Some books have really weird jobs that are just not realistic. Let’s chat about some of these.
Julie:
There’s a big kick lately on books with the self-made Billionaire. We are all familiar with the Fifty Shades series as famous as it is, but I find that to be an unrealistic job. The little boy who came from absolutely nothing who is now in his 20s and is rich as sin? I mean, we all dream of this, but it isn’t all that realistic.
OK, and let’s go into the urban fantasy route. One of my favorite spin-off series books is the Night Prince series. In this series, our leading lady starts off as a circus performer. Seriously are you kidding? I mean, it worked for the story, but not a very normal job we would expect to see, right?
Since apparently most of what I read is YA, that’s all I got.
Lynn:
Let’s leave off for now jobs like Highland Warrior, Gentleman of Leisure, Pirate, and other jobs in historical novels (if the characters even have jobs!). And I completely agree with Julie on the self-made Billionaire.
Like Julie, I’m way more interested in jobs in urban/paranormal fantasy novels. Is being a hunter (vampire/demon/shadow) a practical job? Can one pay the rent with a job like this? Or what about modern witches? Being a druid is apparently a job. Though, he at least runs a book shop on the side. And Harry Dresden is an investigator.
I think that as readers, characters with unusual jobs are a lot more intriguing than ones with average jobs.
What about you? Any unusual jobs in books that you know of?
I never really thought about the impracticality of UF jobs – I guess it’s just one of those things that you accept with the suspension of disbelief that goes with the genre in general.
Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction recently posted…Sunday Post & Giveaways Galore – 9/18/16
Yea their jobs kind of have to be super flexible for them to go on all those adventures heh.
I don’t think there can be many characters out there with realistic jobs. You don’t have much time for anything else in your life if you work 9 to 5, and that wouldn’t make for a very interesting read, would it? What annoys me most is if a character is a writer or editor just because it’s convenient. In the real world, even freelance writers/editors can’t just stop working on a whim because they suddenly have to go somewhere or meet someone. (Well, I guess they could, if they don’t have any bills to pay… 🙂 )
You have a very good point here, I’ve always wondered how people can just take off and leave their lives when something happens in books.
I just finished My Life as a White Trash Zombie. Have you read it? After Angel gets turned she gets a job in the county morgue! After all the episodes of CSI and Castle I’ve watched, I thought that type of a job for a zombie made TOTAL sense.
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That does make sense, Terri!
I haven’t read the book but that is totally the TV show iZombie that I’m digging. She works in the morgue, to get brains. And also helps the detectives since she gets the victim’s memories.
Hmm yeah definitely some unrealistic jobs in many of my books. I guess in the UF books, the demon/vampire/etc hunters are kind of like bounty hunters? Which is realistic, if they don’t make much money lol. I like both types of books for different reasons – ones with practical jobs because I can relate better and ones with less practical jobs because it’s fun to be unrealistic sometimes. Fun post ladies 🙂
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You’re right that it is fun to be unrealistic sometimes 🙂