The Challenge of Authentic Job Portrayals in Fiction

Recently I shared a plot summary I’m working on with another writer. Part of the plot requires one of the main characters to travel frequently. I didn’t want them to be independently wealthy because that wouldn’t make them a believable character for me. That meant their job needed to allow them to travel. Basically, I wanted the character to have a version of the job I’ve been doing for over ten years. I ran the job I wanted the character to have by the writer I was talking to because in all of the time I’ve worked in this industry, I’m pretty sure only one of the people I know outside of it actually understands what I do. I explained it to her, but to my deep disappointment, she suggested that instead of what I wanted to just have the character be a travel writer. 

I don’t know if you’ve ever looked up remote work or tried your hand at that, but I’m fairly certain that travel writer isn’t a job that any real person does. If you search for “traveling jobs” or “jobs that require travel” the search engines will come up with “travel writer” every time. But I talk to a lot of people writers and I have met a ton of people that work remotely, but most of them do accounting or logistics-based jobs. It’s hard for me to imagine anyone that calls themselves a travel writer as someone that would be able to afford a house in the place that this character is supposed to live. When I told this person their suggestion was not believable, their reasoning was that the book was fiction so it didn’t matter. 

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Make friends, they said. Get to know people in your community with similar interests, they said. It’ll be fun, they said. 

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If the job doesn’t matter because it’s fiction, then why on earth can’t they just have the very real, super cool job that I suggested? Luckily, that’s not the only writer I know. When I shared the plot with the others, they didn’t care at all about the job this character had. Instead there was a bit of a continuity issue that progressed unexpectedly which I needed to fix. They were thoroughly more interested in the sociology of the characters. For me, that is the most important part of any story I read. Usually I read general fiction. But occasionally, when someone insists that my life will never be the same unless I read a certain special book they’ve just read, I will give fantasy a shot. 

No matter what kind of book I read, I like for all of the details that don’t need to be unrealistic to be as close to believable as possible. There can be mermaids and Pegasi, but one and one still needs to equal two.

I was truly grateful for the useful advise the second set of writers gave to me, but it still bothered me that the first person I talked to wanted me to change the plot so that they wouldn’t have to try imagining something else. 

I actually haven’t had that many jobs people would consider normal. And while I think it’s important for people to learn, know, and understand other points of view besides your own, I genuinely believe that we are all the best person to tell our own stories. I could probably never write a story about working in an office. In my 22 years of working I’ve only worked in an office for about a month … and that was only because I was working for a temp agency while I visited a friend in another state. But my story should still be represented. 

Since every one of the characters in my book need to have jobs, I decided to make all of them professions that I’ve had, been licensed to do, or been an assistant for. No one will know except for you and me though. To everyone else they will all just have weird careers. But it will be our little secret why.