As editor of Blind Eye Books, I have to say that I am deeply concerned about joblessness. Every day manuscripts arrive in my mailbox featuring protagonists who appear to be out of work. Still more protagonists seem to be so deeply unqualified for the jobs that they do hold that in addition to worrying about them being fired, I wonder how they every got hired in the first place.
And tragically, it is my own genre, fantasy and science fiction that suffers the highest rates of unemployment. Like the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, I consider assassins, thieves, intergalactic pirates, hookers and all other crime-based workers to be technically unemployed. I feel that sorcerers, wizards and witches qualify as self-employed, but only if they’ve actually been contracted for a job. Ditto for star captains, mercenaries and any sort of bounty hunter. “Agents” must be on the payroll of an “agency” to which they are accountable for me to count them as members of the workforce. And I regret to inform you that “adventurer” is not and has never been a job, alas.
But that is not the worst of it. Turning to the paranormal front, vampires and shape-shifters seem to be the most job-challenged of all. Very few of these individuals seem to have any practical, steady income. If they were to have to fill out an application for food stamps, for example, they would definitely be in the category of person who would need to write a small essay at the bottom of the form beneath the line that reads, “If you have no source of income, please explain how you support yourself in the space below.”
(For my opinion of vampire and demon hunters see: space captain/mercenary above.)
I’d like to think that the recession is to blame for the proliferation of marginally and murkily employed protagonists. Sadly, I fear that the problem might be a failure of characterization.
In contemporary fiction choosing a job for your protagonist is crucial, because the career you give him is more than just the costume that he wears on the cover. It is the lens through which he views the world. Lets say you have your protagonist (we’ll call him Justin) walk into a party. The career you have given him will affect his perception of the party. If Justin is a musician, he’ll most likely notice the energy level of the people in the room immediately. Are people excited? Rowdy? Low-key? Musician Justin, like all live performers, is going to be attuned to the existing vibe of a place and be responsive to it.
In contrast, Artist Justin might not initially notice the existence of people at all. He will most likely be looking at the quality of light in the room and noticing the colors that fill the shadows before he even considers the fact that all these shapes and colors reflecting the light are people.
Writer Justin will probably wonder who everybody in the room is, and how they are connected to each other. Chef Justin will go check out the food and, using that barometer, will assess what kind of event he’s at and whether or not he belongs there. Cop Justin will not be able to avoid monitoring the overall level of inebriation in the crowd or noticing laws that are being broken, even if he chooses to take no punitive action, and so on.
So in giving your protagonist a job, you also give them a basic viewpoint. If you choose a fictional job that you have not actually done yourself, it will be your job as an author to boldly go and find out what that might be. That is called research. The flat-out easiest way to research a character in this way is to just phone someone who does the job you want to give your character and ask them what writers always get wrong about their profession.
For example, my other career is in professional cooking. Because being a chef is now considered sexy, many writers are jumping in with characters who are either chefs or who work in or own upscale restaurants. As a result, I’ve purchased and then subsequently DNF-ed a number of books where the author clearly did no research into the restaurant industry. Probably the most memorable gaffe was an author who had their protagonist, a lowly peon who had been cooking less than a year, sass the chef without incurring severe, immediate punishment. 
What should have happened to the mouthy little punk? Well, here’s a hint: Gordon Ramsay’s savage mood swings are neither a put-on, nor particularly rare for his profession.
(And incidentally… Note to any of you decide to write about an upscale restaurant: go read the menus of some Michelin-starred restaurants before you start describing the food. Chicken Cordon Bleu went off the menu of most fine dining places at approximately the same moment that Schwan’s started delivering it frozen to your doorstep, which is to say, at least two decades ago.)
I’ve found that most people, even strangers that I’ve cold-called, are happy to tell me all about their professions once they know I’m writing a book. Some even go the extra mile and find plot solutions that I, as an outsider, would never have considered. So don’t be shy about contacting the real deal and asking some questions. As I said before, you’re a writer—doing this sort of thing is your job.
No discussion of careers in fiction could be complete without a mention of jobs that are so over-used and standard as to have had their viewpoint rendered somewhat meaningless. These include, but are not limited to:
Any sort of law enforcement (includes secret agent)
Unspecified “doctor”
Unspecified “lawyer”
CEO of nebulous company
Artist or musician of no distinguishing medium or style
Professor of any broad category like English or Palentology who appears to have no personal emphasis and never steps foot on a university campus for the entire story.
Stripper—all kinds
“Hacker” (This was never a job, anyway.)
In order to use the over-used professions a protagonist has got to go the extra mile and have either a specialty, such as pediatric onocologist, or a descriptor like CEO of a company that builds wind-turbines for green energy programs, or be differentiated from the rest of their faceless ilk by the addition of a hobby. An example of this might be cop who is obsessed with disc-golf.
