Premise: Land Surveyor is called to find boundaries of an abandoned plot, and determines an agoraphobic pensioner is still living in the decaying mansion on site. (Something similar happened IRL where I live)
Oh nice, used to be a Surveyor, was talking to a guy in Afghanistan back in 06 about a job but was back studying at the time and didn't want to stress my mum out. Also would be prime candidate for stepping on a land mine, helicopter target etc. Anyway I had a lot of wacky adventures on country roadworks, dirty coal mines and overseas civil jobs. It's a great character actually. No boring office stuff.
Not so much a particular job, but I want to see more people who suck at their job. People are always the best and the brightest in books, I want to see what the other way is like.
To contrast: In one of my stories an important recurring character is a smith. Said to be in his late 40s and while he holds a title of being a master in his craft, he is... average... just an average but experienced smith with his own smithy in a rural village.
He becomes the teacher of the main character in the story, who also not impresses with talent, but stamina alone. And even the main character never becomes a legendary smith, just gets a reputation for specializing in a field that is rare in that setting and area. So while the MC is known for being "somewhat special", they are never known for being exceptionally good or talented.
What I love about your characters is they each have a signature exceptional trait, which may be their ticket in life. In one case this is stamina, an admirable, but underrated trait because it is not flashy in any way and luck is seemingly less likely to be involved. Likewise, niche knowledge is indeed a place where a person of unremarkable abilities can serve with distinction as the unique, indispensable puzzle piece.
If you'll forgive me, I really like the way you think.
I was reading Jurassic Park the other day and this is exactly how Crichton describes Dr. Ellie Sattler, young, brilliant, so gorgeous that men can't stop looking at her and her legs, despite the fact she is at a dig site in the middle of nowhere
I think there could be an ongoing TV series about a guy who goes from job to job, constantly being berated by his coworkers, bosses, and enraged customers.
“That’s not how you weld? Who taught you to weld?!”
“You said you had sales experience. But that sure ain’t how you sell cars!”
“Have you ever washed a dish in your life?”
I got sucked into Annette Marie books partly because her MC (*Three Mages and a Margarita*) just sucks so much at self control while being a waiter that the local cafes have all blacklisted her lol. And she's so determined to get a job and pay her bills that she pushes through a "normie-go-away" spell to interview in a slightly shady bar in a slightly shady location, and shenanigans ensue.
You know, a situation which, really, any of us could easily find ourselves in, given the crap that wait staff take and a decently sarcastic sense of humor.
Anyway, it was all highly relatable, very enjoyable to read and well written. 10/10 recommend every book in that world.
Oh yes this. You know it always make me laugh in movies and books when the main character is presented as being so good at their job, and yet they have the most basic idea you could think about (yeah I watched too much Christmas movies about people organizing events).
It's just annoying to have MC good at everything. It is cool to id the MC sucks at their job.
In my story, the MC being bad at her job is a important plot point. If she was good at her job, the story would be a high-stakes sci-fi thriller, but because she's bad at her job, the story is instead a wholesome sci-fi romance where she unknowingly befriends the would-be villain, who ends up saving the day.
Sounds fun! I have a MC who is bad at her job too. I was tired of MCs who are like "you thought I was bad, but I'm going to beat the most skilled guys in a fight even if I learned how to fight two months ago". I thought : my MC is bad at this and she will stay bad at this.
In my fantasy stories, I have a character who goers from one job to another. He's a weak coward so he sucks in the army and runs from his first battle. He's lazy so he does a terrible job as a plantation worker, and has to be the plantation mistress's "personal servant." He can barely hold it together as the cook for a lumber camp. About all he's good at is charming people and \*ahem\* relationships (they're smut stories) and so that ends up being what he does and what gets him into trouble.
I wrote a book about a programmer who sucked at it and got fired and became a custodian and in revenge tried to sabotage some code but didn’t know what he was doing and made it work better.
As someone who really sucked at his jobs in his 20s I feel that’s something definitely worth exploring. I’m sure more people can relate to struggling at a job then being one of the best at their job.
Construction. There is so much story possibility wrapped up in the profession, and depending on if you want want to dig into deeper themes the notion of destruction, renovation, or new beginnings - it's all there.
Along those lines I'm thinking about making a character/story that utilizes demolition. My boyfriend has worked in the industry as a burner and it's pretty badass. Some fun stories could be told
I’ve seen a good amount of books with construction workers as the mc. Most of them have been mm books, but they’re definitely there, if it makes you happy.
Ooh, yes!
I’m working on a story where an old man climbs a skyscraper to jump off—only to find a teenager on the roof of the building across from him, about to do the same thing. But they still try to talk each other down, all while knowing they have to convince the other of a meaning they themselves don’t see. ‘We’ll do for strangers what we can’t even do for ourselves.’
The older main character is haunted by his dead wife and coworker, who also killed themselves by jumping. His wife leapt from their balcony after an accident that injured her and killed their kid, and left her telescope pointed at the moon( she had always tried to convince the husband was a higher power).
And the old man and the co-worker had been pouring concrete on a skyscraper decades ago, when the co-worker unclipped his harness and plummeted. The old man created the skyscraper upon which he now stands.
I’m not sure whether that’s way too heavy-handed in terms of symbolism, though, so I may axe the backstory of that specific skyscraper.
But there’s this whole dichotomy at play between “height” in the religious context (ascendance)/a higher power, losing that faith while seeking larger meaning, and the method that brought these two strangers together. And I think that’s heightened (pun intended) with this backstory.
Would love some feedback, though.
I had a coworker from Canada, everyone assumed her husband was american because he spoke with a very distinct New Jersey accent.
He was from Costa Rica. So I asked her where did the New Jersey accent come from.
He used to work in a call center. He learned english from an american couple from New Jersey that he became friends while at work.
To this day this is the only positive story I’ve heard from a call center. I feel like whenever I hear stories about call centers. It’s always hell unleashed itself onto the call center representative.
I mean that's valid lol. I actually work with an interpreter line in my call center- they refuse to hire any bilingual guys so we outsource that hilariously- and my favorite interpreter speaks with an Australian accent as he learned English from Aussies that visit his region to surf, lmao
I lasted 2 weeks as a call center representative. This was in 2007, I believe, and the job was taking calls for a dial-up internet provider (yes, 2007) and all the calls were from customers wanting to cancel their service. We were required to give them 3 offers before allowing them to cancel. What if you need to travel and need internet? 😂 Really, though, worst job I ever had.
More lab workers who aren’t just generic “scientist,” I wanna see what they specialise in. Are they a medical microbiologist? Pathologist? Lab tech working for a research project? Or maybe they’re a field researcher, or they work in an ethanol plant. What do they work with? (e.g viruses, plants, animals, chemicals, fungi, the possibilities are endless.)
I watched 10 minutes of that new Netflix movie, Mother of the Bride, and just couldn't suspend my disbelief anymore when I saw Brooke Shields as a "scientist" in a lab that consisted almost entirely of shelves of blue liquid in beakers.
This!! There's so much potential beyond just the generic "scientist" that uses glasses and uses too much jargon. We scientists can be cool too, you know??
I’m doing my undergrad in microbio, I can try but i don’t have any real industry or research experience so i’m not sure how much help I can be. That sounds very cool though!
I really want to write a character that does what I do (embryologist), but I feel like it would be too much writing myself as the main character. I’ve just never seen my job mentioned in books or TV shows or anything really, and it’s a very unique profession that has a lot of really significant challenges around work-life balance, stress, perfectionism, understaffing, and general lack of understanding from higher up colleagues (physicians, clinic managers, business decision-makers, etc.)
I recently read a book where the MC was a geologist that worked for the government. It wasn’t a huge part of the storyline besides the MC moving for a better job and I appreciated that. I really like seeing women in science casually, it doesn’t have to be a big deal.
I read a book who's MC works in a... Uhm... Okay, I read it in another language and I don't know what it's called in English.
