A career in writing does not guarantee a life of creative scripting. While most jobs in the writing world do consist of creative work, there are also many that leave no room for creative flow. Translators, resume writers, and note takers all work as writers without having careers involving creativity.

A translator is one such job. A person with the job of translating works such as philosophical texts and published literature copies the work – word for word – into a different language for people of other languages to read. The creative aspect of the work has already taken place, so the translator does not have creative freedom while he or she works.

Resumes have a very strict outline and consist of specific things. Because of this, not much creativity is involved during their creation. Someone with the occupation of resume writer would not be able to express their creativity very much in this field. Most of what appears on the resume is what the client wishes to say, further preventing the writer from adding their own creative emphasis to the resume.

A note taker’s creative expression is even more suppressed than the resume writer’s. A note taker will copy things that stand out as necessary to know, such as exact quotes and important facts. They commonly work in classrooms, meetings, and courtrooms. They are instructed to copy down only what is said and done, generally in point form, and not creatively.

It can be difficult to tell whether a writing career involves being creative or not. A person that writes advertisements (a public relations writer is an example of this) is writing based on facts, but they are still creative while they do so. Journalists, even when not writing opinion pieces, use their creative skills to make their articles interesting. Creative writing is found almost everywhere, so it is unsurprising that very few jobs as a writer are strictly uncreative. 

For a list of careers in the writing world, please visit http://poewar.com/glossary-of-writing-careers/.