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.
Enhanced Hearing
Description: being able to hear sounds that others cannot, or discern a slight shift in pitch that others cannot
Beneficial Strengths or Abilities: unless this was a result of a medical enhancement (an implant, for example), this talent would have a highly genetic component. However, being in control of one’s emotions would allow one to…
Character Traits Suited for this Skill or Talent: calm, focused, determined, centered, curious, objective…
Required Resources and Training: gaining exposure to many different sounds, practice with background noise and learning how to filter and differentiate, practicing meditative techniques to push aside distractions and focus on the task at hand
Scenarios Where this Skill Might be Useful:
- Eavesdropping to learn sensitive information, uncover terrorist plans, gain financial information for insider trading, or collect blackmail information
- To determine where one is being taken if one is blindfolded or taken somewhere against one’s will…
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!
Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.
I’m commenting because I believe my husband posses this “talent”
He can hear things I can’t hear until the last moment like the mailman idling in front of the house or when the pizza delivery guy shows up. I claim he’s wrong because I don’t hear a thing! He’s prove me wrong many, many times. I tell him he has super hearing and I’m always amazed.
Good stuff. Where is the photo of the ear sculpture from?
There’s a link at the bottom–I found it on Pixabay. Just click on the link for more info. Really neat picture, isn’t it?
It is neat. Looks like it’s from Germany. Cool.
(That peach link was hard to find on my screen.)
My first comment read a little rough. It just fascinated me. Giant ear somewhere on the planet.
It is very cool, isn’t it? I love the unusual 🙂
Another good entry.
Love your books. Information such a plus. Thanks.
Perfect timing!! The main character in my 2nd YA novel has this talent/skill! I checked your blog a couple months ago to see if you had a corresponding entry and you didn’t. 🙁 But I’m getting back to my story after a few months’ long hiatus and look what pops into my inbox!! Thank you!!
Haha, awesome! Glad we had what you needed, Kelly!