How many people want to be writers?

[TheBryceKrispy]

How many people want to be writers? How common is wanting to be a writer? Is it common?

[mrtoontastic]

Sometimes it depends on how crafty and creative you can be story-telling wise. Some people want to be writers and write for episodes of TV shows and movies. Some want to be writers for comic books both mainstream, obscure, or indie.

And others want to create!

To me, I've often wanted to be a cartoonist. Take all my works that I've created, and get them to be fully realized into the cartoons I've dreamed of, and taken inspiration from for at least two decades of my life now. As for writer, I'd still like to write novel whether they're based on my existing works or just fully original. If I was working on my own cartoon, I'd instantly jump into writing my own episodes for at least the first two seasons, then let a protege take the reigns until I come up with new episodes to write, especially based on the canon we've crafted so far.

I've yet to publish my own books yet. But there's some good opportunities that's been open that I may take a crack at, or even try out and research for a little while.

[unknown_user]

Of course, I would like if people would pay me for writing down my own plots and ideas by my own rules. But it doesn't work this way. This is not enough for being popular, successful professional writer. To be like that, you should pleasure readers at the first place, not yourself. But unfortunately, things, which are interesting to most of other people in books, in the most cases are not interesting to me and vice versa. At least, I can conclude this from surveying examples of the most popular nowadays books.
So, to take money from writing, I suppose that I should learn for awhile and put a lot of effort just in writing things... which I don't like and which annoy me. But what for? I already can write annoying programms and get decent amount of money for it. Moreover, these programms annoy me less, that most of popular books, anyway.

[Wumbl]

It's not common, in my experience.

Most people do not have a creative streak, or an interest in creating. A lot of it is based on the environment, and how it nurtures an existing creative elbow - sometimes creative people don't find their medium for ages, like my co-writer who only became a writer upon meeting me.

Basically you need to have the necessary interest, and encouragement. Most people don't have that because most people just aren't creative. I think it's a good thing, though. If everyone was a writer, then nobody would be.

[Klaustasya]

I love to create new stories!
Though since i'm not good with writing in general i go for comics so that i can more easily express the image i have of my story in a more visual and comunicative way (but that's me).
I used to write fanfictions in the past and to me it's very relaxing but i also want to "see" my story when i create it.
I would love to write more, for now i'm satisfied with simple script for my scenes, but i enjoy more the plot-writing than the drawing itself, most of the times.

[JBrentonParker]

Haha, I actually disagree with @wumblebumarts (in the nicest possible way, of course :P)!
I feel like you could walk up to almost any stranger in the world and ask them, "So, what's your idea for that book (or movie or comic or TV show) you've always wanted to write/create?" And they'd jump right in to explaining the plot and the characters and everything.

I think the amount of people who actually sit down and do any writing is much, much smaller, though. Looking at sites like Tapas, Wattpad, Mibba, Fanfiction.net, and more show that there are millions and millions of people who love writing, but in a world of 7 billion people, even millions and millions of writers isn't a majority. I think most people like the idea of being a writer, but don't feel confident enough in their own skills (like my mom), or don't really enjoy the writing process itself and so never make a serious attempt to put their ideas down on paper.

To answer your question for me personally, I want to be a writer SO BADLY. Like, so so so badly. It's my dream career.
I'm trying to take steps towards achieving it. Working on getting short stories published (just one so far, I've gotten close with a handful more but I'm not quite there yet); revising and re-revising and re-re-revising the main novel I'm shopping around; and I'm going to try to write a cozy murder mystery, which is a bit of a break away from the fantasy I usually write, because they are short in length, and commercially popular enough that once you get your foot in the door, you can actually make pretty decent money off them. Same for romance, but I'm just not a romance writer in my heart, haha. Murder with a side of romance, however, is just my cup of tea! I love writing so much that even though I prefer writing fantasy, I'd still be so happy writing mediocre murder mysteries for the rest of my life. Just to be able to write and to have that be my full time job (which is such a difficult thing to achieve), I'd love that!

[TheBryceKrispy]

my co-writer who only became a writer upon meeting me

I'm curious, how does that work?

[Darkstrong]

Actually, a writer is the first profession I wanted to become. It took more than 20 years for me to come back to it. I still do my regular job, so I don't think I can call myself a writer in full right yet. I am trying though

[ISNEKO]

If being a writer means shilling out to popular trends instead of actually creating what I find interesting, then nah. I'll keep my day job.

And I'd guess the idea is pretty uncommon, as when I mention writing books I get looks like they didn't know written language existed.

[Sibernethy]

I am a writer. I'm a fiction writer in particular. There are a lot of things I'm either hobbying or decently skilled; writing is the one that comes first and I've written stories since I was a child. It is the one thing I can do without any assistance or having to pay out money for any kind of services. In my opinion, you're closer to being a true writer when a style begins to emerge.

I asked my readers what made my style so special and enjoyable to them and here is a reply I got:

"methodical descriptions of content, descriptions themselves, and some of the dialogue is unique and different."

