Jobs before the writing career that can help in various ways?

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Before the career as an author takes off, writers have jobs before getting to the point of being a paid full-time author.

Some jobs depending on the genre that the future author wants to go with, makes sense in a way. I shall explain. Say you are a nurse or a doctor of a small local clinic, you enjoy writing mystery thrillers where the MC is in the medical field or something romantic that involves a doctor and a nurse working in a hospital trying to balance their work life and romantic life properly.

Or if someone works at a cafe or an office, they can do a corporate romance or slice-of-life dealing with a cafe.

What I am getting at is, certain jobs and skills that authors had in their previous jobs can help with their writing career in SO MANY ways.

But what do you think about it?

Thoughts and feelings?

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What are your thoughts on it and what you have seen?

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Oh, definitely. John Grisham and Julie James were both lawyers before they became writers, and incorporate legal stuff into their books.

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Yeah, that makes total sense and believe I heard of that somewhere.

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Some of my favourite authors write about their past professions.

Chris Ryan and Andy McNab are former British SAS. John le CarrƩ worked with British Intelligence.

Oh, and the director of the first Mad Max film (1979) worked as a paramedic / surgeon who specialised in car accident injuries.

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Thatā€™s great!

Do you have any others like that?

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Here me out, is Tom Clancy legit? Do you know of him?

Update: Never mind. :sweat_smile:

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I think the Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister series were scripted by some British civil servants.

The Rumpole series was written by a former barrister.

The SEAL characters / actors in the film Act of Valor are serving Navy SEALs.

There are rumours some of the Rangers in Blackhawk Down were real Rangers.

And something a tad different. The weapons handling in the film Heat was so precise and authentic, the gun battles are used as training guides for the US Marines.* I once read the filmā€™s technical / weapons advisor was Andy McNab.

*If you canā€™t reload a carbine as fast as Val Kilmer, you donā€™t belong here ~ Marines drill instructor (apparently).

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I mean, it can help but getting a job is a lot harder than it sounds and often what you write about wonā€™t be what you enjoy doing yourself irl

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I suppose but that is the beauty of fictionā€¦I guess.

:sweat_smile:

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A lot of writers have backgrounds in the fields that they write about but a lot also donā€™t have them

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I am aware. Yet it is a matter of depending on the person or rather experience vs research or something along those lines.

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I would rather eat rocks with spikes on them that write that but I understand your point :smiley:

I have a book written by a lawyer about a fictional legal trial that takes place. Knowing the law obviously helped him write that. I still need to finish reading it lol.

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LOL! :sweat_smile:

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Oooh, I just remembered Ian Fleming really was a spy in real life. Iā€™ll probably remember others like in the middle of the night when this convo is long passed. (>ā€æā— ):v:

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Why does this name sound familiar to me? :thinking:

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He wrote all the James Bond novels. Ł©(Ė˜ā—”Ė˜)Ū¶

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Oh, I see.

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I donā€™t really look into what authors did before becoming authors tbh. If youā€™re looking for a job that can help you, thereā€™s careers in marketing, design, research, advertising etc that can all be beneficial in self-publishing. In trad, I suppose research and marketing can help you to A) write better and B) know how to navigate trends :smiley:

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So true! And I suppose thatā€™s part of why they say ā€œwrite what you know.ā€ When you have special knowledge about a particular occupation, setting, time period, etc. it makes the book so much better when you can use those details to augment the story. (*ļ¼¾-ā€˜) 乃

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