More than anything, though, I would love to see some romance protagonists who go outside the box in terms of their profession. In Bellingham (the real city of Bellingham, not the fake version in my mystery series) there is a reconstructive dentist who does pro bono work for the women’s shelter. In other words, a lady who has had all her front teeth punched out can go to this guy and literally have him help her get her smile back. How cool is that?
Does not this dentist deserve to be the hero of a love story? Can he not find love with a hot cyclist who has broken his teeth during a road race while qualifying for the Olympics? Who are we to deny them their strange attraction?
What about the guys who work as professional jousters at Medieval Times? Tree surgeons? Sales reps? Hand models? Voice actors? CPAs? Driving instructors? Vintage airplane mechanics? Think of all the fascinating and unique details that their experiences, conflicts and ambitions could offer your book.
By nature, romance stories are formulaic. One way to keep stories fresh and interesting is to bring in non-standard characters and an easy way to generate those is to be a job-creator. Give your men unique occupations that they love, are good at and can be proud of and they will reward you with many sales.
Hi Nicole, I guess I was pretty close in trying to guess the subject of your post when I saw its title :). I mean, I totally agree about same jobs mentioned over and over again and often not researched well, but you know, at least now more of the characters do have jobs, which is an improvement I guess. Do you know that one of the reasons I almost completely abandoned contemporaries is because I was so very bored by all of the guys who spend their time on the page in bed or angsting about whether he wants me or he does not?
I mean, I know sex sells and all that, but I remember having thoughts to the effect – now you can tell me something else about this character as a person, writer? Any time now? What does he do when he is not spending time with his beloved? Any jobs? Hobbies? Anything?
So yeah, vampires and wizards, and all other guys in paranormals may not be officially employed, but at least some of them spent their time actually doing something else, so that in itself was a breath of fresh air for me lol.
Same with mysteries – oh sure, I remember rolling my eyes at quite a few of them, thinking how badly the police procedure was researched, how easy it was to figure out the villain, but at least the guys felt more like well rounded person, and not just sexual machine ;)?
Anyway, yes, great post, completely agree, I guess I just feel that as a reader I kind of see some improvement in that aspect, not that we dont need better research in many instances and more improvements.
Hi Sirius! Yes, it’s true that vampires and wizards etc are usually engaging in some sort of interesting activity (however mysteriously funded that activity might be) and therefore are generally more interesting than characters who appear to have the thoughts and priorities of a 14 year old girl.
“Does he love me? I don’t know… I’ll call Cheryl and see if she knows…and also what she’s wearing tomorrow.”
And I totally agree about mysteries. The structure adds a question that at least needs to be answered.
I think that to write a straightforward contemporary romance novel that is devoid of other genre influences, like historical, paranormal and mystery, must be really difficult.
I sorta want to try it, though, specifically because it seems very hard. 🙂
Hi Nicole, oh absolutely I totally agree that writing a contemporary must be very hard (do not think that it is harder than a good mystery or fantasy or historical, but for some reason some writers seem to think that research in contemps is less important), and I found some that I liked recently, I was just reminiscenting about my early years of reading MM :). At some point I was basically not reading contemps at all, so 1D characters looked like, and the only development was about what they do in bed, even if their job was mentioned in passing.
I would read anything you will write including a contemporary :))
Aw… shucks….. :blush:
Thank you! I completely agree. So few characters in these stories seem to need to go to work in the morning, or they have the sort of job where they can work from anywhere, and mostly seem to not be working.
To your list of overused professions, I would add owning a night/strip/BDSM club. This seems to me to be particularly prevalent in paranormals. What do vampires and werewolves do for a living? Apparently they all own clubs.
They’re all club owners, eh? Do they ingest massive quantities of cocaine?
Not that ALL club owners do this, but accidentally falling into a 4 foot snowdrift of blow seems to be a real occupational hazard of owning any sort of nightclub. I think it’s because of the hours and general lack of participation in normal daytime activities. Plus their job is to make every night a party.
I suggest that its okay to make a character the owner of a club so long as you prominently show them slaving over quickbooks and arguing with the liquor control board’s undercover officers.
And speaking of other practicalities–how much floor sanitizer must they go through per week at a BDSM club? How much saddle soap and how many cases of baby wipes?
(Thank you for letting me know about this job opportunity for paranormals, Gail!)
They go through A LOT of sanitizing wipes at a BDSM club. And sanitizer spray.
The general rule is no bodily fluid play, but of course people drool around gags and other goodies escape during a well done scene too.