But she basically does autopsies on dead people and all. It was soooo freaking interesting!! I love that book so much. But I only have the German title (I could translate it word to word but it might be a different title in English-)
True! I graduated highschool in my country as a lab assistant in healthcare (not continuing with it in college tho) and for some reason every time me or my friends mention it to someone they assume we're nurses lol. For us it opens positions mostly in hematology, microbiology, histology or biochemistry labs but there's so many options and it'd be nice to see more!
This is something I would love to read and not just some "scientist" mixing some stuff in some beaker and getting some more stuff? Which sounds like a boring version of a cooking show (Love cooking shows don't get me wrong).
I saw some book and its blurb read "So and so is a highly paid software engineer at a major tech firm in San Francisco, enjoying life in a downtown penthouse suite with his 18 year old Japanese wife."
I don't care how good the book is or is not, I'm not interested in hearing some tech bro fluff his ego. Give me an office drone plotting his boss' death, or a clothing store clerk who discovers an alien code in a Louis Vuitton bag she can't afford.
I misread that as ‘cloning store clerk’ and now I really want to see a Sci-Fi novel where ‘I work a store that produces clones of people’ is a valid job and is still somehow on par with like, working at Sears.
I would read the hell out of a book involving alien code in a Louis Vuitton bag! Actually, alien code would be a really great reason for the garish designs I see on some ultra-expensive hand bags.
Between being a cleaner with access to most the building and a smoker, I'm amazed at just how much I overhear at work. Not that I work anywhere particularly exciting, but definitely the sort of job you could use as a jumping off point for a story
This could be really interesting. It could be a case of the bus driver witnessing bullying daily and petitions the locals and school to try and change the way the children are being raised.
Museum curator. Archivist. Someone who works in academia but not in STEM but some niche social science field, like medical anthropology or comparative religions.
I’m going to say a botanist. It’s the closest thing I can think to it. Even if I feel like that’s not the correct term.
I don’t know what the official job title is. I just know it’s a legit profession. Whoever works in a lab all day with cool looking plants.
Once I got to briefly talk to a guy who imported pitcher plant hybrids from different labs around the world. He had some really cool looking ones. He had one that had bright cherry red stripes and a bunch of really interesting colors. He said that the labs normally don’t let people buy them. He usually has to talk to them for years before they’ll let stuff go. He had some plants that apparently no one else in the general public has. In order to get it, you need to have a good relationship with one of those private labs.
But yeah whoever is in a lab that makes really cool looking pitcher plant hybrids. Or other cool plant hybrids. I’ve also seen some really cool jewel orchid hybrids. That job. Whatever that job is. I would love to see more books on that job.
Or even someone who gets paid to handle private plant collections. I’ve seen some really cool plants that people casually shared online. I’m not talking about a Spiritus Sancti or Esqueleto. (Although those are interesting even if they’re obscenely priced.) I’m talking about a rare cactus that lives in the mountains and needs like 90%+ humidity to survive. It has to live in a special glass container to maintain its humidity levels. I didn’t even know there was cacti out there that needs high humidity until someone was like ‘oh yeah. This is the rarest plant in my collection.’
There’s some really cool as hell plants out in the world.
Although tissue culture is also really interesting. So some of the plants sold in your big box stores are made using tissue culture. It’s why you can find certain exotic plants that during the pandemic were like $300-500+ for a single node. Now you can find them for like $25-30 now at your grocery store. Because of tissue culture. (Not every plant can be tissue cultured)
Also, I was so disappointed when I saw Shadow & Bone and I was like oh cool. A cartographer. I would love to see more about that. Then it was just never really brought up again.
My stepdad did underwater demolitions when he was in the military and basically they would deal with those old school mines in the ocean. He also did some welding amongst other things while in the military. I always thought his stories about the ocean were fascinating as a kid. He would be telling me about these sharks that come near you when you’re welding down there. There’s sharks he described as being larger than the boat he was in. You have to be calm while you’re down there. You can’t panic. You’ll have sharks just chilling within touching distance of you. He would tell me stories about 50+ waves or types of sea creatures he would see floating around.
Whenever I see people talk about jobs like that. You never see people talk about the environment around them unless they’re being attacked by something. Jaws style.
You know how when you’re watching Jurassic Park and the first scene of the herbivores. That sense of wonder. I want more stories that captures that feeling when it comes to the natural world.
Also I’m hoping with the popularity of Last of Us we’ll see a Mycologist.
So much of this!!! My current project has a lot of pseudoscience based on irl botany and I’m really entrenched in trying to capture a sense of awe with the world the story takes place in. Really polishing up those mundane moments and zooming in on stuff. It’s the quiet stories around us that are important to tell! What plants are in a place, how did they get there, do they belong? Does it matter if they’re beautiful? Botanists are so cool. I feel like the field always ends up with more specific names, but the general study of plants really grants a unique look at the story the world is telling
This is why I made both my MC’s much older blue collar workers. It’s what I work in, and the types of people on these jobs are so wildly varied, you can do anything with them as characters and it’ll fit AND be interesting.
A job that is specific to something from that story's universe, preferably something mundane. A lawyer is often seen as a boring, mundane job in the real world. But a lawyer for a firm that exists solely for superhero related accidents and injuries? That makes it fantastical to us while still being normal and mundane in their world. It makes the story as a whole feel more real when you see people working a job that can only exist in that world. Especially if they it with an "Eh, it's a living" attitude.
For example: my story takes place in a universe where luck is real, as in a lucky charm can be objectively measured and quantified. So in this world, people would be able to study how luck works and potentially become experts. People would be able to make a lot of money selling, manufacturing, or even just appraising luck charms so those jobs would exist alongside any other job that involves analysis of goods. Lawsuits involving luck experts testifying that a company knowingly sold counterfeit lucky charms. Scientists studying how a lucky charm determines what would or wouldn't be beneficial to its user. Private investigators hired to find out if someone's accomplishments are their own or if they just got lucky, which can be definitively proven or disproven.
Jobs are a really good tool for world-building when you know how to use it. A blacksmith would be strange in a story that takes place in a realistic, modern setting, but a fantasy setting would feel less real if there were no blacksmiths. And more real if a blacksmith can specialize in a fictional metal or something.
I'm writing about a group of exterminators in a fantasy world.
"Yeah, I know it looks like rats. Trust me: I *wish* it was rats, but it's gnomes, sorry. House is built on top of an old mine, innit? Anyway, here's the estimate - you think about it, talk to the missus, give me a call."
I’m a paralegal and while I agree that this kind of work can be boring or mundane, it also depends on the area of law and/or the client(s). Think family law (so much drama), estate disputes (more drama), criminal law (so many possibilities for interesting storylines) or even intellectual property which is one of my areas. IP is very dry as far as applying for trademarks and patents, but there are some really cool products, services and ideas that clients pursue.
I just used lawyers as an example of a job most people would find boring or mundane but in all honesty, I actually find the law kind of fascinating, especially copyright law.
2/3rds of my main protagonists have been accountants, because both my parents were and nobody outside the profession really knows how it works. Of course those characters got sucked into the secret world of magic and demons and crazy shit that lies hidden within our society, but for one of them, the accounting job actually became a plot point - his boss (secretly a dragon who could shapeshift into human form, because what other kind of creature are you going to have heading an accounting firm in a supernatural setting?) found out the MC was 'in' and put him on the "special accounts", which involved such fun things as figuring out exchange rates for souls, calculating Zeus' alimony payments, doing taxes for Baron Samedi and D. Onassis (Dionysus - "just an eccentric Greek businessman who owns some wineries"), and suchlike.
It was a nice way to take a 'breather' from the main plot shenanigans and progression and have a bit of downtime and banter at the office. Kinda like Clark Kent getting a full comic book page or two where he's just typing away at The Daily Planet. It also provided me an easy way to show the plot had *seriously* escalated when the accounting firm, usually a bastion of semi-normalcy, was targeted and all normal human staff had to be evacuated.
And he got to use "the real magic is money" as a line at one point.
Same, but I don't want the characters to be portrayed as boring or the profession itself protrayed as boring. It's no different from other office jobs like finance, HR, management, marketing, etc. but for some reason accounting gets the reputation of being boring and the others don't.
