Occupational Hazards

At one time, it seemed to be the norm that a hero in a romance novel had to have a glamorous, high profile or ‘macho’ job (think Italian count owner of vineyard, head of multi-million corporation, Greek ship owner, etc). When a heroine was actually allowed to have a job (other than nurse, secretary or governess), then it had to be something supposedly ‘feminine’ like interior or fashion design or florist.

Today’s heroes and heroines don’t necessarily have to be at the top of their profession. They can be cops or doctors or lawyers. And in fact, heroines could, and do, have those same jobs. At least now we have some kind of occupational equality in romance novels.

However, my dilemma is that I don’t really know anything about different occupations. Having spent almost all my working life in a High School environment, I don’t have a clue about other jobs. In fact, having retired from teaching about 15 years ago, I’m totally out-of-date with the teaching profession too. And I don’t know any lawyers or PR/advertising executives or hotel owners etc etc etc.

So what do I do?

I’ve taken a chance and had two heroines who were actresses since I do know a little about that profession. Another was a TV reporter turned college lecturer, so at least I didn’t have to give too many details about her earlier career and could concentrate on the educational background. Another was a tour guide on a Nile cruise ship. I’m not sure that a week on a Nile cruise qualified me to write about that, but I did my best.

As for my heroes, the first one was a producer/director in London’s West End theatre world. What did I know about professional theatre? Nothing! At least, not from an insider’s POV. I drew on my experience of amateur theatre, did quite a lot of research and no-one’s challenged me (yet!) on anything wildly inaccurate. In fact, a lot of people have actually commented about their enjoyment of the theatre world I portrayed.

Then I had a journalist/novelist - again not too difficult, except when he was researching an article on alternative fuel sources. Why couldn’t I have had him researching something I actually know about? But - he led and I followed.

My next hero was an archaeologist, Okay, I know something about archaeology but still had to spend hours reading up about the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.

Next came a volcanologist! The sum total of my knowledge about volcanoes before this could have been summed up very briefly - they erupt sometimes and create ash clouds and lava rivers. So I had a mass of research to do – most of which I never actually used in the book, but I’m quite proud of the fact that I now know what a correlation spectrometer measures – and I laughed my socks off when this actually came up in an online trivia quiz I do regularly!

I swore my next hero would have an occupation I knew something about. But no, he decided he’s a veterinary surgeon. So now I’m researching vets.

I’d be very interested to know how other writers choose the occupations for their heroes and heroines. Do you go for jobs about which you have a personal knowledge, or know someone in that profession? Or, if not, how do you research occupations about which you have no real knowledge or experience?