In my previous post, I talked about how Interruption can make your scenes more interesting. Today I’ll be talking about another method for giving your scenes shape, complexity, and realism: a device I call “Occupation.” This is an unimaginative name, because Occupation just means giving your characters something to do.

I’ll show you my favorite example of Occupation in a scene. Below is a clip from the Sopranos. Start the video at 1:30.

Chris and Tony Blundetto are disposing of two skeletons to hide evidence of murder from the FBI. It’s unpleasant and it’s highly specific to their identities as mobsters—but the point of the scene is not that they are disposing of evidence. The point is, they are confronting tensions in their relationship. But this confrontation is couched in the job that they are doing.

But why bother? Can’t characters just sit down and talk to one another?

The answer is yes. But in the real world, nothing happens in a vacuum. We do not have unlimited time–or unlimited courage–to have difficult discussions with the people we love and hate. Fiction disguises itself as the real world to make the reader believe it is really happening. Once he believes in it, the reader can be emotionally affected by the fiction.

Occupation is a technique to create the illusion of reality. It explains why two characters are in a location together. It shows that the characters have needs beyond the story, and that they must respond to that pressure–pressure to earn money, pressure to eat, pressure to avoid the police, and even pressure to avoid their emotions. Occupation makes scenes more interesting to read and watch, but it also makes scenes more believable, because these characters can’t just press pause on the expectations of the world.

Occupation doesn’t have to be disposal of a body, either. Maybe character A wants to confront character B about a broken promise. You could just have them sitting down having coffee in their living room. A confronts B. End of scene.

As I said in my previous post about Interruption, sometimes a living room scene is fine. But the scene often becomes more interesting if the characters have something to do. Maybe character B invites character A to come strawberry picking, and character A decides that the privacy of the strawberry patch is the best place to confront character B about the broken promise.

Maybe, just before the confrontation, they come upon a plant that has been eaten by some kind of weird parasite–maybe a strawberry worm, or something. Character A wants to ask B why she broke her promise, but B is distracted by all the moldy, wormy fruit. Character B explains the worms to A, and A replies with something like, “what a disgusting thing.”

All of a sudden, there is subtext. We know that A doesn’t care about the worms—she cares about the broken promise. On the surface, she is responding to B’s comments about strawberry worms, but we know that there is something different on her mind—therefore, the dialogue is interesting. When we let characters say exactly what is on their mind, the dialogue is often flat. “You broke your promise,” A said. “I’m sorry I did that, but I had a good reason,” B said.

That exchange is surface-level—there is no subtext, no deeper meaning to the things the characters are saying. Yes, sometimes characters should just say what is on their mind. Not every statement needs to be veiled. But when a character is failing to say what they want to say, or making a veiled statement, or lying, their dialogue is much more interesting.

Giving your characters an occupation creates opportunity for subtext. It also gives you an ending point for your scene. In the strawberry patch, maybe A does not successfully confront B about the broken promise. Maybe she misses her opportunity to bring it up. B, after seeing the worms, says that they shouldn’t eat any of the strawberries from the patch—they could all be infested. They leave their baskets in the rows. Their occupation—picking strawberries—has ended, and now the scene can end.

We get satisfaction on one level—seeing the conclusion of an activity. But we are left wondering, what is A going to do about this broken promise? We feel a small resolution, a small reward for reading, but we want to keep reading for the larger resolution. The scene could even end with a description of the basket that A left behind. A worm crawls out of one of the berries in the basket—a suggestion of the unresolved issue that is eating their relationship.

The other thing that Occupation can do is to undercut the sincerity of what characters are saying. That’s what makes the Sopranos scene so satisfying. It should be a sincere moment between the two of them, but it’s undercut by the brutality of the skeleton smashing.

In this case, characters CAN say what they are feeling—thanks to Occupation. maybe you have written a tender moment between father and son. Maybe you are worried that the scene is too sappy and sentimental. Occupation can fix this. Make the Dad fall through a rotten spot in the porch and get stuck. The son tries to pull him out, but gets upset because his father is too heavy.

The Dad reassures him and tells him to call for help. While they are waiting for the Mom to come along and help pull dad out of the porch, dad tells his son that he’s always been proud of him. The dad, however, is up to his armpits in the porch, and this undercuts the sincerity of the moment.

Here are some further suggestions for how to use Occupation to its full potential.

Make the occupation highly specific. Instead of making the characters go fishing, make them fish for a unique fish—maybe it’s this very rare type of sea bass that can only be caught with an unusual stinkbait. This would be more vivid and unique than character A saying, “Let’s go fishing.”

Make the occupation unpleasant in some way—or at least appealing to the senses. See the above stinkbait, or the worms in the strawberry patch. Vivid details, esp. details about food, smells, or physical pain, make your writing immersive. They help the reader picture the scene and believe in it.

Add an element of danger. Put your characters somewhere they are not supposed to be–maybe they are housesitting and exploring a forbidden room. If your characters are driving somewhere, make the driver speed. They don’t have to be mobsters; even a small infraction helps.

Kurt Vonnegut said, “Every character should want something, even if it’s only a glass of water.” I used to think this quote was advice about motivation and desire. It’s more than that: it is advice about scenework. It sounds obvious to say it aloud, but a scene about a man pouring a glass of water is more interesting than a scene about a man doing nothing.