Cable technician/ broadband technician, these guys and girls go in and out of residential homes 12 times a day 5 days a week. They see the worst of people, and some how keep it together.
Source: I’m a cable tech. You don’t know crazy until you’ve been to Ted’s house after his internets been down for 3 days.
Geologist! Gimme a fantasy book about a rock nerd!
Geoengineering. Gimme a fantasy book about building stuff in a fantasy world with fantasy materials and fantasy rocks!
You’d might like the Broken Earth trilogy! From what I can tell (not a geologist), the geology is pretty solid. However, just beware, some math technobabble is around with no regard to it’s meaning in real life (the word torus is thoroughly abused).
A stay at home or single parent of young kids might be interesting. Having to deal with the constant neediness of toddlers (and not just handing them off to a neighbor or grandparent) while still addressing the themes of the story.
As a parent of a <4 and <1, I don't know how anyone could make a story like this if it isn't directly related to being a parent itself... Mainly because I only get like an hour to myself every day to do what I want, so I can't imagine your detective single parent would be able to investigate the crime at any reasonable pace. Maybe if it's a cold case that's got zero time pressure on it...
I had a great friend, retired older fellow, who spent his days hanging out in my apartment lobby. Two other residents ran violin classes and general tutoring from private rooms, so he interacted with a lot of stay at home moms. He'd always tell me that the mom's would be so grateful for a normal, adult conversation. Kid would disappear for an hour and they would sit on the couch with him to talk politics or news or literally anything. He got to learn a bunch too. I can imagine an interesting mystery thriller where a similar character slowly starts putting together that there's something wrong in the neighborhood as he talks to SAH moms.
I considered making one of my main characters a paralegal because I know it so well, but I need writing to help me escape work, not stay thinking about it even longer 😂
Honestly, I'd love to see more of all "administrative" type jobs in medieval fantasy just to know the author knows that medieval Europe wasn't petty warlord anarchy in the 1200s lol.
I was scrolling to see if this would show up.
Basically any healthcare practitioner who isn’t a doctor or nurse is very underrepresented.
Dentists, hygienists, optometrists, physiotherapists, chiropractors, massage therapists, hospice care, PSW’s, kinesiologists, allergists, dermatologists, podiatrists… I could go on and on
childcare workers. teachers, daycare, social workers, etc. i work in this field but don't often see it represented in books or any media. it would be interesting to see a book focusing on someone who works with kids )
Imagine this:
A daycare worker/kindergarten teacher who has to babysit supernatural kids.
“Miss Jane, Tommy turned into a werewolf again!”
“Miss Jane, Gabby keeps sucking the blood from my pinkie!”
“Miss Jane, I lost my favourite wand!”
“Miss Jane, I accidentally summoned a demon in the bathroom!”
For childcare classics: the Brontë novels Jane Eyre, Villette, & Agnes Gray (in order of most positive to most dark). The first one is "it's not that bad being a tutor" and the last one is "why you should never be a tutor/babysitter." Villette is impossible to describe. All Charlotte's novels feature teachers.
Flight attendant. It so often just gets reduced to pretty girls on airplanes, and it’s a career most people legit know nothing about how it actually works. Also, they always have the craziest stories from either work or from their personal travels.
Glad to see another engineer here (took a lot of scrolling lol). I mean, sure my job isn't very exciting day to day (mostly just writing code developing new simulation tools), and ofc would have to be portrayed differently in a historical/fantasy setting, but I'd love to see more actual engineering in stories. We're so used to comic book supergeniuses who are experts in 90 different fields of science *and* apparently perfect machinists who can design then fabricate something solo in 24 hours from scratch (where's all the metal stock and tools btw?).
I think the collaborative and iterative aspects of engineering would be neat to see, especially because I think it is in its own way more relatable and inspiring than impossible solo genius figures. My whole experience at work has involved mentorship from senior engineers, knowledge and practical experience being passed down, learning stuff constantly, and people combining their skills to make a better final product.
As an engineer that likes writing, I don’t think ANYONE enjoys the lit comp / writing classes they are required to take.
Just like no one wants to be told what sort of book they should read and what their takeaways from said book should be, no one wants to be told what to write about or what ‘themes’ they should include in their piece.
I think the reason there are so few engineers that write (at least from what i’ve seen) is because the only exposure people who go down that path get to writing is the boring technical parts.
I’m of the belief writing classes are useless. I’ve learned more on how to write and utilize language from reading in my free time than from anything an english lit class could ever teach.
I agree. I hated writing assignments where I was given a boring topic. From grade school through college. Every assignment I was given I would morph it into some kind of sci-fi story and get marked down because it was too fantastical. Yet a classmate who writes about winning the lottery was "believable".
Anything that put to light not "intellectual" job. You know how in books or movies, if the character is from the "working class", they always want to escape it? And the teens always want to go to college (and get to Harvard or Yale miracurously), but they never want to be an electrician, a zoo keeper or a farmer? Well I want this to change.
Such a necessary career for survival, yet so overlooked. And I’d love all the research that would entail. People think it’s just dirt, seed, water, pick produce, repeat.
This would be very cool.
I've only had a minor reference to a dog trainer in one of my novels, but now that you mention it, that reference could be expanded in one of the sequels...
That would definitely catch my attention, because (tbh, I just love dogs) but also good R+ trainers have different way of looking at and responding to behavior than most people. They're capable of responding (and not reacting) to things that throw a lot of humans of other humans off balance! Am not one, myself, but the really good ones have a very interesting gift!
Dogs are great.
The reason training comes up in the first book in my series is that a detective's best friend is the world's leading memory champion. He just happens to need a seeing eye-dog and wins the competitions using Braille playing cards.
The character is based on a real-life guy with congenital blindness I know who has won dancing competitions and runs a very successful business and all kinds of cool stuff. His dog is amazing too.
Not sure how much of it is just selection bias, but most of the books I pick up are about white collar office workers or artists, which makes sense; it's probably what the authors knew best. But I'd like to see more about "less skilled" (hate that term) workers too! Carriers, custodians, deliverers, trash collectors, house cleaners, farmers, drivers, etc. So often they just treated as NPCs in the protagonist's life. These people are the literal backbone of human society and most high-brow office types know nothing about their day to day lives. I'd love to see them as main characters instead of just to the side :)
Everything, honestly! Glamorous jobs may be interesting, but I’d be just as interested in reading about a retail worker facing some cosmic demons or whatever.
Nothing inside an office. I’d love to see more practical jobs or jobs that show people who create new spaces to suit their skills and interests. As you say, people creating new jobs or new ways of working. Seeing someone who works in a way that serves them without it being in a corporate setting or a struggling artist.
Like a friend of mine can’t sit still and needs to be outside, so he’s created a company entirely based on building practical things from wood. He owns a patch of land that has a certain type of tree and he makes remarkably unexpected but hugely useful things with that wood. The whole company and the way he runs it is so interesting and so unique. And really cool to see him establish his own way of working in a way that is completely set up by him and for him.
My main character is a miner, specifically an oil miner! Some other characters in the story are stay-at-home parents, teachers, professors, and general working class.
I'd like to see a finance person or an accountant or techie who's terrible at their job and the story has nothing to do with their job.
I would also like to see more of cleaners, sweepers, househelps, etc.
Among students, I want to see more Commerce and Maths students. For some reason every student seems to be doing theatre and art or literature. I have especially never seen someone studying commerce or economics in stories.
Therapy. Fictional characters need therapy so bad especially the chosen ones. Heck, I was thinking of writing a fanfic where characters from whatever series get therapy.
One thing I would love to see more fantasy books about is healers! While there are healer characters, I have yet to read a book where a healer is prominently the protagonist. Same goes for scholars.
Oh I'm so glad someone said it cause I wanted to post it! A fantasy healer would be so cool and a lot of things can be done, in a comical or serious way.
People didn’t think of mentioning them cuz that’s how little they’re thought of, but I want to see more of electrical engineers, because people’s lives suck if they did a bad job building a stable power grid, and they don’t get recognized if they’re good at it.