It takes about 2 minutes to spray down and wipe down a St. Andrew’s Cross and the floor mat. If you’re feeling lazy, make you sub do it. 👿
Oh noes! Not cleaning! (I would say my safe word. :evilgrin: )
Great post Nicole.
I must say I love that you’re pointing all this out. For me, if I can’t connect with the characters in some way, I find it difficult to “get into” the story and actually care about the outcome. Having a well drawn character with a job (even if all he does is complain how boring it is or how much his boss hates him) and hobbies and interests and basically a life outside of chasing after the love interest, goes a long way in making said character appear more real and makes it easier for me to become invested in his story.
Also, as a reader I tend to get frustrated with all the seemingly independently wealthy characters. Since money doesn’t grow on trees I don’t appreciate reading about characters for whom it seems to. I can only take so many lords, heirs and the like before I start getting frustrated.
I do admit to being somewhat more lenient when it comes to the paranormal and fantasy genres. There I can accept that all those super long lived creatures have had plenty of time to accumulate enough wealth to live comfortably, so it’s easy to ignore the fact their job description boils down to “fighting the bad guys”. That said, they should still have other interests or hobbies to make them stand out in the sea of other paranormal and fantasy romance and fiction characters out there.
Hi Eva! I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with this comment. Characters, even purely fanciful ones, are just more interesting when they’re not completely standard.
Wow! What a great post–very funny and absolutely correct. I think someone needs to write a romance about a career counselor and his love interest, then he can help all the other romance MCs out there find true happiness–at work. 😀
Hiya AndyB! An MC who works as a career counselor would be kinda awesome. I think the love interest could be a guy who has had to leave his former profession, because of an injury, for example, and needs to start again from scratch. Think of the drama! The internal struggle! The confidence and self-esteem issues! So much to explore with this guy! (And timely too, given the huge number of men out of work at the moment.)
What a great post! You had me cracking up at some points and I completely agree! I certainly do not like it when authors don’t do their research on subjects!
Thanks for the wonderfully insightful post!
Hi Larissa, thank you so much for your kind compliment!
That is brilliant. Don’t forget the ubiquitous “owner of a BDSM club”. I’m still having difficulty believing such establishments exist, but people I know personally have said they’ve heard of them, although no one has ever gone to one. Urban legend perhaps?
Also people who work in restaurants but are always available in the evenings. I thought chefs/waiters, etc. work awful hours. Weekends, evenings. How can they spend so much time together? Or firemen and policemen who work 9-5 M-F. Huh? 😕
I am so over “businessman”. What does that even mean? I love to give my characters careers, that’s half the fun, jobs are part of who people are, not just how they look and what happened to them in high school. They say write what you know, so I have lots of government drones. 😉 I’ve written teachers, ER doctor (I wrote a “please forgive my ignorance of proper ER procedures”, but a free short doesn’t always allow for much research), students are easy, we’ve all been students of some kind, bartender. I love writing people in their place of work because it can add a whole other dimension to whether the person is out or not, and how do they deal with their significant other in their place of employment.
And I totally think Space Pirate is a career. :bandit:
Hey, Tam!
Okay, I know that space pirate sounds cool, but I think (as with real pirates, such as displaced Somali fishermen) it might be more of an act of desperation than a calling. (ha!) That said if anybody ever wrote a story where space pirates actually were displaced workers I’d be darn interested to read it.
I’ve never been to a BDSM club either. I’ve been to a leather bar, which is sort of similar, I suppose, but it was not at all glamorous.
Speaking of working in clubs–there’s an excellent film about the owner of a Japanese host club called “The Great Happiness Space.” Completely fascinating!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0493420/
Hear, hear. Unusual jobs are one of the reasons why I loved “The Winter Courtship Rituals of Fur Bearing Critters” and “Clear Water” by Amy Lane so much. You don’t get Alpacca raising knitters and frog stalking field biologists every day. 😀
Hi Monika! That sounds really interesting. Must go read some excerpts!
For obvious reasons, vampires don’t have a lot of employment options :evil:, so I’ve always subscribed to what Eva said. I figure they’re pretty good at thieving, too.
I steer clear of most stories featuring the usual hotsy-totsy macho occupations. They remind me too much of Harlequin romances.
Greetings, KZ! Yeah, there is definitely a Harlequin vibe to a lot of the standard male jobs, isn’t there?
KZ, now you have me wondering why I’ve never read a scene where a vampire feasts on his victim, then steals all his money. Not that I read a lot of vampire fix, but wouldn’t it seem like the easiest “occupation” under their circumstances?
Hell, yeah! They’re not only stealthy buggers but can move mighty fast. What self-respecting vampire wouldn’t take advantage of that? :cash:
I love the idea of a vampire filing for unemployment.
