Give Your Characters an Interesting Job

As well as providing a locale for your characters and a suitable name, another thing you can do to add interest and depth to your writing is to provide them with a suitable occupation. It's all too easy to plump for obvious jobs for your characters - doctor, nurse, teacher, waitress. But there are many other jobs you could choose for them which have not been so overused in fiction.

How about a nail technician? A pharmacist? A dog handler? A court stenographer? A website designer? A graphic designer? A surveyor? Remember, you can always give your character a job that's unusual for their gender too to make them even more intriguing. What's to stop your surveyor from being female or your nail technician from being male?

There are lots of websites you can look on which advertise job vacancies. You could look in the appointments pages of your local newspaper to find some more. Or spend an hour or so browsing round the offices of a careers adviser - you'll find enough jobs to last your characters years! You'll also pick up some real life facts which will make them seem more realistic too.

Another thing you can do is be curious about people that you meet. If you get chatting to someone on a bus or at a party, ask them what they do, and if it's a job you don't know much about, ask them questions about it. People love to talk about themselves. Make notes afterwards about what you've found out, and perhaps get their contact details.

Or you can seek out people and ask for their expertise. I was once doing some research about how dentists train and what it's like to be a dentist, and my own dental surgeon gave up his lunch hour to chat with me. He gave me some marvellous anecdotes that I'd never have thought up myself. I also rang someone at one of the university dental hospitals, which resulted in a very interesting visit to the department - more interesting things to spot - and he even rang back the following week with lots more information for me.

These days it's even easier with e-mail. It's a cheap way of communicating experts and if someone doesn't want to answer questions, he can ignore your request without you having to suffer the embarrassment of being knocked back on the phone.

So why not give it a go? Find your characters an interesting job. It will make your job as a writer that bit more rewarding too.