A Guide to Character Development

[LWulf]

Something I was taught at one job was how to easily identify people.
In relation to that, I thought this might be a helpful tool for writers. If you know what type of person your character is, writing their parts should be easier.

A Writer's Resource


http://s25.postimg.org/ets2ns93j/personality_type.png​

To explain the four personality types, there are:

• Amiable - This is your BFF. They make friends fast, and hate to break their word to you. They make a promise, they keep it.
• Expressive - This is your favorite Uncle Bob or Aunt Beatrice. The one who comes over to you, throws his arm around your shoulder and starts talking ever so easily to you. They also gesticulate a lot. Very touchy-feely. A wild card. They are indulgent and love to be in the heat of the moment.
• Driver - This is someone who is short, to the point and hates being friendly. They hate being told what to do. They tell YOU what they want WHEN they want it, HOW they want it and noway else.
• Analytical - Self explanatory. For writers, this might be a good character to use to go into exposition with, or if the character is a detective, etc.

There are four primary descriptions for those four personality types. They are:

• Introvert - This is a person who gets energy by being alone.
• Extrovert - This is a person who gets energy by being in the spot light. Put a camera on them, they LOVE IT.
• Social - In a word, friendly
• Anti-social - contrary to the laws and customs of society; devoid of, or antagonistic to sociable instincts or practices

**note that these are shared by two of the above personality types described above:

• The Amiable is both Social but Introverted.
• The Expressive is both Social but Extroverted.
• The Driver is both Anti-social and Extroverted.
• The Analytical is both Anti-social and Introverted.

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Sometimes knowing those four categories of personalities is enough, sometimes you want more detailed characters. To that end, each of the four personalities is broken into 4 subsets that share traits with the other three. So one is a primary personality type, and the second is a secondary personality type.
Broken down, they are
DA - Double Amiable - Primary: Amiable, Secondary: Amiable
AE - Amiable Expressive - Primary: Amiable, Secondary: Expressive
AA - Amiable Analytical - Primary: Amiable, Secondary: Analytical
AD - Amiable Driver - Primary: Amiable, Secondary: Driver (a difficult combination to explain because it is conflicting personality types)

DE - Double Expressive - Primary: Expressive, Secondary: Expressive
EA - Expressive Amiable - Primary: Expressive, Secondary: Amiable
ED - Expressive Driver - Primary: Expressive, Secondary: Driver
EA - Expressive Analytical - Primary: Expressive, Secondary: Analytical (a difficult combination to explain because it is conflicting personality types)

DD - Double Driver - Primary: Driver, Secondary: Driver (truly a worst nightmare)
DA - Driver Analytical - Primary: Driver, Secondary: Analytical
DE - Driver Expressive - Primary: Driver, Secondary: Expressive
DA - Driver Amiable - Primary: Driver, Secondary: Amiable (a difficult combination to explain because it is conflicting personality types)

DA - Double Analytical - Primary: Analytical, Secondary: Analytical
AA - Analytical Amiable - Primary: Analytical, Secondary: Amiable
AD - Analytical Driver - Primary: Analytical, Secondary: Driver
AE - Analytical Expressive - Primary: Analytical, Secondary: Expressive (a difficult combination to explain because it is conflicting personality types)

What does this all mean?
There is a reason that it is arranged in a chart like above. Each personality type has an antithesis to themselves. These are shown at opposite corners to each other.
The Analytical confounds the Expressive, and vice versa, while the Amiable confounds the Driver and likewise vice versa.
You want to have one character rub another the wrong way, then, for example, have an Amiable treat a Driver like they were an Amiable. You want two characters to be fast friends, either have similar traits (for instance, both are Expressive), or have where an Amiable respects the differences of the Driver.

