Personality Test
Another chapter to help you write amazing characters. There’s this personality test that is used in professional settings because its results are quite accurate and useful. It is quite easy to fill out, but gives a great framework on which you can build a character.
An amazing website about this is 16 Personalities. Really, the website is amazing and I couldn’t do it better.
Still, for completeness’ sake (or in case you really dislike leaving this tutorial), below is my summary.
What’s the idea?
The test scores you on 4 areas, each of which has 2 options. (Which means 2x2x2x2 = 16 possibilities in total. Hence the name of that website I linked.)
Mind
The two options are Introvert (I) vs Extrovert (E).
Introvert means you get energy from being alone, extrovert means you get energy from being social.
It’s a common misconception that introverts are extremely shy, socially awkward, or somehow hate all people. It’s not that. Being social is like “work” or “performing” to them, which is why they just cannot do it all day.
Extroverts are the inverse. Entertaining themselves feels like work and is near impossible. They crave social contact and recharge that way. As a natural consequence, they are usually more talkative and have a way with words.
An extrovert character would consciously seek out others and try to start a conversation about some meaningless thing. An introvert character would consciously make a decision to avoid others when they are tired or overwhelmed.
I am slap bang in the middle of this. Half introvert, half extrovert. I know, I’ve taken this test officially, twice.
Energy
The two options are Intuitive (N) vs Observant (S).
They deal with how you handle new information.
Intuitive means you take the information at face value and think beyond it. You ask “what if?” questions, you imagine new ideas, you daydream about it. (This generally fits better with artists, religious people, dreamy people.)
Observant means you look at information as it is, right now. You want observable facts and true details. (This generally fits better with scientists and scholars.)
An easy way to figure this out, is by writing a scene in which your characters get new information. One character might respond like it’s the best thing ever, imagining all the nice things they can do with that information. Another might respond with skepticism and more questions, trying to ascertain if it’s actually true and nothing else.
I try to be both. Investigate information when that’s needed, otherwise imagine and daydream. But my nature is definitely intuitive, which is why I became an artist and did absolutely nothing with my degree in Mathematics.
Nature
The two options are Thinking (T) vs Feeling (F).
These are quite obvious and relate to how we deal with decision, problems and emotion.
Thinking means you want to think things through and solve everything with arguments and reasoning. Feeling means you put emotions first and handle problems by investigating the emotions.
You can, again, immediately test this by writing a scene in which a decision must be made. One character hammers on “thinking this through”, going over the evidence, finding arguments. Another character is like “well I feel like we should do X” or “the nice, empathic choice is obviously Y, so we do that”
In general, Feeling people trust their gut instinct, their intuition, their experience. Thinking people see every problem or decision as a separate puzzle that must be solved through reasoning and rationale.
Again, I am in the middle of this. Start by using your head, finding facts and solid arguments. Use your heart for everything else. I’ve basically taught myself to think critically and to think through my issues with projects. By nature, I’m more of a Feeling person, to the point that it’s often hard to be productive because I can’t stay professional with all my “feelings” running around.
Tactics
The two options are Judging (J) vs Prospecting (P).
I must say these names are terribly confusing. I’d rather call it Planning vs Improvising.
Judging means you want to plan, you want control, you want certainty. You only act once you’re certain it’s the right thing, or it has low risk, or you have a backup plan. This also means you are good at making actionable plans and sticking to goals.
Improvising is obviously the opposite. You hate plans, control, certainty, having a schedule. You are impulsive. You take risks, probably even enjoy doing it. It also means you are easily distracted or can’t figure out what you want.
This one is easiest to see in a story that’s about making plans, like a heist story. One character can be very reserved. They want the plan to be laid out entirely, in excruciating detail, nothing left to chance. If something goes wrong during the heist, they do not take a risk, but assume their loss and try to flee.
Another character can push to do the heist now. Not only are they impatient, they even want that extra risk and thrill of figuring it out as they go.
I am veeeeery much an improviser. As stated earlier, if I already know how my book is going to end, I do not want to write it anymore. I had to develop all sorts of good habits to be able to focus on writing for more than 10 minutes at a time, without getting distracted :p
Combining them
To create a “personality type”, these traits are simply combined.
For example, if someone is an ENTP, it means they are …
- Extrovert
- Intuitive
- Thinking
- Prospecting
Changing even one letter, can change the whole personality. There are, however, a few “groups” of similar personalities.
