The Occupation Thesaurus is yet another priceless author resource released in this series. As with the prior Thesauruses in this collection, The Occupation version is chalked full of insights and information that many writers may not have realized they needed.

My Women’s Fiction stories tend to involve quite a few details about the characters professions. Going through the Table of Contents, I was excited to see the wide variety of careers covered in this book. It would be impossible to contain every occupation out there, so several “popular” occupations I was looking for were not included. However, the list does include careers you may have never considered for your characters, maybe Dream Interpreter or Human Test Subject. I knew the second I saw Social Media Manager on the list – a career my WIP main character has – this would be a great addition to my collection.

Do not skip the informational chapters before you get to the meat of the book! It is hard not to jump right to the page you may be interested in (see me immediately flipping to Social Media Manager) but it is worth the complete read. When developing our stories and our characters, we may not take time to put much effort into the characters career or current job situation. It may seem like a small detail, but as outlined in these beginning chapters, it is quite important to know what your character does for a living and why.

Angela and Becca do another amazing job outlining that why so we as authors have a better understanding of how to create a complete world for our characters. In reading these pages you may be surprised as to how much a specific career or job will impress upon your character. We may not realize, as in our real lives, our careers are a major part of many life decisions.

The beginning of the book touches on the basic need’s humans have and how these factors into choosing an occupation. Also discussed are how emotional wounds, personality traits, skills and beliefs come into play when we chose our occupation, whether we realize it or not. The same is said for characters that we create.

The authors also cover how one’s occupation can be a catalyst for propelling the story forward, creating and maintaining tension within the plot and invoke insights into the character and their life.

The details given to each individual occupation is what you would expect from the authors and like the other Thesaurus volumes. I love how each occupation covers information about that career, how to get there and the traits someone in that field may possess. This is helpful in any aspect of character development. Whether your character is formed and needs a job, or you have a job idea and need a body to fill it, the information here will help any author fill in the blanks.

Occupations I have given my characters: Editor, Librarian, Account Manager, Veterinarian Technician, ER Nurse, Teacher (several teachers), School Psychologist, Travel Photographer, Management Consultant, and my latest, Social Media Manager. I did skip right to this page. I have used the other Thesaurus volumes in this series to help mold this character and I chose Social Media Manager because I needed her to work from home. I loved seeing how spot on the information was for her and the fact that she is a thirty-something doing this job, not a fresh face out of school.

As with the other books in this series, the back of The Occupation Thesaurus contains various appendixes you can use as outlines, helpful tools, and online pintables.

This book releases July 20, 2020 and will make a great addition to your writers’ toolbox. You will love this resource as much as the other Thesauruses written by these authors. I received an ARC of The Occupation Thesaurus and cannot wait to get my hands on a physical copy to highlight and make notes in!