RACE:…hmmm… vampire?
OCCUPATION: uhmmm…vampire
REASON FOR TERMINATION OF EMPLOYMENT: Vampire!! (Ate the boss.)
LOL! “Ate the boss.” Good one, Ginn! 😀
Damn, you’re funny, Ginn. 🙂
Spaceship captain is a lot like being an owner-operator of a groundbound semi/owner of a small trucking company. You’d need to find freight, make the deliveries, stay out of trouble with the law and keep your permits and equipment current. My Captain Salzoran has all those headaches, plus he has to pay his crew too.
This is why I’m pure company. On the O/O route lies dropped cargo, bounty hunters and Hutts.
I love a story where the characters work, actually work. I write my guys as having work. If they’re students, they study and sometimes they botch the assignment. If they’re writers, they deal with editors, and smart-mouthed lovers who insert naughty words into their manuscript. If they drive a truck, they are behind the wheel.
Writing a self-employed PI right now. She lives hand to mouth, sleeps on a murphy bed in her office, has contracts for her clients and has headaches about permits, and taxes and gun registrations and business licenses. The mages in her world have strict hierarchies and file regular reports. Hougans (zombie raisers) have a union, with dues.
Crime is a perfectly legitimate career, no matter what the IRS says. It’s fairly lucrative.
Hello, Angelia!
Yeah, okay, it’s a little unfair of me to suggest that criminals don’t work hard. They certainly do.
But not all of them makes tons of moneys. I once watched an interview with a former small-time drug dealer who was talking about the fact that he once figured out how much money he was making per hour hustling bags of weed on the street corner and came to the horrifying realization that he could be making more working at McDonalds.
I guess my beef with the glamorous criminal character is that like his underdeveloped legitimate counterparts he often spends very little time dealing with the practicalities of his own work, like money laundering or finding fences to sell his stolen property to.
Plus in my experience many, many of the criminally-employed are really not nice people at all, so I have a hard time picturing them as romantic leads, I suppose. 😕
It depends on how big you’re willing to write your criminals.
Small time weed dealer? not so much
Destroying an entire country’s economy and government, just to watch it crash and make money picking up the pieces? There’s a LOT.
My daughter is a stripper, which is legal. Her wages vary wildly, but she’s making more dancing than I do driving a truck. When I did sex work, it paid about $500/week. But I only worked 2 hours a night, instead of the 10/day I work to make that now. And I’m STILL in a high risk profession. (More truckers die than any other job, about 3/day)
Wow, really, that many die? What from? I presume crashes, and I can see it. Once when I was driving across Wyoming on I-80 I saw about 8 overturned trucks in 3 hours.
BTW-I’m really interested in what the space version of Giant Truck Oasis might look like. Do you have something like that in your book?
The one place I wrote a fueling stop is in an unpublished piece. Space truckstops look like orbital stations. The ship is fueled and restocked. The crew can get out, have a real water shower, eat real (hydroponic) food instead of concentrates, and stretch some.
In 2004, 905 professional drivers (truck and sales) died. That’s about 27 for every 100,000on the job. Loggers and pilots die more frequently (92 for every 100,000) but not in as great of numbers, because there are fewer of them. We die mostly from crashes. Whether falling asleep at the wheel or getting cut off, or losing control on ice.
An entertaining and useful post, and I wonder how many submissions you’re about to receive featuring the plot bunnies you liberally scattered through it. 🙂 (Yes, I too want to see the story about the vampire filling in his unemployment claim form).
The one quibble I’d have is that sometimes knowing from the inside the job you’re writing about can make it more difficult, not less, to put in all those telling little details. There’s stuff in “Lord and Master” that some of my former colleagues would recognise, because they were common rants at work — and there’s stuff that didn’t go in, because the former colleagues would have recognised the exact origin of that particular anecdote…
Yes, you have to be careful not to be too biographical, tempting though it may be at times.
Hi Jules! So, I just went and read the blurb for Lord and Master and I was struck by how much easier it is to be interested in a story when the conflict is spelled out as clearly as it was in that blurb. Good work on that.
And about insider knowledge. Yeah, I’ve run into that quandry too. But to date no one I’ve ever worked with has EVER read one of my books (that I’m aware of) so now I don’t worry about it that much.
I just don’t use their real names. 😀
Excellent post, Nicole. I’ve often found myself wondering what some characters do for a living, and how they manage all they manage without ever going to the office.
So true about how those in different professions would view their environments, and an excellent reminder. Thank you for a fabulous post!
Hello LC!
