Creating realistic, well-developed characters that readers can believe in is one of the biggest challenges authors face. Careers for Your Characters makes it easier than ever by providing detailed descriptions for the ninety-nine most written-about professions - everything from ad executives to waiters. Each entry consists of a written description and a breakdown of the fine details,including education, salary, jargon, hazards, rewards and a typical daily schedule. Packed with informative sidebars and call-outs, this reader-friendly, interactive reference enables writers of any skill level to create characters whose professional lives resonate with realistic details and insider insights.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Raymond Obstfeld is the author of twenty-seven books including The Novelist's Essential Guide to Crafting Scenes. He heads the writing course at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California, and has taught at Cambridge University, and the University of California at Irvine. He has written mysteries, suspense thrillers and mainstream novels that have been published in eleven different languages. Four of his novels have been optioned for movies. Raymond lives in Tustin, California. Franz Neumann has written two novels, numerous short stories and has published nonfiction in Salon.com. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing and resides in Long Beach, California.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
45 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Outsider's view of professions but of some value,
By A Customer
This review is from: Careers for Your Characters: A Writer's Guide to 101 Professions from Architect to Zookeeper (Paperback)
This book has positives and negatives. I would not advise using it in lieu of talking to multiple real people in the profession you are casting your characters. Having worked in a couple of the profiled professions, this book gave an outsider's viewpoint with some of the info downright wrong and some skewed. The occupation buzzwords given are strange: not the most common words and a weird assortment.Positives: The chapter end references are useful. I liked the listing of fiction and nonfiction books using given occupations. The information given could be a starting point, but I would check everything with real people in the profession.
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not as detailed as I would like...,
By
This review is from: Careers for Your Characters: A Writer's Guide to 101 Professions from Architect to Zookeeper (Paperback)
I picked up "careers for your characters" hoping that this book might assist me in fleshing out the backgrounds of some of my characters in my writing. While I enjoyed some excerpts, I found the careers mentioned weren't detailed enough to be useful. In particular, the section on law enforcement was pretty thin. There weren't very many surprises either in the choices of 'careers' mentioned, except perhaps: sex worker, and even this 'career' seemed included more for prurient reasons. Overall, it might be useful for those who know absolutely /nothing/ about the trade they are writing about... But for me I found it to be only an average resource - one I'll probably shelve and not refer to.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Very limited use,
By
This review is from: Careers for Your Characters: A Writer's Guide to 101 Professions from Architect to Zookeeper (Paperback)
The book covers 15 professional fields: Advertising, Architecture, Clergy, Legal, Dentistry, Education, Firefighting, Journalism, Law Enforcement, Life Sciences, Modeling, Moviemaking, Politics, and the Sex Industry. Within each topic are some job descriptions, a bit of day-in-the-life, education, and salary. It's a pretty broad brush that might be okay for a short story or for a minor character, but there's nowhere near enough information for a fully-fleshed character in a novel-length work.
Personally, I would recommend looking in the Career/Job Search section of your library or bookstore, and at the government's Occupational Outlook Handbook. Information in these resources is often more detailed - career paths, personality traits, day-to-day tasks, etc. Generally, I like Raymond Obstfeld's books, but this one just wasn't one of them.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
The world of advertising has been a popular fiction setting for several reasons: (1) It's cutthroat, so there's lots of plot and character conflict, (2) many writers (such as Elmore Leonard and James Patterson) received their training in advertising, so it's a world they know a lot about, (3) there's much creative activity, which makes it natural to reveal the creative side of a character, (4) the stakes, in terms of money and career, are high, and (5) built into the business is the age-old theme of commerce vs. art. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
architectural drafters, modeling industry, median annual earnings, smoke jumpers, arson investigators Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Job Description, Further Info, Further Reading, New York, Jobs Within the Profession, Los Angeles, Book Excerpts, Fiction Books, San Francisco, Secret Service, House of Representatives, Capitol Hill, John Grisham, White House, Writers Guild of America, Ayn Rand, Directors Guild of America, Equity Association, Henry Cameron, Literary Agents, William Goldman, Additional Occupations Other, American Bar Association, Case of Need, Central Intelligence Agency New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
The world of advertising has been a popular fiction setting for several reasons: (1) It's cutthroat, so there's lots of plot and character conflict, (2) many writers (such as Elmore Leonard and James Patterson) received their training in advertising, so it's a world they know a lot about, (3) there's much creative activity, which makes it natural to reveal the creative side of a character, (4) the stakes, in terms of money and career, are high, and (5) built into the business is the age-old theme of commerce vs. art. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
architectural drafters, modeling industry, median annual earnings, smoke jumpers, arson investigators Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Job Description, Further Info, Further Reading, New York, Jobs Within the Profession, Los Angeles, Book Excerpts, Fiction Books, San Francisco, Secret Service, House of Representatives, Capitol Hill, John Grisham, White House, Writers Guild of America, Ayn Rand, Directors Guild of America, Equity Association, Henry Cameron, Literary Agents, William Goldman, Additional Occupations Other, American Bar Association, Case of Need, Central Intelligence Agency New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 100
books:
See all 100 books this book cites
- Keeper of the House by Rebecca T. Godwin on page 304, page 306, and page 307
- The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans on page 140, and page 142
- The Running Mate by Joe Klein on page 288, and page 291
- Death of a Dentist (Hamish Macbeth Mysteries, No. 13) by M. C. Beaton on page 106, and page 108
- A Case of Need by Michael Crichton on page 218, and page 223
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