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I want to be a fiction writer. What A levels would be useful for a CW degree?

I want to be a writer...

As far as I know, there aren't any specified A-Levels you'd have to have to do CW at uni, but I'd advise English (whether that's Lit, Lang, both or a combined course). I think they like to look at a portfolio of what you've wrote already, so perhaps you could start on doing that? Otherwise, most decent A-Levels should be OK. If not, no need to do A-Levels! Many fiction writers didn't do them, and it certainly didn't stop them.

Reply 2

GOKU27

Does doing a degree increase your chances of being a writer? Sorry if thats off topic

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Reply 3

LostInPanda

I'm looking into the same thing. The course I'm applying for is English Lit with CW, so I need a B in Eng Lit. The rest don't matter... I'm doing Sociology because of the essay writing, extended project because I can do it on English, and Music because I need something that isn't essays. Anything creative would be good, I guess, to get the creative juice flowing :smile:

Reply 4

The Empire Odyssey

Your degree does not have any advantages on whether you become a writer or not. Initially, you would need a lot of finance to be able to hire an agent to try and sell your books/pitches to book companies if you ever want your books to be published.

Creative Writing will just help you in terms of creativity. A lot of amazing authors came from medical, historic, philosophical backgrounds before writing anyway. You can be taught on what you should write, but you can't be taught how to write.