- Analysts: those with N and T
- Diplomats: those with N and F
- Sentinels: those with S and J
- Explorers: those with S and P
You might use this to align characters towards a similar goal, or to make them get along better.
Identity
Some models add an extra overarching scale: identity.
The two options are Assertive (-A) or Turbulent (-T). The dash means they are added to the end of the combination with a dash: ENTP-A or ENTP-T.
This one is about how certain the character is of their personality.
Assertive means you are confident, happy with who you are, with few regrets or doubts. Turbulent means you’re still searching, uncertain, thinking a lot about the parts of your personality you don’t like (or think aren’t fully formed yet).
The issue here is that the main character of a story needs to change, so it’s pretty much required to start out Turbulent and move towards Assertive at the end.
You can subvert this and start with a really confident character. But even then, the point of the story will probably be that they are overconfident and need to reconsider, which will cause them to move towards Turbulent anyway.
Use that change (Turbulent->Assertive) to help you craft the arc for your main characters. Use the Assertive identity mostly for side characters who do not undergo (much) change.
The hard part
It is really hard to write characters that are not like you. It’s even harder if, like me, you have a background that basically forced you to also learn all the things you were bad at.
As mentioned in the remarks, I am basically 50/50 on every trait. Not because I am somehow the most average baby ever born, but because I had to teach myself the other half.
I am an intuitive improviser at heart, but was forced to study Applied Mathematics. That obviously requires 100% reasoning and logical thinking at all times.
My heart wants to be kind at all times, but it’s just not the best strategy. Many decisions should be made based on arguments, reasoning, evidence. (Especially those that involve multiple people, all with different feelings and opinions. I’ve seen countless times what happens if such decisions are made by one power-hungry person who decides based on emotion.) Only some decisions should be made by the heart.
I have been campaigning to change our educational system to focus on critical thinking (and nothing else) for years now. It’s the only skill you need 100% of the time, and it’s the one actively being discouraged in the educational system. Because … if you can think critically … you also know when you should stop thinking and make a decision with your heart.
As such, I still struggle with writing characters that are so clearly in one camp, or who do not champion critical thinking. To me, they just seem dumb, a hero turned into an enemy because they thought “feelings” were more important than “arguments”.
I’ve found several ways around this.
- Simply more practice. More reading and writing. It slowly makes you better at understanding characters and really getting into their head. It exposes you to interesting characters from other writers, with other life experiences than yours.
- Remember that stories are supposed to be about change. Characters should have something that readers can admire and relate to, but they should otherwise start as dumb and unskillful as possible. Reassure yourself, while writing, that you’re moving towards a less dumb character.
- Allow characters to be “stereotypes”, but put them in a group where they complement each other. If you have two heroes team up, make one logical and thinking, and the other intuitive and feeling. It allows both interesting conflict (between clashing personalities), as well as a more nuanced perspective on personality.
What you certainly should not do, is write a character like me :p Somebody who is everything or can do everything … 50/50. It means they either have nothing left to learn, or everything left to learn. They’re basically a grey personality, a blank slate. It also means there isn’t any reason to really love or hate the character, as they aren’t especially capable in any aspect.
Writers, in general, have a more nuanced understanding of human nature. It’s literally our job to think about and explore it. As such, we can often see different viewpoints or nuances easily. Our own characters quickly feel too shortsighted, stupid and stereotypical. They’re probably just the right amount of shortsighted :p
Make your characters more stereotypical than you think, which also means they have all the flaws and shortcomings of the regular human being.
Yes, yes, I see the irony here. My character, as a writer, being the most uninteresting thing you could write in a story. Perhaps that’s why I write: to escape to more interesting worlds, with characters so clearly good or evil or focused.
Now write!
The challenge here is obvious.
- Create a cast of main characters.
- Give each of them a unique personality type: a combination of these four traits.
- Now write a story with them. Really allow the characters to create the plot: they should stick to their personality type, even if that pushes the plot into weird directions.
Most authors agree that character is more important than plot. Your plot is allowed to be a bit slow or weird, as long as that allows the characters to be unique, fun and consistent. The other way around seems better at first (a flashy plot that hooks people all the way), but if that requires flat and boring characters, the story will start to feel hollow halfway through.
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