About different professions and different environments: I know, right? My father is a CPA and when we go out to restaurants he’s always concerned if the server forgot to charge us for something because he’s so totally focused on reconciliation. He doesn’t even think, “Yay! I win a free beer!”
It’s more like, “This free beer will cause loss to the business. I must do my part to make it right, for I am an accountant.”
And it’s hilarious to watch the incredulity on the faces of servers who try to not charge him for stuff. They simply can’t believe that he’s for real.
Situations like that can’t be created if characters don’t have really strong viewpoints, I think.
I am stealing “for I am an accountant” just in case Alex and I ever finish the space!accountant story. :->
Ha! Feel free!
Just remember that there is nothing that offends the sensibilities of an accountant more that something being…dare I say it… unaccounted for.
It makes them look like this–> :wallbash:
…snicker… it’s funny cause it’s true. 😆
Thank you, Nicole, for another thought-provoking post. It made me think about how common it is for a career to be a big part of a person’s self-identity. Not for everyone, of course, but for those people, a career doesn’t just make them more interesting, it’s a vital part of who they are.
Lots to think about. Thank you!
Good afternoon, kiracee!
You know, I would actually go so far as to suggest that for men to be happy a career (or at least a calling) is crucial.
I realized this during the thick of my tenure in restaurant kitchens. There I worked with dozens and dozens of 18 to 25 year old men. And what was interesting to me was that the primary crisis in virtually all these young men’s lives at that point was not finding love or even finding money, necessarily.
Their thoughts circled relentlessly around finding something to BE. I witnessed huge fits of angst and anger, panic attacks and hopeless drunken tears shed by guys who suffered no real adversity save having yet to discover their direction in life. They felt this absence of purpose as a pain so keen that it overshadowed everything else.
Only artists and serious athletes were exempt from these intermittent identity breakdowns. And that was because they already had callings.
Young women seemed, on the whole, less likely to define themselves by their work. But there was still a percentage of them who desperately desired the rewards of a meaningful career so, yeah, I think work is a pretty vital part of human internal life and, by extension, characterization.
Actually, I’ve read studies about this—psychologically, women tend to identify their “self” more strongly with their primary relationship, while men tie much more of their identity up with their career.
Great post, Nicole 🙂
Research is important when choosing a job.
I have to admit, there are moments where I just can’t seem to come up with a job for my character, and I’ll be rooting around the net to see if it’ll spark something.
I never thought to make them jobless, though… mmm
Love the idea of a vampire claiming benefits 🙂 LOL
Hi Blaine, thank you very much!
About an out-of-work character–yeah, I never thought about it either until writing back to comments for this post. It’s a fascinating idea, though. I was thinking of a guy who has done something like working in construction but who can’t do it anymore after a fall. Where does he go from there? Has he always had a dream of going to college but hasn’t had the drive until now? I think I was thinking of a person who has always relied on their body for work transitioning into using their mind and how scary that would be.
But I would think that because that’s exactly what I am in the process of doing. 😀 Because I’m getting old. Soon I’ll be too old to be a great line cook. Moving into being a professional writer and editor is very weird because I have to rely on getting work by being smart instead of acquiring cash through being fast and physically coordinated. It’s definitely been an interesting journey.
It would be totally interesting to see where other people went with a man transitioning between careers though. There are so many possibilities.
Me too.
I think most of us would be in real trouble if we were suddenly transformed into vampires… You can only call into work so many times because of “light–burning light!!!” before you’re cut… and even is you work only evenings the constant nipping of co-workers isn’t going to go over very well.
Great post, Nicole! And I love all the comments, too. 😀
Coincidentally, in the story that’s been bouncing around in my head trying to break free, one of the characters is at that fork in the road of changing careers. The “where do I go from here?” question is part of what I’ve been playing with. 😎
And I love “…for I am an accountant” and would love to see that in a story! :thinker:
Welcome jeayci! Thank you so much. Good luck with your story. Characters in transition are the most interesting of all, I think.
Interesting post. I have often howled with laughter at some writer’s concept of computer programming. They are frequently short on research. Then again, I am happy to find someone who does know what they are talking about, eg: Andrew Grey’s Dutch Treat – he really knows what a project manager does.
And, I wonder sometimes whether a personality is shaped by the requirements of a career that someone fell into because they needed a job as much as a career is chosen because of a personality.
Hi Celeste. I feel certain that you would surely laugh at my own concept of computer programming, gleaned from my taking of that one BASIC class in 1985. (Before you ask, I failed.)
Yes, I absolutely agree that personality is shaped by work, no matter how we get the jobs we work. I just don’t think it’s possible to do something for 40 or 40+ hours every week for years without having the practice of it affect one’s personality and fundamental mannerisms. My wife worked as a sales clerk for more than 20 years and as a result she is unbelievably adept at smoothing out other people’s rotten moods, with just a few words and a benign smile. I am often in awe of her skills in this area.