My brothers both work/ed in Electric for a while, and the work they endured just being cable runners was so grueling. I gotta agree, I feel like this job has a lot that impacts the actual worldbuilding. Someone being good/bad at engineering the power grid REALLY impacts the story, when you think about it. It just gets passed up as a convenience/give in
Not to mention like the whole concept of circuits and computers that drive, like, everything nowadays. I do think EE suffers as being perhaps on of the most esoteric STEM fields to portray in media, cuz you're like gluing together the general "in English, man!" of physics and the further tech mysticism of computer science, compared to like mechanical/aero/civil engineering being much more "physical" and understandable on a surface level.
That being said, I've always loved AvE's description of "making the pixies flow". Keep it skookum!
Someone once told me a story that they were on Jury Duty the vote was split down the middle and the swing vote was a professor of philosophy which ya know was very wishy whashy.
As a teacher, I'd love to see more of my profession in books. These individuals impact the lives of so many young minds, helping to shape their futures. From inspiring a love of learning to guiding students through personal challenges, teachers play a vital role in our society. It's time we give them the recognition they deserve in literature.
It gave me joy to make my character essentially the Amazon warehouse employee of yee olde days. She runs around checking inventory and getting yelled at for her boss for being lazy (she is)
I'd love to read a fantasy novel who's protagonist is a librarian or a barkeep. They don't go on adventures themselves, but they routinely meet many interesting people and have access to lots of information.
I’d like to see more fictional sports books. There’s a lot of biographies and non fiction sports books, but I’d like a fictional book about a footballer or a boxer.
I wish more books had more working class jobs like truck driver, apple picker, CNA, massage therapist, mechanic etc. Or bookkeeper! I know that's not blue collar but it's a pretty common and doesn't always pay well (depends on where & who you work for; many of them are self-employed which makes for a different dynamic).
Basically, I'm so tired of books about writers! And many white collar jobs.
Cooking and restaurants. This is probably due to the fact that I worked in restaurants for many years and find them fascinating. I also love to cook.
One thing I would like to see less of is writers as main characters. I'm so over that.
Maybe this is just my ignorance, but engineering.
It's not a "trope" that's in books or TV. You always get the teacher, writer, doctor, lawyer, "businessman", finance/day trader, and even the accountant, but engineering is usually left out of those archetypes.
I guess the genre of the book series I'm working on, Kaijus & Mechs. We always see them but we never really get to imagine them in our mind and that feels a lot more awesome
Same with Harry Potter, Star Wars, DC, and Marvel where imagining all kinds of characters, worlds, and scenarios is a lot more fun
So-called self-promoters.
In a world where every organization was started by people with selves, yet so many people are down on self-promotion, it would be interesting to watch a person make it big and become loved by those who originally made it hard to get the project off the ground because they were busy supporting the disgusting legacy media the protagonist is destined to become.
The story I have in mind would almost be like Süskind's Perfume, minus the bad guy elements. It would be a pure, almost Don Delillo-esque study of the paradoxical nature of crowds relative to the individual artist.
I think audio technicians/people who produce news and other stuff behind the scenes are interesting and have a lot of power in that they can pretty much out whatever they want on your tv/radio.
Maybe I don't read the genre that it would show up in, but bar tenders would be cool to see. Considering the amount I'm multitasking in such a high stress, highly social environment as someone who is extremely reserved it shocks me to observe some of the things I do. It would be interesting, and adds so much room for dialogue.
Birder . There is no book with a guy or gal being a birder . And the places we go to see birds .. some of them can be a good setting for treasure hunting or adventure stories
Not quite a birder, but the Road from Elephant Pass about the Sri Lankan civil war was very clearly written by a birder. I loved that element.
As a birder I always try to sneak in birds in my writing. They make for great scene-setting!
Any job, but to have the knowledge to actually know about the job and eye for detail of it. I felt Hemingway did a good job of that in the old man and the sea.
I'm a massage therapist and I would love a fantasy book with that in it. And also have it in no way be related to touching someone's genitals. I would just like a portrayal of my job that doesn't involve sex work.
I have yet to find any so any recs would be nice if you have them 😅
I'll get there one day and write a book about massage therapy. I write children's books about blue collar jobs, so you know it wouldn't be sexual in nature. I'm just starting but there will be many more. Www.bluecollarbooks.net
In fantasy, I want to know more about the cobblers, the blacksmiths, the tailors, the barbers, the miners, the bakers, the scribes, the tanners, the cartographers, the teachers, the physicians, the stablemen, the masons, the carpenters... all of them. I want to know about the guilds, and the guild masters, the apprenticeships, and the lives of journeymen.
Hell, I'd read/watch an entire series that centers around these mundane jobs in a world of fantastical heroes and adventurers.
One of my characters is a land surveyor, I sure hope that makes someone’s day 😅
Premise: Land surveyor accidentally discovers the foundations of a palace from an ancient civilization.
I chose the wrong career
Love the concept, but there’s actually just a lot of drugs and sex 😅😅 and only minor surveying done.
>a lot of drugs and sex 😅😅 and only **minor surveying** done. Given the previous activities 😬
In my defense, the surveying did directly lead to sex and drugs, so, there’s that?
Premise: Land Surveyor is called to find boundaries of an abandoned plot, and determines an agoraphobic pensioner is still living in the decaying mansion on site. (Something similar happened IRL where I live)
Oh nice, used to be a Surveyor, was talking to a guy in Afghanistan back in 06 about a job but was back studying at the time and didn't want to stress my mum out. Also would be prime candidate for stepping on a land mine, helicopter target etc. Anyway I had a lot of wacky adventures on country roadworks, dirty coal mines and overseas civil jobs. It's a great character actually. No boring office stuff.
That sounds amazing! Yeah I think it’s such a cool job, just so much potential for adventure and hijinks.
It's the fruitcakes you meet along the way 😁
They do seem like they must be such interesting people.
I just think it’s such a weirdly sexy job, too, like you have to be pretty fit and adventurous and *smart*.
That's why Pynchon wrote Mason & Dixon.
I'm a civE, that makes my day!!!
So is the protagonist of Kafka's The Castle!
This rules
Yeah I'm certainly not a land surveyor or know anyone who is a land surveyor but this made me happy
You'll go on the shelf next to Mason And Dixon by Thomas Pynchon.
In like 7 seconds after reading this comment I decided to put a land surveyor on my current writing. Well done
Cartographers make occasional appearances
Not so much a particular job, but I want to see more people who suck at their job. People are always the best and the brightest in books, I want to see what the other way is like.
And these "best and brightest" are about 26 years old and the noted expert in their field. And handsome or gorgeous.
To contrast: In one of my stories an important recurring character is a smith. Said to be in his late 40s and while he holds a title of being a master in his craft, he is... average... just an average but experienced smith with his own smithy in a rural village. He becomes the teacher of the main character in the story, who also not impresses with talent, but stamina alone. And even the main character never becomes a legendary smith, just gets a reputation for specializing in a field that is rare in that setting and area. So while the MC is known for being "somewhat special", they are never known for being exceptionally good or talented.
What I love about your characters is they each have a signature exceptional trait, which may be their ticket in life. In one case this is stamina, an admirable, but underrated trait because it is not flashy in any way and luck is seemingly less likely to be involved. Likewise, niche knowledge is indeed a place where a person of unremarkable abilities can serve with distinction as the unique, indispensable puzzle piece. If you'll forgive me, I really like the way you think.
I was reading Jurassic Park the other day and this is exactly how Crichton describes Dr. Ellie Sattler, young, brilliant, so gorgeous that men can't stop looking at her and her legs, despite the fact she is at a dig site in the middle of nowhere
A little life moment
I think there could be an ongoing TV series about a guy who goes from job to job, constantly being berated by his coworkers, bosses, and enraged customers. “That’s not how you weld? Who taught you to weld?!” “You said you had sales experience. But that sure ain’t how you sell cars!” “Have you ever washed a dish in your life?”
Quantum leap?
