Choosing a talent or skill that fits with your character’s personality, lifestyle, and values can go a long way to helping them break free of the common stereotypes seen so often in fiction. This thesaurus will help you find the perfect quality or two that will show readers your character’s uniqueness while also acting as an asset when it comes to goal achievement.
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.
Basic First Aid
Description: Having basic knowledge of physiology and the human body that enables one to administer first aid…
Beneficial Strengths or Abilities: being good under pressure, having good recall
Character Traits Suited for this Skill or Talent: calm, confident, decisive, alert, perceptive…
Required Resources and Training: Some initial knowledge is required for a person to be adept at physically treating others. Basic knowledge of human physiology, medicines or herbs, life-preserving techniques…
Associated Stereotypes and Perceptions: EMTs, paramedics, doctors, midwives, and nurses are most commonly recognized as being proficient in first aid. But other non-professionals are also associated with…
Scenarios Where this Skill Might be Useful:
- a car accident
- in the aftermath of a natural or man-made catastrophe
- a post-apocalyptic scenario…
TIP: Choose a talent or skill that makes your character memorable and helps them achieve their goals.
If this is something you’d like to learn more about, you might find these resources helpful. You can also see the full collection of talent and skill 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!
Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and bestselling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and its sequels. Her books are available in five languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers—a powerhouse online library created to help writers elevate their storytelling.
Love the picture, Becca! Thanks for the post!
Very good skill for characters and writers to know!!
That is a super picture. Thanks for another very useful post. You always deliver!
Becca, I LOVE the image you posted AND noticed the “courtesy of” part. Curious—did you get permission directly? It’s SO on my mind now since Doug’s post the other day and all the follow-up comments!
And back on topic: this is an excellent, very useful trait in probably almost any story situation. Just love it 🙂 Thank you!
Donna, I didn’t ask for permission because according to the Some Rights Reserved note for this pic, it can be shared as long as you give credit and link to it. I put the link at the bottom of the post (I really wish there was a way to embed a link into the caption of the picture). I also left a comment for that image on the owner’s photo stream, thanking her for posting it and letting her know that I’d be putting it up at my blog today, and I left a URL link so she could see it. I hope this covers my bases, since I did the two things she asked in regards to sharing :).
Thanks for explaining, Becca 🙂 I know that on WordPress you can make the picture itself a link. I don’t like to do it because it doesn’t give me the option of the link opening in a separate tab. I want all the links on my (future) blog to open up in a separate tab so my home page/post is always available without someone having to “back arrow.” I don’t know what your options are with your site.
Messaging you, Donna 🙂