This is the thing that’s always bothered me: there are a million boring jobs out there. Per capita, the number of office drones to law enforcement must be 2 to 1. Yet, the number of law enforcement romance heroes to the number of office drone romance heroes is the reverse.
I have no plans to rectify this, I’m just pointing it out.
This reminds me of how the people I talked to in Santa Fe who claimed to have been reincarnated were always royalty, or a native american chief, or some other unique and/or famous person in their past life. Or in one case, the reincarnation of a famous native american chief’s wolf spirt. :sceptic: I always wondered why none of them were reincarnated peasants. You would think percentage-wise at least some of them would have been, right? Oddly enough, when I asked about why they thought that was, they would refuse to talk to me further LOL
This was a great post – so funny, and so spot on. Nothing drops me out of a story (or a movie) faster than to realize the author clearly didn’t know anything about the job they gave their character. I’d almost rather have them be vague about it, and to have it be boring, than to get it totally obviously wrong. I’m always hesitant to read a story where the main character is in computers for that very reason.
Hi Susan! I, too, have wondered why reincarnated people are always somebody famous. I just figured maybe the famous people were vain enough to remember that they had been alive before whereas the more modest people didn’t bother to hold on to the past–mainly because it was too boring.
Very true. 🙂 I read somewhere that around half of the women who do “hypnotic regression” to recall past lives turn out to have been Cleopatra. Details of life and clothing and such are inevitably traceable back to a movie, often the Elizabeth Taylor one. [smirk]
I’ve also read that there are as many people alive today as there were in all of history before the lifetimes of the people currently alive. If that’s accurate, then any given person can only have had at most ONE past life; all the people who think they live twenty or fifty times through history are obviously mistaken, unless of course they were stealing lives from poor souls who hand to hang out in the herebefore twiddling their thumbs, waiting for an open spot. 🙂
Angie
We weren’t ALL famous in past lives.
But saying “I have memories of being an Irish fisherman (and drowning), a Spanish monk at Santiago de Compostela and a neanderthal woman” kinda sounds weak next to “I was Cleopatra. I was Queen Elizabeth.”
I tend to be vague about my computer progammers, because I am running on a class in BASIC, a class in Fortran77, basic html and a lot of handwaving.
Hiya Anne!
I think we’d all like to see a greater diversity of romance heroes in general, but what I’d really like to see is more dudes who work in offices who do not think of themselves as drones.
I don’t know if that’s unrealistic or not, though, since I’ve never worked in an office. 🙂
Great post, Nicole! Researching interesting professions is fun, so it does seem puzzling to have so many of these generic ones cropping up. My next novel is narrated by a glassblower, and I really enjoyed spending an afternoon watching a friend blow glass and asking him all kinds of annoying questions.
It’s the little details about a profession that really bring it to life, though. Who would have thought that being covered in burnt newspaper smudges is an occupational hazard for a glassblower?
Hey Josephine! Thank you for stopping by.
I am totally unsurprised to discover that you do direct research. There are always so many interesting details in your stuff.
On a tangentially related note:
So here in Bellingham there are really a lot of glassblowers per capita. I think because Dale Chihuly lives in the state and has a big studio where people get trained in the art. Anyway, so although there is all this cool art glass the things that sell well are bongs. And pipes. And because of this there is a store downtown that specializes in art glass bongs made by local people. Like, 2 foot sculptural things shaped like Chinese dragons and mythical creatures that one would never expect were bongs…except for the resin all over them. 🙂
Do glassblowers in the UK have that same consideration–that a huge proportion of their customers are stoners who are just totally stoked to smoke out of the dorsal spine of a flame-colored dragon?
Just curious….
Great post! Can I add a few things that get me eyerolling?
Yes, your employer absolutely DOES expect you to keep secrets from your spouse/sibling/parent/BFF, and if you don’t you’ll likely be stripped of your clearance, fired, then arrested, in that order. Even if you’re not arrested, you’re going to have trouble getting similar work if you’re unclearable (which you will be at that point) unless you do something generic like clerical or logistics or QA, etc.
If you’re working late, or coming in on the weekend, and you work in a tank (highly secured classified facility) you need to make sure at least one co-worker will be there with you. Two is better; every tank I worked in had the bathrooms on the outside. If there are only two of you, you need to go to the bathroom in pairs, and completely secure the tank while you’re gone — big, heavy door, spin-dial combination lock, phone the guard shack to let them know you’re doing it. Then come back five minutes later and reverse. While the tank is “open” it’ll usually be on a cypher lock, which a smaller arrangement with buttons, and a metal guard around it so it’s easy to cover it with your hand and prevent someone from getting the combo over your shoulder.