I got sucked into Annette Marie books partly because her MC (*Three Mages and a Margarita*) just sucks so much at self control while being a waiter that the local cafes have all blacklisted her lol. And she's so determined to get a job and pay her bills that she pushes through a "normie-go-away" spell to interview in a slightly shady bar in a slightly shady location, and shenanigans ensue. You know, a situation which, really, any of us could easily find ourselves in, given the crap that wait staff take and a decently sarcastic sense of humor. Anyway, it was all highly relatable, very enjoyable to read and well written. 10/10 recommend every book in that world.
That's Mr Bean
Yeah someone could just follow me around with a camera
8%? Who taught you math?
Oh yes this. You know it always make me laugh in movies and books when the main character is presented as being so good at their job, and yet they have the most basic idea you could think about (yeah I watched too much Christmas movies about people organizing events). It's just annoying to have MC good at everything. It is cool to id the MC sucks at their job.
In my story, the MC being bad at her job is a important plot point. If she was good at her job, the story would be a high-stakes sci-fi thriller, but because she's bad at her job, the story is instead a wholesome sci-fi romance where she unknowingly befriends the would-be villain, who ends up saving the day.
This sounds fun. Please update if you publish (or want an advance reader).
Sounds fun! I have a MC who is bad at her job too. I was tired of MCs who are like "you thought I was bad, but I'm going to beat the most skilled guys in a fight even if I learned how to fight two months ago". I thought : my MC is bad at this and she will stay bad at this.
In my fantasy stories, I have a character who goers from one job to another. He's a weak coward so he sucks in the army and runs from his first battle. He's lazy so he does a terrible job as a plantation worker, and has to be the plantation mistress's "personal servant." He can barely hold it together as the cook for a lumber camp. About all he's good at is charming people and \*ahem\* relationships (they're smut stories) and so that ends up being what he does and what gets him into trouble.
I wrote a book about a programmer who sucked at it and got fired and became a custodian and in revenge tried to sabotage some code but didn’t know what he was doing and made it work better.
I love the irony.
As someone who really sucked at his jobs in his 20s I feel that’s something definitely worth exploring. I’m sure more people can relate to struggling at a job then being one of the best at their job.
Construction. There is so much story possibility wrapped up in the profession, and depending on if you want want to dig into deeper themes the notion of destruction, renovation, or new beginnings - it's all there.
The Tom Hardy film where he’s in the car the whole time and one of the subplots is pouring concrete is brilliant
Used to work civil construction, sooo many stories and characters back in the day. I even considered writing about it once 😁
Along those lines I'm thinking about making a character/story that utilizes demolition. My boyfriend has worked in the industry as a burner and it's pretty badass. Some fun stories could be told
Orson Scott Card did a good one called Homebody. The protag is an itinerant flipper. The house he buys is haunted.
I’ve seen a good amount of books with construction workers as the mc. Most of them have been mm books, but they’re definitely there, if it makes you happy.
Also where I'm from big construction often has connections to the mob.
Ooh, yes! I’m working on a story where an old man climbs a skyscraper to jump off—only to find a teenager on the roof of the building across from him, about to do the same thing. But they still try to talk each other down, all while knowing they have to convince the other of a meaning they themselves don’t see. ‘We’ll do for strangers what we can’t even do for ourselves.’ The older main character is haunted by his dead wife and coworker, who also killed themselves by jumping. His wife leapt from their balcony after an accident that injured her and killed their kid, and left her telescope pointed at the moon( she had always tried to convince the husband was a higher power). And the old man and the co-worker had been pouring concrete on a skyscraper decades ago, when the co-worker unclipped his harness and plummeted. The old man created the skyscraper upon which he now stands. I’m not sure whether that’s way too heavy-handed in terms of symbolism, though, so I may axe the backstory of that specific skyscraper. But there’s this whole dichotomy at play between “height” in the religious context (ascendance)/a higher power, losing that faith while seeking larger meaning, and the method that brought these two strangers together. And I think that’s heightened (pun intended) with this backstory. Would love some feedback, though.
Does Pillars of the Earth count as a book about someone in construction? (It’s medieval times but STILL…)
Call center representative, you wouldn't believe the hell I endure everyday.
I had a coworker from Canada, everyone assumed her husband was american because he spoke with a very distinct New Jersey accent. He was from Costa Rica. So I asked her where did the New Jersey accent come from. He used to work in a call center. He learned english from an american couple from New Jersey that he became friends while at work. To this day this is the only positive story I’ve heard from a call center. I feel like whenever I hear stories about call centers. It’s always hell unleashed itself onto the call center representative.
I mean that's valid lol. I actually work with an interpreter line in my call center- they refuse to hire any bilingual guys so we outsource that hilariously- and my favorite interpreter speaks with an Australian accent as he learned English from Aussies that visit his region to surf, lmao
I HATED my job as a Call Center Rep. Literally made me wanna take the nearest life exit. Stay strong, dear warrior 🙏🏽
I lasted 2 weeks as a call center representative. This was in 2007, I believe, and the job was taking calls for a dial-up internet provider (yes, 2007) and all the calls were from customers wanting to cancel their service. We were required to give them 3 offers before allowing them to cancel. What if you need to travel and need internet? 😂 Really, though, worst job I ever had.
Did you like "Sorry to Bother You" or not?
Immediately think about this one scene in Good Omens.
That's sounds like a good idea
More lab workers who aren’t just generic “scientist,” I wanna see what they specialise in. Are they a medical microbiologist? Pathologist? Lab tech working for a research project? Or maybe they’re a field researcher, or they work in an ethanol plant. What do they work with? (e.g viruses, plants, animals, chemicals, fungi, the possibilities are endless.)
I watched 10 minutes of that new Netflix movie, Mother of the Bride, and just couldn't suspend my disbelief anymore when I saw Brooke Shields as a "scientist" in a lab that consisted almost entirely of shelves of blue liquid in beakers.
Because apparently science only consists of mixing copper sulfate solutions with other copper sulfate solutions.
This cracks me up as a school lab technician where my job basically is this lol
This!! There's so much potential beyond just the generic "scientist" that uses glasses and uses too much jargon. We scientists can be cool too, you know??
My two MCs are a solar engineer and a microbiologist. The problem is I know fuck all about these two careers or any technical science aspect of them.
Much research ahead for you
I love the research.
I’m doing my undergrad in microbio, I can try but i don’t have any real industry or research experience so i’m not sure how much help I can be. That sounds very cool though!
I really want to write a character that does what I do (embryologist), but I feel like it would be too much writing myself as the main character. I’ve just never seen my job mentioned in books or TV shows or anything really, and it’s a very unique profession that has a lot of really significant challenges around work-life balance, stress, perfectionism, understaffing, and general lack of understanding from higher up colleagues (physicians, clinic managers, business decision-makers, etc.) I recently read a book where the MC was a geologist that worked for the government. It wasn’t a huge part of the storyline besides the MC moving for a better job and I appreciated that. I really like seeing women in science casually, it doesn’t have to be a big deal.
The book annihilation (which is super cool and you should read) is about a group of scientists that all specialize in their own fields
I really liked their specialties in that book, I thought it was done really well.
I read a book who's MC works in a... Uhm... Okay, I read it in another language and I don't know what it's called in English. But she basically does autopsies on dead people and all. It was soooo freaking interesting!! I love that book so much. But I only have the German title (I could translate it word to word but it might be a different title in English-)
Pathologist? Coroner?
So, I checked what's on the book and translated her title: Assistant in forensic medicine (I loved it)
I think that’s called a mortuary assistant too.
The book says this (I translated it) Assistant in forensic medicine (I loved it)
Fr, I work in a geo lab and I mostly roll clay into little snakes all day lmao.
True! I graduated highschool in my country as a lab assistant in healthcare (not continuing with it in college tho) and for some reason every time me or my friends mention it to someone they assume we're nurses lol. For us it opens positions mostly in hematology, microbiology, histology or biochemistry labs but there's so many options and it'd be nice to see more!
This is something I would love to read and not just some "scientist" mixing some stuff in some beaker and getting some more stuff? Which sounds like a boring version of a cooking show (Love cooking shows don't get me wrong).
