What Do Your Characters’ Jobs Reveal About Them?

Jobs are hard for writers. Not that employment is hard, or even writing, although they are, but deciding on jobs for characters is especially hard. A reader’s first impression of the hero and heroine might be provided by their occupations and go a long way toward establishing personality traits.

If your blurb indicates that a hero is a cowboy or an oil-rig worker, that describes a type of physicality that wouldn’t necessarily be associated with a doctor or an accountant. The difference betwee...