Jobs are as important for our characters as they are for real people. A character’s career might be their dream job or one they’ve chosen due to necessity. In your story, they might be trying to get that job or are already working in the field. Whatever the situation, as with any defining aspect for your character, you’ll need to do the proper research to be able to write that career knowledgeably.
Enter the Occupation Thesaurus. Here, you’ll find important background information on a variety of career options for your character. In addition to the basics, we’ll also be covering related info that relates to character arc and story planning, such as sources of conflict (internal and external) and how the job might impact basic human needs, thereby affecting the character’s goals. It’s our hope that this thesaurus will share some of your research burden while also giving you ideas about your character’s occupation that you might not have considered before.
Below is a sample list of ideas to help you see how an occupation can reveal your character’s beliefs, history, goals, and more.
To view the full entry, visit One Stop for Writers where it resides within the largest fiction-based descriptive database ever created. (Free Trial available.)
Occupation: Dog Groomer
Overview: Dog groomers maintain a dog’s physical appearance using various shears, trimmers, scissors, brushes, shampoos, and other products. They will bathe, dry, cut, and…
Groomers typically work at…
Necessary Training: Most employers require a high school diploma when hiring a groomer, and in addition to on-the-job training and mentoring, may also require a certification from…
Useful Skills, Talents, or Abilities: A knack for making money, a way with animals, basic first aid, charm, empathy, enhanced hearing…
POSITIVE: Adaptable, affectionate, calm, centered, charming, easygoing, efficient, empathetic, focused, friendly, gentle, industrious, nurturing…
NEGATIVE: fussy, stubborn, workaholic
Sources of Friction: Developing an allergy to dogs or dog grooming products, a fellow groomer suddenly quitting leaving one with far too many clients to handle, demanding pet owners (who expect perfection, who want cuts outside one’s experience, who wish to have their dog’s coat treated in a way that will be painful for the dog or dangerous), dogs that are unsocialized and difficult to work with, animals with a history of…
People They Might Interact With: dog owners, pet sitters, pet store employees or veterinarian staff (if located within a pet store or vet clinic), other groomers, delivery people
How This Occupation Might Impact One’s Basic Needs:
- Esteem and Recognition: Characters in this job may struggle with recognition as customers sometimes only see the price tag and don’t always appreciate the time and energy that goes into…
- Love and Belonging: In some cases groomers can be overloaded with appointments, and the long hours and tiring work can…
- Safety and Security: As this job is lower pay, it can be difficult to have financial security…
Common Work-Related Settings: vet clinic
Visit the other Occupations in our collection HERE.
How will your character’s occupation help reveal their innermost layers?
Much of your character’s life will revolve around their work, and whether they love it or hate it, their job is a great way to show, not tell, their personality traits, skills, work ethic, worldview and beliefs, and more, so we should choose it with care.
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“It’s like I fed my imagination Red Bull…” ~ Tracy Perkins
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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.
Will Occupation Thesaurus be a Kindle book on Amazon as well?
If we decide to convert it to a book, yes. But we always explore a topic for a bit on the blog first before choosing the next thesaurus to expand in book form. It will definitely be available no matter what though at our other site, One Stop for Writers.
There are two typos in this entry. ” (if past of a pet store or vet clinic),” should be (if part of a pet store or vet clinic). “it can be difficult to have financial security unless other members of the household ate also contributing” Should be “it can be difficult to have financial security unless other members of the household are also contributing.
Thanks, Dylan! Autocorrect is not always my friend… 😉