I never worked anyplace that had a fingerprint or retinal scanner. They might be more common nowadays — that’d be something to find out. Unless you just want to make sure your super-secret facility sounds super-secret enough, in which case go crazy. 🙂
Individual pieces of paper are printed or stamped with their classification level at the top and bottom. Printers can be set up to demand a classification whenever you print something, and put the headers on automatically, otherwise you’ve got a rubber stamp and a pad. Yes, every page. If you’re printing something out on continuous-feed paper, and don’t intend to pull it apart, your security officer might let you just stamp the top of the first and bottom of the last page.
Each page of classified generated needs to be logged on a log sheet in a classified notebook, with date created, and date destroyed. Classified needs to be kept in said classified notebook (binder with classification level clearly marked on the outside), and loose pages of classified floating around in your safe can get you thwapped. Carrying classified from one building to the next generally requires they be triple-sealed in envelopes, with some kind of CLASSIFIED — DO NOT OPEN THIS — IF FOUND CALL ###-#### on the second envelope. Put the whole thing into a locked briefcase if you’re going farther than across the parking lot. No handcuffs. 🙂
Different government agencies neither like nor trust one another. Just because your character has a TS clearance with, say, the NSA, doesn’t mean the CIA will accept it. (Unless things have changed a lot since I worked in this area, I can pretty much guarantee they won’t. 😛 ) If your character is changing jobs or projects and a new sponsor/customer is in charge of the second one, he’ll need to be reinvestigated. My experience was about six months for a TS with a compartmentalization, and sometimes it took longer; the fact that my mom worked for the same company and had clearances probably helped, if only in that I just copied most of her Personnel Security Questionnaire.
Oh, right, compartmentalization — this is part of the Need To Know rule. Even if your company does a dozen different projects for the same customer, your character’s buddy who works on something else isn’t going to be babbling about it to him. Your character’s clearance doesn’t apply to his buddy’s program unless he’s been specifically and officially briefed on that program. No, they can’t help each other out with sticky problems, unless they get permission and are cross-cleared in advance. Sharing classified with someone who isn’t cleared for it — regardless of that person’s general clearance level — is a major violation. A character saying, “You can tell me, I have a Top Secret clearance,” will get anyone who’s worked on classified eyerolling. (Also, they’d say “TS” not “Top Secret.”
Yes, the classified mainframe might well have games on it. 🙂
A hard disk that’s had classified info on it can never leave the tank, no matter how thoroughly the local computer jockey swears he/she has scrubbed it. This causes conflicts in companies with a matrix organization — the project manager will insist that the configuration management person’s computer (including hard disk) should be paid for by the CM organization, while the CM management will insist the project should buy at least the hard disk since it can never leave the tank. Seriously, my office mate and I used a Macintosh with one (1) disk drive that’d been planned to have a HD but didn’t, and swapped floppies back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, for MONTHS, because the managers wouldn’t give in about buying a damn hard disk. (Needless to say, we did very little on the Mac.) Need a petty little conflict for your character…? [eyeroll]
Anyway, I’ve never read a book in which the characters worked in a classified environment where I didn’t eyeroll at least once or twice. Definitely worth researching.
Angie
This is totally fascinating, Angie. Thank you so much for sharing.
RE: retinal scanners. The only place that I know of where a person can not only have their retina scanned but be identified by it is if you’re the NEXUS program. But I don’t think a lot of people go for that option. And I’m pretty sure the retina scan thing is only in airports.
Angie…Um, I hope it’s okay that I just copied all this to my “procedures” file, in case I need it one day as a starting point. Thank you.
This is a great post, and I do think jobs are an important part of fictional characters to make them well rounded. I think most of my stories have that, although I do write a lot of cops and doctors. (I have a short WIP right now with two guys where their jobs that won’t appear on page (they’re on vacation) but I’m trying to come up with appropriate occupations to make them more real characters.)
Hi Kaje.
I agree, Angie’s info is awesome.
And good luck with the WIP! Jobs always round out a character, even if they’re on vacation, IMHO.
Nicole, I believe this is one of your all time best posts. Excellent. 🙂
Your point that what we do is a big indicator of who we are is a crucial one.
Also the fact that we often change professions as we mature is telling — so a young protag might have a not-so-interesting entry level position, but that in itself tells us something important about him.
And giving main characters big important jobs that apparently require no time or thought on their part tells us more about the writer than the character.
Thanks, Josh!
JL: And giving main characters big important jobs that apparently require no time or thought on their part tells us more about the writer than the character.
