5 Reasons Characters' Careers Matter

Raymond Obstfeld and Franz Neumann, authors of Careers for Your Characters: A Writer's Guide to 101 Professions from Architect to Zookeeper, list five reasons the professions of your characters matter.

1) Establishing credibility. A professional who's believable (i.e. a well-written cop) will allow the reader to "check their skepticism at the door."

2) Character. The profession implies a lot about the character and spares the reader pages of pace-hindering narrative. Readers can instantly apply their pre-conceived ideas about occupations, even if those notions are later turned on their side—as the convict with a heart of gold.

3) Setting. The setting of a character's profession (a law firm, a forensic office, a cattle ranch) adds rich details.

4) Plot. A character’s profession may be the main catalyst for the story’s plot. If she's a detective or a lawyer, then there will usually be a crime. If he’s a teacher, there will usually be a conflict with a student.

As the old adage says, “If a gun is hanging on the wall in act one, then somebody better fire it by act three.” If your character is a fireman, then a fire must be pivotal to the plot. There must be a reason for your character to have that particular profession.

5) Theme. A story’s theme is often directly related to the protagonist’s profession. Obstfeld and Neumann give this example: a lawyer may seek order in life because she fears the chaos that human emotions sometimes produce. As a result, she may repress her own emotions and therefore be closed off emotionally, unable to form relationships.

People read novels for many reasons. One of them is to learn about unique jobs. Give your characters unusual careers and allow your readers to experience professions they’d otherwise never know about.

~Roxanne Sherwood

What do I want (my character) to be?

What did you want to be when you grew up?

As a preschooler, I wanted to be a singer. I stood on the family toy box, hairbrush in hand, imagining myself wearing a formal gown and standing in the spotlight on a huge stage. I’d march along to the music in my mind and belt out, “I’m the Girl Scout of the Americas . . .” I'm not sure why I combined the Miss America Beauty Pageant with the Girl Scouts in my young mind. Hey, I was a preschooler, so please cut me a little slack.

Since I can’t carry a tune even if my life depended on it, I changed my career goal in elementary school to acting. I practiced dying. A lot. Ever seen The Princess Bride? “Only mostly dead” had nothing on me. Alas, my father encouraged me to take up typing . . . just in case.

I’ve always loved books, and by high school, I wanted to be an editor because I needed to earn a living and didn’t believe I could be an author. But my friends’ jeers, “Why on earth would you want to read all day?” and adults’ advice, “You’re good at math and science. You should go into computers; it’s the future,” made me doubt myself. In college, I majored in computer science, followed by speech therapy, and then education. Next, I chose majors in the college of journalism: advertising, magazine journalism, and public relations. After three universities and half-dozen majors, I no longer cared. I just wanted to graduate.

A fun perk about fiction writing is that you can explore many different careers. If you’re interested in learning about something new, or if you think your readers would like to delve into an unusual career, you’ve got the perfect opportunity to “grow up” and become someone else, at least for a little while.

Though David Morrell grew up to become a professor and the author of First Blood, which introduced the world to Rambo, it's possible Morrell writes fiction so that he can try-out the careers he once dreamed of. Morrell is noted for thorough research. His website says he’s “been trained in firearms, hostage negotiation, assuming identities, executive protection, and anti-terrorist driving, among numerous other action skills that he describes in his novels.

I’m not quite as intrepid as Mr. Morrell. If I have a character parachute from an airplane, I may depend on secondary research. I am fortunate three of my college-age children jumped last summer, so I’ll rely on their experience leaving the terra firma. I'm not that adventurous in my primary research. Still, as I zipped along on the back of a motorcycle this spring, I imagined a new character venturing out of her narrow, middle-aged world.

Meanwhile, I’ve started a notebook about careers of the people I know. On a recent trip, I met a physician’s assistant, a realtor, a financial advisor, a missionary, an attorney specializing in cases of imminent domain, a psychologist, an English pub owner, and a glass artist. I can’t wait to interview the artist because I’ve been developing a character who expresses herself through an unusual art form.

What interesting careers have crossed your path lately?

~Roxanne Sherwood