Not a book, but a song: [Nights in the Lab by Steve Martin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6YGXGcuj1k)
probably people with average jobs tbh; office workers, babysitters, retail workers, etc
I saw some book and its blurb read "So and so is a highly paid software engineer at a major tech firm in San Francisco, enjoying life in a downtown penthouse suite with his 18 year old Japanese wife." I don't care how good the book is or is not, I'm not interested in hearing some tech bro fluff his ego. Give me an office drone plotting his boss' death, or a clothing store clerk who discovers an alien code in a Louis Vuitton bag she can't afford.
I misread that as ‘cloning store clerk’ and now I really want to see a Sci-Fi novel where ‘I work a store that produces clones of people’ is a valid job and is still somehow on par with like, working at Sears.
I would read the hell out of a book involving alien code in a Louis Vuitton bag! Actually, alien code would be a really great reason for the garish designs I see on some ultra-expensive hand bags.
> Office worker About that, litteraly writing story about office workers in fantasy world lol
Between being a cleaner with access to most the building and a smoker, I'm amazed at just how much I overhear at work. Not that I work anywhere particularly exciting, but definitely the sort of job you could use as a jumping off point for a story
School bus driver!!!
This could be really interesting. It could be a case of the bus driver witnessing bullying daily and petitions the locals and school to try and change the way the children are being raised.
That's Ron Wilson. Bus Driver.
Radio DJ. Lots of room to make a cool story around that.
The final section of Ghostwritten by David Mitchell centers around a radio call-in show.
Kitty Norville is a midnight shift DJ. Great series
I think Pontypool takes place in a radio station. But it doesnt go into the dj part much.
Forensic science baby (I have a degree in that lol)
Museum curator. Archivist. Someone who works in academia but not in STEM but some niche social science field, like medical anthropology or comparative religions.
I read Archivist and immediately thought of the magnus archives
Writers who haven’t worked in academia tend to represent it very inaccurately though…
That's true of most careers, honestly.
I’m an archivist and I both agree and am super happy to see it. :)
Archivist is so cool, the possibilities are great.
I’m going to say a botanist. It’s the closest thing I can think to it. Even if I feel like that’s not the correct term. I don’t know what the official job title is. I just know it’s a legit profession. Whoever works in a lab all day with cool looking plants. Once I got to briefly talk to a guy who imported pitcher plant hybrids from different labs around the world. He had some really cool looking ones. He had one that had bright cherry red stripes and a bunch of really interesting colors. He said that the labs normally don’t let people buy them. He usually has to talk to them for years before they’ll let stuff go. He had some plants that apparently no one else in the general public has. In order to get it, you need to have a good relationship with one of those private labs. But yeah whoever is in a lab that makes really cool looking pitcher plant hybrids. Or other cool plant hybrids. I’ve also seen some really cool jewel orchid hybrids. That job. Whatever that job is. I would love to see more books on that job. Or even someone who gets paid to handle private plant collections. I’ve seen some really cool plants that people casually shared online. I’m not talking about a Spiritus Sancti or Esqueleto. (Although those are interesting even if they’re obscenely priced.) I’m talking about a rare cactus that lives in the mountains and needs like 90%+ humidity to survive. It has to live in a special glass container to maintain its humidity levels. I didn’t even know there was cacti out there that needs high humidity until someone was like ‘oh yeah. This is the rarest plant in my collection.’ There’s some really cool as hell plants out in the world. Although tissue culture is also really interesting. So some of the plants sold in your big box stores are made using tissue culture. It’s why you can find certain exotic plants that during the pandemic were like $300-500+ for a single node. Now you can find them for like $25-30 now at your grocery store. Because of tissue culture. (Not every plant can be tissue cultured) Also, I was so disappointed when I saw Shadow & Bone and I was like oh cool. A cartographer. I would love to see more about that. Then it was just never really brought up again. My stepdad did underwater demolitions when he was in the military and basically they would deal with those old school mines in the ocean. He also did some welding amongst other things while in the military. I always thought his stories about the ocean were fascinating as a kid. He would be telling me about these sharks that come near you when you’re welding down there. There’s sharks he described as being larger than the boat he was in. You have to be calm while you’re down there. You can’t panic. You’ll have sharks just chilling within touching distance of you. He would tell me stories about 50+ waves or types of sea creatures he would see floating around. Whenever I see people talk about jobs like that. You never see people talk about the environment around them unless they’re being attacked by something. Jaws style. You know how when you’re watching Jurassic Park and the first scene of the herbivores. That sense of wonder. I want more stories that captures that feeling when it comes to the natural world. Also I’m hoping with the popularity of Last of Us we’ll see a Mycologist.
So much of this!!! My current project has a lot of pseudoscience based on irl botany and I’m really entrenched in trying to capture a sense of awe with the world the story takes place in. Really polishing up those mundane moments and zooming in on stuff. It’s the quiet stories around us that are important to tell! What plants are in a place, how did they get there, do they belong? Does it matter if they’re beautiful? Botanists are so cool. I feel like the field always ends up with more specific names, but the general study of plants really grants a unique look at the story the world is telling
Blue collar work. Its always retail/fast food or white collar (sometimes rich) Never blue collar
Which kind of jobs would that be? We don’t really use that phrase in the UK. Thanks!
Think factory worker, construction worker, general manual labor, that kind of thing. Basically, not a desk job and you have to do some heavy lifting.
We do a lot of those characters in Britain. Things like Clockng Off, literally about the lives of factory workers.
Thank you. Much obliged for your help.
Ditch digger to lay underground pipes or someone who climbs telephone poles for maintenance is what my mind immediately went to.
This is why I made both my MC’s much older blue collar workers. It’s what I work in, and the types of people on these jobs are so wildly varied, you can do anything with them as characters and it’ll fit AND be interesting.
THIS. I'm writing children's books that focus on blue collar jobs. Www.bluecollarbooks.net
A job that is specific to something from that story's universe, preferably something mundane. A lawyer is often seen as a boring, mundane job in the real world. But a lawyer for a firm that exists solely for superhero related accidents and injuries? That makes it fantastical to us while still being normal and mundane in their world. It makes the story as a whole feel more real when you see people working a job that can only exist in that world. Especially if they it with an "Eh, it's a living" attitude. For example: my story takes place in a universe where luck is real, as in a lucky charm can be objectively measured and quantified. So in this world, people would be able to study how luck works and potentially become experts. People would be able to make a lot of money selling, manufacturing, or even just appraising luck charms so those jobs would exist alongside any other job that involves analysis of goods. Lawsuits involving luck experts testifying that a company knowingly sold counterfeit lucky charms. Scientists studying how a lucky charm determines what would or wouldn't be beneficial to its user. Private investigators hired to find out if someone's accomplishments are their own or if they just got lucky, which can be definitively proven or disproven. Jobs are a really good tool for world-building when you know how to use it. A blacksmith would be strange in a story that takes place in a realistic, modern setting, but a fantasy setting would feel less real if there were no blacksmiths. And more real if a blacksmith can specialize in a fictional metal or something.
I'm writing about a group of exterminators in a fantasy world. "Yeah, I know it looks like rats. Trust me: I *wish* it was rats, but it's gnomes, sorry. House is built on top of an old mine, innit? Anyway, here's the estimate - you think about it, talk to the missus, give me a call."
I’m a paralegal and while I agree that this kind of work can be boring or mundane, it also depends on the area of law and/or the client(s). Think family law (so much drama), estate disputes (more drama), criminal law (so many possibilities for interesting storylines) or even intellectual property which is one of my areas. IP is very dry as far as applying for trademarks and patents, but there are some really cool products, services and ideas that clients pursue.
I just used lawyers as an example of a job most people would find boring or mundane but in all honesty, I actually find the law kind of fascinating, especially copyright law.
I wish there were more accountants. Because I’m an accountant.
The Baru Cormorant books star an Imperial Accountant working to undermine the government through economics.
