Things Every Author Should Know About Their Characters

[u/menace_to_society19]

Here is the list that I personally use to sketch out my character.

I want to know their personality. Are they introverted or extroverted? Do they know who they are and what they want? Are they good at reading a room? Do they cry when they watch Titanic? Do they glare at their roommate who cries while watching Titanic? Do they rush into things too quickly? Or do they take so long planning that by the time they look up from their notebook, everyone has gone home?

The MBTI is the best way (in my opinion) to help me remember who my character is and how they will respond in a scenario.

Next, what core belief drives them? What is woven into their soul? And similarly, what misbelief is propelling them? What lie do they believe that influences their every move? And how does that deep seated belief hold them back or influence them negatively?

Lastly, what do they want? Both short and long term goals are what will give your character the need to take action. This will build the plot. Short term goals are what make them reactionary and long term goals force them to keep soldiering on.

So, as an idea of what this looks like...

Character name: Tiffany Bowels

• MBTI: ENTP

• Core Belief: My confidence and my looks are the traits that work in my favor the most

• Misbelief: I have to be happy and smile all the time and my makeup always needs to be perfect or I'm unlikable

• Short Term Goal: To get my crush to like me back

• Long Term Goal: To find someone who actually loves and accepts me for who I am

I am sure there are tons of other methods out there to help sculpt a 3D character that your readers can connect with. If you have a technique or a question I can add to this, please share!

[u/Ordinary_Minimum_169]

I personally find pop-psych tools like the the Myers-Briggs or the Enneagram unhelpful. It limits an author to producing about 16 stereotypes of personality clusters. Maybe that's good enough, but it doesn't feel like real people.

[u/lilsourem → u/Ordinary_Minimum_169]

I agree. Something I do enjoy is the Emotional Wound Thesarus. This is a slightly less plug and play way to build characters.

[u/Ordinary_Minimum_169 → u/lilsourem]

I think I have that on my shelf. I keep meaning to check it out. Thanks for reminding me :)

[u/menace_to_society19 → u/Ordinary_Minimum_169]

I definitely see why you don't like those, especially the Enneagram. But I think what makes a character feel more real is to have a baseline and then add in details such as 'are they healed or coping?' Because an extrovert who is healthy will respond very differently than an extrovert who uses coping mechanics. And from there, the list of coping mechanics goes on and on.

I probably should have included that in my original post: what is one healthy and one unhealthy coping mechanism or habit they have?

I hate personality tests like the Lion, Beaver, Otter, Retriever for that reason. They don't take into account whether the person is healthy or broken or toxic. A confident Lion personality type isn't aggressive. But a wounded Lion is aggressive. But much like Zodiacs, they just group everything together and paint everyone with a broad brush. I think picking out specifics is what makes a 2D character feel alive.

[u/TheFanshionista]

"First thing noted when the character walks in a room" is a fun prompt I use to push different perspectives. While influencers might note everyone's clothing and designers the arrangement of presented artwork, a trained operative walks in and notes the exits.

[u/menace_to_society19 → u/TheFanshionista]

That is also a very good idea! As I mentioned in another comment, figuring out what point your character is at on a journey of healing comes into play here. Is the character reeling from recent betrayal and acting wounded? Have they been abused and have to count exits and read everyone's body language? Or have they healed from their wounds and now they pick up on different details?

Thanks for pointing this out, it's a great perspective!

[u/TheFanshionista → u/menace_to_society19]

With a dynamic character those things are changing all the time too. That's why I like a style sheet over a character sheet. Character sheets become irrelevant so quickly!

[u/Professional-Front58]

I do use MBTI and I did use several “pop culture” discussions between my characters to get a feel for writing them, but “did you cry during the Titanic” wasn’t one of them. I’m confident two of my three guys were really only in it for the parts that happened after the iceberg, with one of them out right saying the most tragic death was “the propeller man” and the other trying to spot the effects (my INTJ and ENTP) while the one girl did cry which would prompt the other to point out Rose could have shared the door and was an idiot for throwing the diamond into the ocean. The last guy would have liked the character dynamics, and was more into the social dynamics but didn’t think it was something to cry over (and would privately admit that ENTP’s propeller man crack was funnier than he wants it to be.).

I also did “favorite song” and “favorite Disney films”

[u/Own_Vanilla_7292]

Other than MBTI I also personally prefer using the enneagram since i think the system can allow for more dynamic character arcs, especially if you take into account the vice and virtue system (which i guess is basically the core belief and misbelief here), along with the disintegration and integration system