LO
Writer and author — skills, knowledge and links
Where this job sits in the official classifications, what those classifications say it demands, and what it connects to. Every block names its source: our own judgements, the U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET, or the U.S. Department of Education.
How it connects#
O*NET also lists (no page here yet): Poets, Lyricists and Creative Writers · Public Relations Specialists · Advertising Sales Agents · Search Marketing Strategists · Advertising and Promotions Managers · Art Directors · Producers and Directors
In the official classification#
Writers and Authors
Fit with this page: broader than this page
Job Zone 4: considerable preparation
See it on O*NET OnLine ↗In Europe, internationally and in Singapore
Authors and related writers
Fit with this page: broader than this page
Author
Fit with this page: covers part of this page
Script writer/editor
Fit with this page: covers part of this page
What O*NET rates highest#
From O*NET 27-3043.00 (Writers and Authors). Ordered by O*NET's importance rating; the words are O*NET's own scale anchors.
Transferable skills
- Time ManagementVery important
- Complex Problem SolvingImportant
- Judgment and Decision MakingImportant
- Social PerceptivenessImportant
- PersuasionImportant
- CoordinationImportant
- NegotiationImportant
- Service OrientationImportant
Knowledge
- English LanguageExtremely important
- Communications and MediaVery important
- AdministrativeImportant
- Sales and MarketingImportant
- Computers and ElectronicsImportant
- Customer and Personal ServiceImportant
Work activities
- Getting InformationExtremely important
- Thinking CreativelyExtremely important
- Working with ComputersVery important
- Organizing, Planning, and Prioritizing WorkVery important
- Interpreting the Meaning of Information for OthersVery important
- Updating and Using Relevant KnowledgeVery important
Abilities
- Written ExpressionExtremely important
- Written ComprehensionVery important
- Oral ComprehensionVery important
- Oral ExpressionVery important
- Fluency of IdeasVery important
- OriginalityVery important
Essential skills
- WritingExtremely important
- Reading ComprehensionVery important
- Active ListeningVery important
- SpeakingVery important
- Critical ThinkingVery important
Each task in O*NET's terms#
O*NET describes work as detailed activities. Each of this page's 4 tasks is matched only against the activities O*NET lists for this occupation, with a stated fit; 4 match at least one. The alignment and its fit are this site's judgement, made task by task by its AI agent (Claude) on 2026-09-26; O*NET does not align tasks like ours. The activity names are O*NET's, the translations ours.
- Writing fiction and booksWrite material for artistic or entertainment purposes.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Documenting/Recording Information · O*NET 31.0The same activity in: Content creator
- Screenwriting and rewritesWrite material for artistic or entertainment purposes.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Documenting/Recording Information · O*NET 31.0The same activity in: Content creatorDiscuss production content and progress with others.covers part of this task · Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or Subordinates · O*NET 31.0The same activity in: Editor and proofreader
- Short fiction and open submission marketsWrite material for artistic or entertainment purposes.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Documenting/Recording Information · O*NET 31.0The same activity in: Content creator
- Rights and licensingObtain copyrights or other legal permissions.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Getting Information · O*NET 31.0The same activity in: Content creator · Photographer
Rules that bind this work#
Laws, regulations, court rules, regulators' guidance and collective agreements that this page's verified records read — each with the verb that matters and whom it binds. Read from each record by this site's AI agent (Claude) on 2026-09-26. Official names stay in their own language.
2023 WGA Theatrical and Television Basic Agreement
Article 72: neither traditional AI nor generative AI is a writer; a company may not require a writer to use generative AI to write literary material · must not · binds an organisation (employer, deployer, operator) · requires a person to do, decide or answer for it → Screenwriting and rewrites
2023-09-25 · the record →Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2: Copyrightability
conclusion on prompts and on purely AI-generated material · defines · binds a person (licensed or not) · requires a person to do, decide or answer for it → Rights and licensing
2025-01-01 · the record →2026 WGA Theatrical and Television Basic Agreement
Article 72.G.2: written notice to the Guild when literary material is licensed to train a commercial generative AI system · must · binds an organisation (employer, deployer, operator) → Rights and licensing · Screenwriting and rewrites
2026-04-04 · the record →Our task judgements#
O*NET says what this job demands. It does not say what automation is doing to it — that is what this site's 4 task judgements are for: 3 backed by a verified event, 1 platform inference. VOLO judgement
Sources and rules#
- Each block says where it comes from: this site's own judgements, O*NET, the U.S. Department of Education's CIP–SOC crosswalk, the European ESCO classification and its official crosswalk to O*NET, the ILO's ISCO-08, Singapore's SSOC 2024, or something computed mechanically from those. Nothing on this page is a rating we made up.
- O*NET's importance ratings are used only to order and shorten the lists. They are never combined with this site's impact index or evidence counts.
- The fit between our page and an O*NET occupation is our judgement and is stated per code: same job, broader, part of it, or only the closest there is.
- The ESCO and ISCO-08 fits are derived mechanically from the official ESCO–O*NET crosswalk; where we override it, we say why in our data (for example, the crosswalk pairs radiologists with radiographers, which is a different job). The SSOC 2024 fit is our reading of the Singapore Department of Statistics' own titles and definitions. Official names are shown as their publishers write them; we do not translate them.
- Each task is matched only against the detailed work activities O*NET lists for the codes this page maps to. Where nothing fits, the page says why instead of forcing a match: work O*NET does not describe yet (used only for tasks we judge to be emerging), or nothing in O*NET's list for this occupation. An alignment never changes a task's direction, its basis or the impact index.
- Rules are read only from this site's verified records. A rule's official name must appear word for word in a record that reads it, so no name is made up; a policy mandate is read only as 'must', 'must not' or 'funds', because 'should' and 'in principle' are not a mandate. Reading a rule never changes a task's direction, its basis or the impact index.
- How these pieces fit together — objects, links and the actions that change them — is drawn as one diagram: The VOLO ontology
- ESCO (European Commission), occupation records from the ESCO API; CC BY 4.0. ESCO–O*NET crosswalk, ESCO Secretariat with the U.S. Department of Labor/ETA, version 1 (Sep 2022), O*NET-SOC 2019 ↔ ESCO v1.1.0; CC BY 4.0. Singapore Department of Statistics, Singapore Standard Occupational Classification 2024 and its correspondence with ISCO-08.
- O*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026 release, U.S. Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration, CC BY 4.0. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. The translations of O*NET descriptors on this page are ours, not O*NET's.