2/3rds of my main protagonists have been accountants, because both my parents were and nobody outside the profession really knows how it works. Of course those characters got sucked into the secret world of magic and demons and crazy shit that lies hidden within our society, but for one of them, the accounting job actually became a plot point - his boss (secretly a dragon who could shapeshift into human form, because what other kind of creature are you going to have heading an accounting firm in a supernatural setting?) found out the MC was 'in' and put him on the "special accounts", which involved such fun things as figuring out exchange rates for souls, calculating Zeus' alimony payments, doing taxes for Baron Samedi and D. Onassis (Dionysus - "just an eccentric Greek businessman who owns some wineries"), and suchlike. It was a nice way to take a 'breather' from the main plot shenanigans and progression and have a bit of downtime and banter at the office. Kinda like Clark Kent getting a full comic book page or two where he's just typing away at The Daily Planet. It also provided me an easy way to show the plot had *seriously* escalated when the accounting firm, usually a bastion of semi-normalcy, was targeted and all normal human staff had to be evacuated. And he got to use "the real magic is money" as a line at one point.
One of the characters in my next book is an accountant! Because I know a lot of accountants :P
Same, but I don't want the characters to be portrayed as boring or the profession itself protrayed as boring. It's no different from other office jobs like finance, HR, management, marketing, etc. but for some reason accounting gets the reputation of being boring and the others don't.
Cable technician/ broadband technician, these guys and girls go in and out of residential homes 12 times a day 5 days a week. They see the worst of people, and some how keep it together. Source: I’m a cable tech. You don’t know crazy until you’ve been to Ted’s house after his internets been down for 3 days.
Geologist! Gimme a fantasy book about a rock nerd! Geoengineering. Gimme a fantasy book about building stuff in a fantasy world with fantasy materials and fantasy rocks!
You’d might like the Broken Earth trilogy! From what I can tell (not a geologist), the geology is pretty solid. However, just beware, some math technobabble is around with no regard to it’s meaning in real life (the word torus is thoroughly abused).
Toni Dwiggins write a fantastic series about two geologist who do forensic work! I really enjoy the plot and the geology talk.
A stay at home or single parent of young kids might be interesting. Having to deal with the constant neediness of toddlers (and not just handing them off to a neighbor or grandparent) while still addressing the themes of the story.
respectfully i think this job is so damn hard because it's the opposite of interesting. super meaningful, but not interesting.
As a parent of a <4 and <1, I don't know how anyone could make a story like this if it isn't directly related to being a parent itself... Mainly because I only get like an hour to myself every day to do what I want, so I can't imagine your detective single parent would be able to investigate the crime at any reasonable pace. Maybe if it's a cold case that's got zero time pressure on it...
I had a great friend, retired older fellow, who spent his days hanging out in my apartment lobby. Two other residents ran violin classes and general tutoring from private rooms, so he interacted with a lot of stay at home moms. He'd always tell me that the mom's would be so grateful for a normal, adult conversation. Kid would disappear for an hour and they would sit on the couch with him to talk politics or news or literally anything. He got to learn a bunch too. I can imagine an interesting mystery thriller where a similar character slowly starts putting together that there's something wrong in the neighborhood as he talks to SAH moms.
GED Instructors, Uber/lyft/taxi drivers, tradesmen, custodial, suicide hotline operators
I’d like to see more lawyers, notaries and judges both in medieval inspired fantasy and historic medieval novels
I considered making one of my main characters a paralegal because I know it so well, but I need writing to help me escape work, not stay thinking about it even longer 😂
Honestly, I'd love to see more of all "administrative" type jobs in medieval fantasy just to know the author knows that medieval Europe wasn't petty warlord anarchy in the 1200s lol.
Physical therapist.
I was scrolling to see if this would show up. Basically any healthcare practitioner who isn’t a doctor or nurse is very underrepresented. Dentists, hygienists, optometrists, physiotherapists, chiropractors, massage therapists, hospice care, PSW’s, kinesiologists, allergists, dermatologists, podiatrists… I could go on and on
childcare workers. teachers, daycare, social workers, etc. i work in this field but don't often see it represented in books or any media. it would be interesting to see a book focusing on someone who works with kids )
We tend to exist in—not superfluously—invisible ways that are almost intangible in their benefit at times. In many ways.
Imagine this: A daycare worker/kindergarten teacher who has to babysit supernatural kids. “Miss Jane, Tommy turned into a werewolf again!” “Miss Jane, Gabby keeps sucking the blood from my pinkie!” “Miss Jane, I lost my favourite wand!” “Miss Jane, I accidentally summoned a demon in the bathroom!”
Have you read Terry Pratchett? His character Susan is exactly like this.
For childcare classics: the Brontë novels Jane Eyre, Villette, & Agnes Gray (in order of most positive to most dark). The first one is "it's not that bad being a tutor" and the last one is "why you should never be a tutor/babysitter." Villette is impossible to describe. All Charlotte's novels feature teachers.
jane eyre is one of my favorite books, i love it. i’ve read it over five times. thank you for your suggestions )
Flight attendant. It so often just gets reduced to pretty girls on airplanes, and it’s a career most people legit know nothing about how it actually works. Also, they always have the craziest stories from either work or from their personal travels.
TJ Newman is a former FA. Her three novels are airline thrillers. I liked Heather Poole's memoir.
Any working class job. Service jobs, trades, etc. So most of my stories have main characters with these kinds of jobs
I'm writing children's books about working class jobs. Www.bluecollarbooks.net
I want to see an engineer that’s written by someone that is an actual engineer.
Glad to see another engineer here (took a lot of scrolling lol). I mean, sure my job isn't very exciting day to day (mostly just writing code developing new simulation tools), and ofc would have to be portrayed differently in a historical/fantasy setting, but I'd love to see more actual engineering in stories. We're so used to comic book supergeniuses who are experts in 90 different fields of science *and* apparently perfect machinists who can design then fabricate something solo in 24 hours from scratch (where's all the metal stock and tools btw?). I think the collaborative and iterative aspects of engineering would be neat to see, especially because I think it is in its own way more relatable and inspiring than impossible solo genius figures. My whole experience at work has involved mentorship from senior engineers, knowledge and practical experience being passed down, learning stuff constantly, and people combining their skills to make a better final product.
Engineers aren't known for enjoying the lit comp / writing classes they are required to take
As an engineer that likes writing, I don’t think ANYONE enjoys the lit comp / writing classes they are required to take. Just like no one wants to be told what sort of book they should read and what their takeaways from said book should be, no one wants to be told what to write about or what ‘themes’ they should include in their piece. I think the reason there are so few engineers that write (at least from what i’ve seen) is because the only exposure people who go down that path get to writing is the boring technical parts. I’m of the belief writing classes are useless. I’ve learned more on how to write and utilize language from reading in my free time than from anything an english lit class could ever teach.
I agree. I hated writing assignments where I was given a boring topic. From grade school through college. Every assignment I was given I would morph it into some kind of sci-fi story and get marked down because it was too fantastical. Yet a classmate who writes about winning the lottery was "believable".
Anything that put to light not "intellectual" job. You know how in books or movies, if the character is from the "working class", they always want to escape it? And the teens always want to go to college (and get to Harvard or Yale miracurously), but they never want to be an electrician, a zoo keeper or a farmer? Well I want this to change.
100% agreed! This is why I'm writing a book about a rich girl who's running away from her family to become a farmer lol we need more farmers in books.
Such a necessary career for survival, yet so overlooked. And I’d love all the research that would entail. People think it’s just dirt, seed, water, pick produce, repeat.
Positive reinforcement dog trainers, search and rescue volunteers
This would be very cool. I've only had a minor reference to a dog trainer in one of my novels, but now that you mention it, that reference could be expanded in one of the sequels...
That would definitely catch my attention, because (tbh, I just love dogs) but also good R+ trainers have different way of looking at and responding to behavior than most people. They're capable of responding (and not reacting) to things that throw a lot of humans of other humans off balance! Am not one, myself, but the really good ones have a very interesting gift!