[Penni]

I really don't have a solid answer for this, but according to this website it's not a whole lot (but that is only employed authors and writers)

I personally don't know of any writers near me so I can't speak to much on that front. I think there are a lot of people who might enjoy writing as a hobby, but may not want to take it much further than that or they don't want to show their work to anyone at all. In the grand scheme of things I don't think it's as popular as other hobbies or potential creative careers BUT if it's what you love then that's really what matters.

[QueenofBabyLoon]

Isn't any person who writes a writer?
We are all, at some point in life, writers. When we are coerced into writing a very, very short story on a subject that does not inspire us whatsoever in elementary and high school, we are writers.
When we write that letter to our best friend who is doing his army service, we are writers.
When we write short notes to be found around he house by the ones we love, we are writers.

People write about pleasure. Pleasuring oneself, pleasuring the audience.

However, we don't realize how writing is a intrinsic part of us. Not realizing it might be what limits our creativity. By not knowing that we are in a creative process, we might not invest ourselves as much. And of course, if we have little interest in the literary process itself, the desire for commitment is not very high. However, either way, when we write, in 95% of cases, we don't even realize we are creating.

I guess writing was the only thing remotely accessible to someone like myself. No talent whatsoever in anything. But writing is something that with true, hard work (and a lot of reading, a lot of reading things that at first don't appeal to you especially) anyone can become good at. It had a soothing effect on me.

So, I don't want to be a writer. I am a writer. A mediocre one, yes. An unoriginal one who will (hopefully) never have to rely on writing to survive, absolutely. But if nothing else, a sincere one who truly loves the act of writing and its product, literature.

[lil-sea-salt]

I feel like a lot of people say they want to be a writer because they want to be a misunderstood artist as it sounds more interesting than normal. I wouldn't say it's common.

I would say out of those people, probably 30 percent try. Then 10% actually finish something and do it professionally or semi professionally on a regular basis. I think I was writing for a long time before I became a writer. But it also not everyone writes fiction.

[Wumbl]

As in, he had never even considered writing anything or even creating anything. He'd literally never written his own story outside of primary school assignments.
After meeting me when I was in college and finding out I was a writing student, and seeing the stuff I created, he became interested in both writing and drawing. He was a year younger than me and literally took creative writing because he met me.

Some people just never consider the possibilities of being a creator. It takes a certain spark to actually get someone into writing.

[Westshore]

I think that depends on what kind of writers you are referring to. If you are talking about writing for fun and pleasure, I think there's a good amount. I think that for a lot of people, at some point in their lives they enjoyed writing, maybe it was a story for class or something else. If you are talking about professional writers, then I think it's a different ballgame.

I can tell from my personal experience after attending a good amount of writing classes that people who want to become writers are really passionate, then they either keep persisting in their writing or they fizz out. If they fizz out, it's most likely because they don't have thick enough skin to handle the criticisms and feedback.

In one of the sci-fi/fantasy workshops when we were doing critiquing, people were asking if the rest of the class would buy their stories if they were published. There's a bunch of people like that. Some stopped coming to class when it was their 2nd time to be critiqued, and some continued coming.

In another fiction writing workshop, one of the students took their critiques too personally. She verbally attacked the person who gave an honest feedback. She thought her work was perfect or not as flawed as the feedbacker said. This all happened behind the scenes, and I only knew about it because the feedbacker told me. Just a bit of context, the feedbacker has a degree in writing, and he gives really good critiques.

[HGohwell]

In my experience, lots of people want to write. I mean you go to creative writing classes and stuff and there's loads of people. It's incredibly common for people to say "I've always wanted to write a novel" or "I'd love to write a novel one day" but 99% of those never will. Mostly because if you're not already writing your novel, you probably never will. The problem is lots of people don't consider writing a serious investment of time or a proper job unless you're someone like JK Rowling. Most people seem to think you just churn out a novel without any planning of editing and that's that. That's what they want. 99% of people who say they want to write one day don't want to treat it like a career or a serious hobby and actually just want to copy whatever book is currently on trend and become rich and famous. And that a large percent of the people who do actually write something, aren't interest in critique or improving, and the second you even point out a spelling mistake you just don't get the story they're trying to tell and are jealous ect.

[Pan]

I think quite a few people want to write professionally!

Who wouldn't love a job where your imagination guides your work every day?

I also believe that a lot of people think it's as simple as writing a book, but it's so much more than that. Writing is really damn hard, and while everyone can write, not everyone can write well. It's something that can be learned through constant practice and hard work, endless editing and brainstorming, pitching, finding agents, entering contests, public relations, keeping a dialogue with your readers, self-advertising, etc.

It's a dream for a lot of people that becomes a reality for very few.

I myself have always wanted to be an author for as long as I can remember. I thought my natural talent would be enough to get me there LMAO BOY WAS I WRONG HA HA HA AHA AHA HA HA

When I finally got my head out of my ass and actively worked to improve my writing I finally started getting places. If you're dedicated and you have the dream, never stop chasing it! Your success is limited only to how hard you're willing to work! Keep it up, fellow dreamers!

[OrangeHanada]

It would depend on what kind of circles you run in. For me, I'm both in a writing group and teach an intro course on drawing comics, so I've encountered plenty of folks who want to be writers. I doubt that it's a massive slice of the population, but I'm sure it's a sizable number!