Writer

A writer is someone who writes, but writing is not as easy as it seems. One has to know the language well enough to not make grammar mistakes and one has to know how to organize the ideas in order to build a logical text that its target audience will easily understand.

There are different types of writers. The most noticeable are the authors, those who write books that are published. If the books are not published, they are not authors. However, sometimes “writer” and “author” are used interchangeably. Authors are seen as creators, even when it’s non-fiction, and the term can be applied to other artists. In literature, they can be called novelists, poets, short story writers/authors, playwrights, non-fiction writers/authors. There are also writers who are not recognized as authors, but are published. These are the ghost-writers. Song writers can be considered poets, like Bob Dylan who was awarded the Nobel Prize of Literature in 2016.

Speaking of the Nobel Prize in Literature, there are lots of prestigious (and not so prestigious) literature prizes in the world. There are also national and local prizes, European prizes, bookshop prizes, prizes sponsored by brands that have nothing to do with books. From all of these, the top of the tops, the one every author wants to win, is the Nobel Prize. Then, there are others which are reputation builders: the Pulitzer Prize and the Booker Prize. If you want to keep up with the best in literature, but don’t have much time to check all the prizes, focus on these three.

Actually, the Pulitzer Prize started as a prize to award outstanding journalists; it was later extended to include fictional and non-fictional authors. Journalists, especially newspaper journalists, are another type of writers. Often newspaper journalists become book authors for both fictional and non-fiction books. One of the most well-known is Ernest Hemingway, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.

Academics can become authors as well, as an extension of their research. Academic research implies a lot of writing. Like journalists, academics aim to investigate a theme and make their discoveries available to the public. The style is different, though. While journalists can write in a more creative and attractive way and they base their writings on sources, academics have to be very rigorous and base their writings on vast bibliography and scientific studies.

Then, there are the bloggers and the content writers, whose mission is to “feed” the internet. Technical writers are responsible for manuals, help guides, instructions, specifications, plans, and similar documents. There are those who write reports and white papers. Copywriters focus on marketing and advertising and screenwriters are those who give the lines to the characters in films and TV series.

A final note for editors and translators: the former use their writing skills to correct and improve the texts others have written and the latter make texts available to speakers of other languages.