All About Skillsets

Memorable characters often stand out because of their unique skills or talents … but these abilities must serve a purpose in the story. So, how can we tell if we’re crafting a character with a meaningful skill or just adding a random trait for the hell of it?

It was International Women’s Day at the weekend. So, I thought I’d answer the question of skill and how it plays out with reference to female characters. You know the drill, Bangers: ready … let’s go!

Why Skills Are Essential to Characterisation

In the 2020s, nuanced and layered characterisation is a non-negotiable. This means a character’s skills contribute to their depth, relatability and memorability. Naturally, this covers female characters as well.

For the past few decades female leads are frequently exceptional archers, especially in movies and TV. Characters such as Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games, 2013), Susan Pevensie (The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe, 2005) and Kate Bishop (Marvel’s Hawkeye 2021) all demonstrate their exceptional skills in this way.

The best stories link a character’s skills or abilities to the plot, making their skills feel integral and part of that storyworld. Here’s how three stories do that:

• Katniss Everdeen is an archer out of necessity. She hunts for food for her family, plus she sells carcasses and skins as well. This is not allowed, which means she is risking her freedom to do it. This skill will be integral when she is in the arena.
• Susan Pevensie arrives in the fantasy world of Narnia. Here, there is little technology and modern equipment or weapons, such as guns. This means a bow and arrow is an obvious choice to help defend herself and her friends. She is also known for being a ‘straight arrow’, so it is good for her characterisation, too.
• Kate Bishop is the protegé of Clint Barton, AKA Hawkeye from The Avengers. His story revolves around him being an exceptional archer himself. He will mentor Kate, the very first female Hawkeye in the comics so that she too, takes the archer crown.

These characters and their plotting arcs demonstrate how character and plotting are inextricably linked, which means their skills are too. The last thing we want to do is make such a skillset feel random or pointless.

Linking Skills To Plot

Plot and characterisation should be linked. This is because a main character has a need, goal or want. In going for that need, goal or want, that character will go through many different events. That’s plot and character, interlinked.

In turn, this means a character’s abilities should help advance the story. Whilst stories can technically be anything, this generally happens three ways:

i) Solving Problems

A character’s skillset should help them deal with whatever the plot throws their way. In crime fiction, a police officer or detective – such as Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, C5’s DCI Ellis, or ITV’s Scott & Bailey – will break down all the clues.

These characters will do this according to their lived experiences, training and innate abilities. They will go on to solve the case and ensure justice is done.

ii) Conflict Creation

In contrast, losing or gaining skills can create obstacles or tension for a character. In Captain Marvel (2019), Carol Danvers has extraordinary powers, but believes she is a Kree warrior. It not only turns out she is NOT Kree but human, but everything she has been told is a lie. This is an example of a ‘Rebirth’ story, in which a character must understand they’re on the wrong side.

In Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), the young Furiosa starts off her life as a child in the green place with two arms … Yet as we all know, Furiosa in Mad Max Fury Road (2015) has a robotic arm. In the prequel story we learn how she lost her arm, plus in the original movie we discover Furiosa’s arm forms an important plot point. When Max falls from the war rig during a major battle, she catches him. This would not have been possible with a flesh arm; Max would would have fallen under the wheels.

iii) Symbolic Resonance

In the blockbuster movie Gravity (2013) Doctor Ryan Stone must deal with extreme adversity in space to get back to Earth. As a trained astronaut, she has many skills to help her do this. She must fight space debris, fires, lack of oxygen, cold and lack of power.

Ryan must also fight herself, because she’s not sure whether she wants to survive. All her colleagues are dead, plus her daughter died back on Earth. Through the narrative, she decides she WILL survive and get back to earth … or die trying.

Whilst most of us will never go into space, there’s a strong symbolic resonance for the audience here. All of us will have faced adversity of some kind in our lives. Seeing Ryan fight so hard, using her skills to get out of trouble, can be very inspiring for those viewers going through hard times themselves.

Making Skills Believable

Whether we are writing novels or screenplays, authenticity is also super-important to modern readers and viewers. This means research is key, especially when it comes to specialised skills. It’s always obvious when a writer does not understand what they are writing about!

Many characters have to gain skills as the story progresses. This is particularly obvious in transformative arcs like The Hero’s Journey, where a character has to do ‘zero to hero’. The protagonist must train and learn how to wield their power – supernatural or literal – against a villain AKA ‘The Big Bad’. While some writers believe The Hero’s Journey is only ‘for men’, this is NOT true. Find out why, HERE).

But sometimes ‘everyday’ skills have to be under the spotlight, too. I don’t have a driving licence and haven’t had a formal driving lesson in more than twenty years. However, characters in my writing frequently drive (because most adults do). This means I always research where everything is in a car and remind myself how it works.

In writing crime fiction, my characters may break into and/or steal cars as well. In the case of one novel, Kill For It, my character had to do this with a broken arm. I am a big fan of what I call ‘deep research’, so I broke into my husband’s car using only one hand to see if it worked. It did!

(Of course, this didn’t stop one reviewer claiming this was ‘impossible’! But you can’t win ’em all, plus doing that research means peace of mind as I know it IS possible).

Last Points

Whatever it is, a character’s skillset needs to feel integral, authentic and real. We can achieve this by linking their skills to the plot and ensuring we do our research. Next time you write, ask yourself: does your character’s skill truly serve your story?

Good Luck!

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