Pursuing a career in creative writing requires passion and determination. But having a creative writing degree can give you the boost you need to make a successful writing career a reality.
Here are 5 things you can do with a creative writing degree:
1. Journalist
A career as a newspaper or magazine journalist could see you writing compelling stories for publication in local, national, or international media.
Depending on your interests, you could be writing stories across a range of areas including:
- News and politics
- Sports
- Arts and culture
- Nature and the environment
- Entertainment
- Finance and business
- Human interest
As many newspapers and magazines around the world have moved into the online space, working as a journalist could see your stories published in both print and online format – opening up your work to a far wider audience.
Having strong creative writing skills, an understanding of the specific writing style best-suited for writing for the Web, and knowledge of search engine optimisation (SEO) will prove to be very valuable in your career as a journalist.
2. Digital copywriter
As a digital copywriter (often also referred to as a digital content writer), your primary goal is to gain a thorough understanding of your audience and drive them into action through engaging, persuasive writing.
In this role, you’ll produce written content for webpages, either working in an employed capacity for a specific organisation or for multiple clients as a freelancer.
Through your writing, your job will essentially be to engage and motivate your audience to take action – whether that be to buy a product or service, or support a particular cause.
You might also write copy designed to convey to your audience important information about a brand, industry or issue.
3. Creative director
As a creative director, you’ll be the creative lead behind innovative advertising and promotional campaigns.
You’ll either work as creative director within an advertising agency for a range of clients, or in-house for the marketing department of a specific company. Either way, you’ll work with your creative team to effectively develop, plan and execute a strategic vision for your clients.
In this highly-varied and dynamic role, you'll get to supervise the entire creative process and guide and mentor your creative team. Your creative team would typically include art directors, copywriters and designers.
This is a senior role for creative thinkers and strong leaders, with a typically high salary to match. It offers fast-track promotion and global career opportunities.
4. Public relations officer
If you’re a creative communicator that can work to deadlines and thrives on challenges, a career as a public relations officer could be an excellent choice.
Public relations (PR) is all about managing your clients’ reputation. That means you’ll need to gain an in-depth understanding of your clients and what they’re trying to convey, and use that understanding to influence the opinions and behaviours of your audiences through your words.
As a PR officer, you'll utilise a range of media channels – both online and offline – to effectively build, maintain and manage your clients’ reputation. Your clients may include government agencies, private businesses and not-for-profit organisations.
You’ll also monitor your clients’ publicity and conduct research to find out the concerns and expectations of your clients’ stakeholders. You'll then report these findings to your clients and work with them to ensure a good relationship between them and their target audience is maintained.
5. Writer
While many graduates with a creative writing degree tend to write for organisations and businesses, some also go on to pursue their personal ambition of writing a best-selling novel or screenplay.
As a freelance writer, you could produce works of fiction and/or non-fiction, including:
- Short stories
- Novels
- Magazine and newspaper articles
- Biographies and autobiographies
- Poetry
- Scripts
- Blogs
You could also be writing across a range of mediums, including:
- Print – books, magazines, newspapers, etc.
- TV
- Film
- Theatre
- Radio
- Digital – blogs, apps, games, etc.
Since freelance writers are self-employed, income can be unpredictable at times. This is why most supplement their income with other related writing jobs (such as those outlined above) while pursuing their personal writing projects.
If you’re interested in pursuing a career in writing, University of Hull Online offers a flexible online MA in Creative Writing that you can study alongside your work and other commitments.