Talent and Skill Thesaurus: Repurposing

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. 

Repurposing

Description: the ability to envision new uses for common items, or to alter what one has to fit a specific need.

Beneficial Strengths or Abilities: being good with one’s hands, the ability to imagine how different objects might fit together or work in a different way, thinking beyond the obvious, the drive to find a better, more efficient way of doing things, the desire to avoid…

Character Traits Suited for this Skill or Talent: creative, imaginative, thrifty, tenacious, calm, curious, sensible, decisive

Required Resources and Training: collecting useful items at minimal cost, or hanging onto things that can be reinvented to become something else, treating items gently so that they last, researching do-it-yourself projects (sites like Pinterest are a …

Associated Stereotypes and Perceptions:

• That repurposing is often harder than it looks
• That just because something is old doesn’t mean it isn’t useful
• That people who repurpose are cheap or stingy

Scenarios Where this Skill Might be Useful:

• being able to fix problems or make necessary repairs when one has little resources to work with
• being able to stretch one’s resources when times are tight
• succeeding by applying creative thinking to problems that stump linear thinkers…

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 S