or streamer if i get into it. First prio is engi

 

[longer]

My degree probably hurts my writing more than it helps.

 

[Gryphon]

I plan on becoming an author and I don't ever plan on going to college. Lets get this straight here, you don't need to go to college to be a successful author. Everything that colleges teach you about writing can be found elsewhere on the internet and for free. People actually upload college courses that they film and post them on the internet. I don't know how legal that is, but the stuff is out there. Everything that I learned was by talking and watching other authors and see what they did to succeed. More than half the time, all it comes down to is marketing, which is not a writer specific trait.

 

[CarburetorThompson]

Yes, but you have to be creative about it. You probably won't be able to get away with writing fiction, but you can do it. My father had a friend from college who in high school and college collected data from old papers stored in library archives and used them to write stock reports. Which he sold to stock traders. (You can't do this now internet made the job obsolete)

I know a man who made a living writing instruction manuals for computers, and while he has a degree it has nothing to do with writing or computers.

There are plenty of jobs related to writing, they just aren't all that fun.

 

[MissPaige36]

Do you still have hope of becoming a professional writer without a collegiate degree backing you up?

Maybe not professional but I would like to advance it to a little more than a hobby? Not become professional but have cute little readers that leave “please don’t drop this” or “this made my day”. Highlight of my day honestly. That‘s what motivates me to improve

 

[JohnDoe9838]

I really doubt I could make a living from writing fiction in my country. It is just a hobby that I enjoy. The most realistic I can get in that respect is maybe to write non-fiction about teaching work or about physics, but I would prefer to dedicate myself exclusively to teaching, which is what I am studying for.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

Do you still have hope of becoming a professional writer without a collegiate degree backing you up?

if we can have politicians without degrees running the country, i don't need one to write.

I'm better than all you hacks anyway.

hmph!

 

[CarburetorThompson]

I really doubt I could make a living from writing fiction in my country. It is just a hobby that I enjoy. The most realistic I can get in that respect is maybe to write non-fiction about teaching work or about physics, but I would prefer to dedicate myself exclusively to teaching, which is what I am studying for.

Maybe not a living but if you can type in English you can definitely work with an American print on demand company. Have them list your books on Amazon and after you pay a one time fee it is a small but passive income source. I knew a kid in highschool who wrote a bunch of self published books and sold them this way, would make a couple hundred dollars a year since he had a lot of them. Started when he was in middle school.

 

[K5Rakitan]

Yes. If you have the motivation for it, you can learn the skills yourself.

 

[LostLibrarian]

No degree is needed to become a professional writer. It can help, but it isn't needed.
There are a ton of writers and bestsellers who never studied writing. Instead, life experience and repetition are often more important. Hence, you see a lot of journalists, marketing writers, etc break into writing when they are older.

Everything you learn during a degree is stuff you can also learn on your own. Through hard work. Story structure, scene structure, dialogue, flow, etc. There are a million ways to learn the rules behind the words.

There are more or less two things that a lot of people struggle with when they don't have a degree:
(1) You don't have connections. A lot of good writing courses also give you the chance to have connections with editors, authors, or other industry insiders. Those can help you a lot when you start. So if you want to become a professional writer, it's time to get your name out there: short story writing contests are a good way to get your name out there. Stuff like writers of the future is great to get eyes on you.

(2) Rules are important. Especially if you work with a publisher. In that case, rules will triumph over creativity. If you write genre fiction, you'll have to write toward a target audience and follow the rules of that genre. If you write for a certain age demographic, you'll have to change your story until it fits. A lot of hobby writer struggle to cut stuff from their story due to those rules. It often falls under "the editor only cuts that stuff because he wanted to change anything so he gets his money".


The biggest struggle is to change your mindset and work ethic from "hobby" to "professional"...

 

[Deeprotsorcerer]

Trust a "professional". Writing is about work, whether you buy into crippling debt to learn the craft or if you learn yourself, it is, and always will be about work. You can do it without a degree. Hell, it might be easier without a degree if you're not trying to go into technical writing/public journalism (the pretentious !$#%s).

It won't be pretty unless you strike gold somewhere, but mining iron is profitable. I took the freelance route, burning through SEO articles, obscure cringeworthy fetish stuff, fanfic, and so much more. I don't get the opportunity to write what I want very often, but that's okay.


If you want to pay a bill with the power of your quill, some confidence, faith, and tenacity within yourself you'll have to instill.
But you can do it, if you've the will, and you will do it, if you try and try harder still (if someone as awful as myself can do it, you can, too).

It's just gonna be a lot of work.

 

[StefanLear]

Do you still have hope of becoming a professional writer without a collegiate degree backing you up?

Hell yes! I've already ranked on the USA Today bestseller charts. That took a year of advertising and networking and a shot-gun approach to writing a story. My next big aim is going to be New York Times bestseller.
I did attend some college, but law school isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Right now I'm writing stories and looking for an agent. My story on this site its a continuation of the story that got me those USAT letters.

 

[PrincessFelicie]

Depending on where in the world you live, odds are there's literally no such thing as a degree in 'Writing'. There's no formal uni classes for that stuff in France, for example. And I checked. ...While I was already in uni. Not my smartest move.

 

[Deleted member 57675]

Do you still have hope of becoming a professional writer without a collegiate degree backing you up?

You don't need a degree to become a professional writer.
However, you likely need a backup plan because unless you become a very, very famous writer, there's a high chance its not gonna help pay bills.

 

[Omnifarious]

Do you still have hope of becoming a professional writer without a collegiate degree backing you up?

List of Famous Authors Who Didn’t Have Degree in Literature or Didn’t Major In Writing:

• Charles Dickens
• John Grisham
• Maya Angelou
• Harper Lee
• JK Rowling
• Danielle Steele
• Arthur Conan Doyle
• George Bernard Shaw