NK: So very true. Though I have to say the thought brings me no comfort when I’m reading along thinking, “Man, you’d think a CEO brokering an international deal would have bigger fish to fry than this.” 🙂
Actually, writing is probably an overused profession too — but a lot of us gravitate to it for obvious reasons. 😀
I like to think that we’re writing what we know. 🙂
Great post, Nicole. You’re absolutely right that profession shapes someone’s personality & POV.
Because I used to work in school, I learned about things teachers do behind their students back. Teachers aren’t as saintly or evil as people make them out to be. Even the most uncaring teacher I meet have this mindset that every achievement & reward should be earned. Which probably give them the impression that they’re uptight. lol.
I told my friends some teachers I know watched porn at school, she didn’t believe me. (Not me, I watch them at home, where I can drool and gawk freely, thanks. :grin:)
Cleon! You scamp!
I agree. Teachers are much more like regular humans than students think they are! 😆
Imo, vampires would brood far less if they had to work for a living. Instant riches that seem to come with conversion are bad for morale.
Anyone who wants to make their protag a professional chef should read Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential.” Reading that and Ramsey’s bio gives you a vivid image of the macho world of kitchens.
Hi Lou! Yes, Bourdain’s book is very accurate in terms of showing the machismo and strict hierarchy in pro kitchens.
Yikes, either my dyslexia is getting worse, or my mind is further in the gutter than I thought. I read the topic as “Get a handjob, you some bum!”
Hi Tim! You know, I misread stuff with a gutter mind all the time. 🙂
BTW, I never thanked Aunt Lynn for finding the straight-up funniest picture of a chef type I’ve ever seen.
Thanks, Aunt Lynn!
Hi Nicole — Great post and truly interesting comments. I’m in awe that writers manage as often as they do to convincingly portray the details of occupations in which they may have little or no personal experience. When it’s really convincing I tend to suspect that they have worked in that area, although asking about someone’s work will also garner info filtered by the interviewee’s personal perceptions. And our perceptions of ourselves and what we do can be skewed to say the least, but I suppose that may actually add authenticity.
The need for authenticity extends to avocations/hobbies. I have for the past decade+ been very involved with a particular social dance. When I mention this to non-participants they almost always immediately ask if we compete or perform. I explain that no, it’s nothing like what’s on the TV shows, that we dance socially once or more each week, and for the most part it’s about meeting with a like-obsessed group or people and about the “conversation” between partners. But that’s also something of a lie because we also watch and judge each other the whole time, even if in mostly a good-natured way.
I used to grab any book that mentioned “my” dance, but have been cured of that, much eye-rolling later. 🙂 I especially eye-roll when an MC is planning to pursue this as a profession, as even the most renowned teachers and performers of this dance, almost always have another job. Back to skewed perceptions, it’s often been those who are caught up in it who seem the most delusional. I suppose that sounds mean (or self-descriptive? 🙂 ), but may be a useful caveat for writers…
Hi Karen!
Sorry it took me a couple of days to reply.
It sounds like being a “professional dance teacher” is a lot like being…. A WRITER! In that we almost always have other jobs, I mean. 😀
What I don’t understand about not researching hobbies is… why wouldn’t you? I mean, researching a book gives one the perfect excuse to dabble in almost any activity (for a couple of days, anyway) without the pain of further commitment. It’s always seemed like a win/win situation to me.
All this was painful to read, if illuminating.
It’s not just guys that feel diminished by lack of meaningful work. I’ve never discovered anything I’m good enough at to earn a living and I’m 47. I managed a 16-year relationship before it broke up, which was horrible but at least it doesn’t leave me with anything I have to prove; comparatively the longest I’ve held a job without being sacked is one year. One of the few insightful things Freud ever said that didn’t sound as if he made it up was that ‘love and work’ define human beings. I suspect those of us who have little objective proof of their value in the erotic or the commercial marketplace feel the lack, women or men.
Am trying to learn copy-editing (the arcane marks! the grammar!) because the work I enjoyed most at a voluntary job was proofreading.
One of the things I find hardest with creative writing is the voice at the back of my head saying ‘you know few and have done nothing–what right do you have to write anything and what subject do you know?’. I suspect I’m struggling with the ‘creative’ end at the moment for similar reasons and I’d feel happier cleaning up someone else’s attempt to write English prose, or trying to write non-fiction.
Hi Alex,
Well, you know there’s no law that says that one must find one’s true calling by some sort of deadline.
And RE: what right do you have to write, etc.: Writing is not a calling that is granted to an author because of some pre-existing set of qualifications. Writing is something that an author just decides to do and then does.
No permission is required.
Although there is something of a long learning-curve. 😉