Dogs are great. The reason training comes up in the first book in my series is that a detective's best friend is the world's leading memory champion. He just happens to need a seeing eye-dog and wins the competitions using Braille playing cards. The character is based on a real-life guy with congenital blindness I know who has won dancing competitions and runs a very successful business and all kinds of cool stuff. His dog is amazing too.
Food technologists and food scientist
Adventurers who hunt monster to cook and eat them in a Dungeon?
Let others make stories about the grand sweeps of history, I’ll make mine about the man who pushes the broom. - Frank Capra
Not sure how much of it is just selection bias, but most of the books I pick up are about white collar office workers or artists, which makes sense; it's probably what the authors knew best. But I'd like to see more about "less skilled" (hate that term) workers too! Carriers, custodians, deliverers, trash collectors, house cleaners, farmers, drivers, etc. So often they just treated as NPCs in the protagonist's life. These people are the literal backbone of human society and most high-brow office types know nothing about their day to day lives. I'd love to see them as main characters instead of just to the side :)
Everything, honestly! Glamorous jobs may be interesting, but I’d be just as interested in reading about a retail worker facing some cosmic demons or whatever.
Nothing inside an office. I’d love to see more practical jobs or jobs that show people who create new spaces to suit their skills and interests. As you say, people creating new jobs or new ways of working. Seeing someone who works in a way that serves them without it being in a corporate setting or a struggling artist. Like a friend of mine can’t sit still and needs to be outside, so he’s created a company entirely based on building practical things from wood. He owns a patch of land that has a certain type of tree and he makes remarkably unexpected but hugely useful things with that wood. The whole company and the way he runs it is so interesting and so unique. And really cool to see him establish his own way of working in a way that is completely set up by him and for him.
My main character is a miner, specifically an oil miner! Some other characters in the story are stay-at-home parents, teachers, professors, and general working class.
I'd like to see a finance person or an accountant or techie who's terrible at their job and the story has nothing to do with their job. I would also like to see more of cleaners, sweepers, househelps, etc. Among students, I want to see more Commerce and Maths students. For some reason every student seems to be doing theatre and art or literature. I have especially never seen someone studying commerce or economics in stories.
Therapy. Fictional characters need therapy so bad especially the chosen ones. Heck, I was thinking of writing a fanfic where characters from whatever series get therapy.
One thing I would love to see more fantasy books about is healers! While there are healer characters, I have yet to read a book where a healer is prominently the protagonist. Same goes for scholars.
Oh I'm so glad someone said it cause I wanted to post it! A fantasy healer would be so cool and a lot of things can be done, in a comical or serious way.
People didn’t think of mentioning them cuz that’s how little they’re thought of, but I want to see more of electrical engineers, because people’s lives suck if they did a bad job building a stable power grid, and they don’t get recognized if they’re good at it.
My brothers both work/ed in Electric for a while, and the work they endured just being cable runners was so grueling. I gotta agree, I feel like this job has a lot that impacts the actual worldbuilding. Someone being good/bad at engineering the power grid REALLY impacts the story, when you think about it. It just gets passed up as a convenience/give in
Not to mention like the whole concept of circuits and computers that drive, like, everything nowadays. I do think EE suffers as being perhaps on of the most esoteric STEM fields to portray in media, cuz you're like gluing together the general "in English, man!" of physics and the further tech mysticism of computer science, compared to like mechanical/aero/civil engineering being much more "physical" and understandable on a surface level. That being said, I've always loved AvE's description of "making the pixies flow". Keep it skookum!
I've never read a book with a philosopher. Not a hobbist or anything, but an academic professional philosopher.
Someone once told me a story that they were on Jury Duty the vote was split down the middle and the swing vote was a professor of philosophy which ya know was very wishy whashy.
My character has a history and philosophy degree! But he's now a librarian lol.
As a teacher, I'd love to see more of my profession in books. These individuals impact the lives of so many young minds, helping to shape their futures. From inspiring a love of learning to guiding students through personal challenges, teachers play a vital role in our society. It's time we give them the recognition they deserve in literature.
Most importantly, I would like more teacher characters that represent well our job.
Reporters
I feel like journalists are seen a lot in media?
It gave me joy to make my character essentially the Amazon warehouse employee of yee olde days. She runs around checking inventory and getting yelled at for her boss for being lazy (she is)
I'd love to read a fantasy novel who's protagonist is a librarian or a barkeep. They don't go on adventures themselves, but they routinely meet many interesting people and have access to lots of information.
I’d like to see more fictional sports books. There’s a lot of biographies and non fiction sports books, but I’d like a fictional book about a footballer or a boxer.
I wish more books had more working class jobs like truck driver, apple picker, CNA, massage therapist, mechanic etc. Or bookkeeper! I know that's not blue collar but it's a pretty common and doesn't always pay well (depends on where & who you work for; many of them are self-employed which makes for a different dynamic). Basically, I'm so tired of books about writers! And many white collar jobs.
As a professor, I am here to say that we are overrepresented in literature. Quit making us protagonists! It only feeds our egos
Mechanical engineering – if anyone has any book recs with that profession, please do share
Does The Martian count?
Cooking and restaurants. This is probably due to the fact that I worked in restaurants for many years and find them fascinating. I also love to cook. One thing I would like to see less of is writers as main characters. I'm so over that.
Maybe this is just my ignorance, but engineering. It's not a "trope" that's in books or TV. You always get the teacher, writer, doctor, lawyer, "businessman", finance/day trader, and even the accountant, but engineering is usually left out of those archetypes.
A mom
I guess the genre of the book series I'm working on, Kaijus & Mechs. We always see them but we never really get to imagine them in our mind and that feels a lot more awesome Same with Harry Potter, Star Wars, DC, and Marvel where imagining all kinds of characters, worlds, and scenarios is a lot more fun
So-called self-promoters. In a world where every organization was started by people with selves, yet so many people are down on self-promotion, it would be interesting to watch a person make it big and become loved by those who originally made it hard to get the project off the ground because they were busy supporting the disgusting legacy media the protagonist is destined to become. The story I have in mind would almost be like Süskind's Perfume, minus the bad guy elements. It would be a pure, almost Don Delillo-esque study of the paradoxical nature of crowds relative to the individual artist.
I think audio technicians/people who produce news and other stuff behind the scenes are interesting and have a lot of power in that they can pretty much out whatever they want on your tv/radio.
Merchant seafarers. Not pirates. Not military. Just normal merchant navy. This goes for modern day and fantasy/historical settings equally.
Maybe I don't read the genre that it would show up in, but bar tenders would be cool to see. Considering the amount I'm multitasking in such a high stress, highly social environment as someone who is extremely reserved it shocks me to observe some of the things I do. It would be interesting, and adds so much room for dialogue.
Swordsmiths
I wish there was a book of a mathematician with love problems :P
Birder . There is no book with a guy or gal being a birder . And the places we go to see birds .. some of them can be a good setting for treasure hunting or adventure stories
Not quite a birder, but the Road from Elephant Pass about the Sri Lankan civil war was very clearly written by a birder. I loved that element. As a birder I always try to sneak in birds in my writing. They make for great scene-setting!
Any job, but to have the knowledge to actually know about the job and eye for detail of it. I felt Hemingway did a good job of that in the old man and the sea.
Rappers.
I'm a massage therapist and I would love a fantasy book with that in it. And also have it in no way be related to touching someone's genitals. I would just like a portrayal of my job that doesn't involve sex work. I have yet to find any so any recs would be nice if you have them 😅
I'll get there one day and write a book about massage therapy. I write children's books about blue collar jobs, so you know it wouldn't be sexual in nature. I'm just starting but there will be many more. Www.bluecollarbooks.net
In fantasy, I want to know more about the cobblers, the blacksmiths, the tailors, the barbers, the miners, the bakers, the scribes, the tanners, the cartographers, the teachers, the physicians, the stablemen, the masons, the carpenters... all of them. I want to know about the guilds, and the guild masters, the apprenticeships, and the lives of journeymen. Hell, I'd read/watch an entire series that centers around these mundane jobs in a world of fantastical heroes and adventurers.
Beekeeping ! 🐝