Occupation Thesaurus Entry: Farmer

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. 

We hope the sample list of ideas below will show you how to choose and use your character’s occupation to do more than simply reference a day job. For the full entry for this career and over 120 other ideas, check into our bestselling resource, The Occupation Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Jobs, Vocations, and Careers.

Farmer

Overview: A farmer is a person who plants, grows, and harvests crops or they breed and raise animals, most often for food consumption.

Necessary Training: It isn’t mandatory that a farmer has formal education, but unless they have significant experience (perhaps from working on a farm or growing up on one), it can greatly help them gain the knowledge they need to succeed. Farming is a very complex business requiring adaptability, foresight, and many different skill sets. Farmers who grow crops must…

If a farmer raises animals (mammals, avians, fish, etc.), they are responsible for their welfare and must know their needs, provide a healthy environment, proper nutrition and…

Useful Skills, Talents, or Abilities: a knack for making money, a way with animals, basic first aid, carpentry, enhanced hearing, enhanced sense of smell…

Helpful Character Traits

• POSITIVE: Adaptable, ambitious, analytical, calm, disciplined, efficient, independent, industrious, meticulous, nature-focused, nurturing…
• NEGATIVE: compulsive, know-it-all, workaholic, worrywart

Sources of Friction: An illness that decimates one’s crop or livestock, climate change or extreme weather (early frosts, too much rain or not enough, drought that lasts year after year, lightning strikes that cause forest fires, flooding, etc.), mounting debt, political policies and market shifts that affect one’s ability to get one’s product to consumers, pricing shifts, market saturation, wild animals attacking one’s livestock…

People They Might Interact With: other farmers, neighbors, mechanics, suppliers, customers, inspectors, veterinarians

How This Occupation Might Impact One’s Basic Needs:

• Self-Actualization: A character who loves living and working in the country may question their path if staying afloat is a constant, wearying struggle
• Love and Belonging: If there are differences in opinions in a family-run farm (how it’s being run, decisions that create risk which not everyone is comfortable with, or…
• Physiological Needs: Farming is not an easy livelihood because so many different elements are outside the farmer’s control. Dealing with debt is…

Common Work-Related Settings: barn, chicken coop, country road, county fair, farm, farmer’s market, garage, hunting cabin, meadow, old pick-up truck, orchard, pasture, ranch, tool shed, vegetable patch

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.

To learn more, we recommend The Occupation Thesaurus book. Explore 120+ jobs to choose a profession for your character that showcases who they are, what they want, and what they believe in. Then learn how that career choice can characterize, drive the plot, infuse scenes with conflict, and get readers on the character’s side through the relatable pressures, responsibilities, and stakes inherent with work.

You can find this bestselling thesaurus writing guide in print, ebook, and PDF formats. To see what other authors think of the book, read its reviews at Goodreads.