As writers, we want to make our characters as unique and interesting as possible. One way to do this is to give your character a special skill or talent that sets him apart from other people. This might be something small, like having a green thumb or being good with animals, to a larger and more competitive talent like stock car racing or being an award-winning film producer. 

When choosing a talent or skill, think about the personality of your character, his range of experiences and who his role models might have been. Some talents might be genetically imparted while others are created through exposure (such as a character talented at fixing watches from growing up in his father’s watch shop) or grow out of interest (archery, wakeboarding, or magic). Don’t be afraid to be creative and make sure the skill or talent is something that works with the scope of the story. 

FORAGING 

Description: widely searching an area to obtain provisions, namely food items. Foraging is an ancient skill utilized by most early people groups as a way of obtaining food in the wild. Since no single land plot can grow every desirable edible, people foraged abroad—in forests, oceans, rivers, and other locales for what they couldn’t grow themselves. While…

Beneficial Strengths or Abilities: physical stamina, good eyesight (to distinguish edible sources from non-edible)

Character Traits Suited for this Skill or Talent: patience, intelligence, caution, respect, diligence, responsibility…

Associated Stereotypes and Perceptions:

• medicine men and women
• paranoid people living off the grid
• environmentalists…

Scenarios Where this Skill Might be Useful:

• surviving in a post-apocalyptic world where food is scarce
• surviving a natural or man-made catastrophe
• living in a rural community that is cut off from others and completely independent…

Resources for Further Information:

• Foraging with “Wild Man” Steve Brill
• A Brief History of Foraging Societies
• Helpful Books on Foraging

Talents and skills not only make our characters stand out, they often help them attain their goals. So choosing them strategically can greatly enhance both the character and the story.

If this is something you’d like to learn more about, you can find the entries in their entirety at One Stop For Writers, where all our thesauruses are cross-referenced and linked for easy navigation. If you’re interested in seeing a free sampling of the Talent and Skill Thesaurus and our other descriptive collections, head on over and register at One Stop!