Example:
I have a character Vinnie, who is a Bouncer at a bar. He is primarily a Driver personality type. He likes to schmooze with other characters so his secondary is Expressive.
Another character I have is Jessica. She is a dancer at the bar and she hates everything about Vinnie. Her primary is Amiable and her secondary is Expressive.
Because they are both Extroverts (Jessica latently so), they get charged by being in the spotlight, which means they have no problem getting in each other's face.
Because their characters are polar opposites (Driver to Amiable) they are natural combatants.

BUT, let's say I instead had made Jessica an Amiable Analytical. That Jessica gets into a fight with Vinnie is really against her personality type. As a double introverted personality type, she loses energy by being forward and would more likely be the type of character who would stick to the corner until a fight is over then go to her friend and list reasons why her friend shouldn't feel bad.

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In the end, a writer who is Driver personality type or an Expressive is not going to find this useful, while the Amiable and Analytical will find this immensely handy.

 

[patientlee]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. I bookmarked it.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I learned it the hard way, earning a grad degree in psychology, logging many years in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and working a career in the mental health industry where I interviewed 1000s of people. LIT wont allow the really interesting stuff average people do. My daughter tells me someone in her neighborhood traps kittens and hangs them. No one has a clue who it is....acts normal. People do much worse.

 

[Hypoxia]

Ah, the thread migrated from HOW-TO. When I see this or similar combinational tools, I think of Lullian diagrams and decoder rings. Just spin the rings, twirl the circles, to get all possible combinations. Swift lampooned such with Gulliver in Laputa. They can indeed stimulate one to consider otherwise-un-thought-of possibilities -- maybe only abstractions, impossible IRL, but hey, fun is fun.

 

[LWulf]

... My daughter tells me someone in her neighborhood traps kittens and hangs them. No one has a clue who it is....acts normal. People do much worse.

I used to do something like that when I was younger.

When I was younger, I used to tie up a cat, stick a funnel up it's butt then pour gasoline in it, then let the cat loose. It immediately started running round and round in circles, but then, it just stopped and fell over...

"Dead?"

Nope. Ran out of gas.

Jokes like that on a cat lovers forum is probably going to get me k-lined! XD

 

[HeyAll]

For me, I more or less use the same character types.

If it's an older woman, she might be smart, or seductive, or caring, stern, ect...

If it's a younger woman, she might be naive, shy, smart and nerdy, overly sexual, ect..

Then I ask, "What would this character do in xyz situation? How would she react?"

Then there's character development.

 

[LWulf]

For me, I more or less use the same character types.

If it's an older woman, she might be smart, or seductive, or caring, stern, ect...

If it's a younger woman, she might be naive, shy, smart and nerdy, overly sexual, ect..

Then I ask, "What would this character do in xyz situation? How would she react?"

Then there's character development.

I'm not going to twist your arm behind your back on this. If you can't see how this could be of help, then the matter is closed in your mind.

However, I will point out that you listed both being smart, and one being both shy and overly (overtly?) sexual which seems to be contradictory to itself. The chances for your characters starting to become homogenous seems almost certain. Use a guide like this will start making you develop differences in characters almost assuredly, unless you pick the same personality type for each and e3very character that is.

Intelligence or being "smart" isn't a personality trait, at least not in this guide. Any of the 4 major character personality traits could be smart or dumb as an ox. What I am trying to give is how a person reacts to a given situation. You can have a dumb ox who is social and expressive,

Okay, lets use basics of this again. An Expressive is someone who is an Extrovert. He gains energy by being in a crowd, while he loses energy by being alone. He stresses more from being alone, than being in a crowd. People don't get stressed from intelligence or lack of it. They get stressed because they are in a situation they aren't used to.

Put that Expressive on a stage, being tormented by an dancer while his hands are tied behind his back, and he is most likely going to be cracking jokes and making advances on the dancer in spite of his situation.

Put that same Expressive in a darkroom, alone, a single spot light points down over his head. He can't hear or see anyone. His hands are still tied behind his back, and he starts getting tormented by the same dancer, but now the shoe is on the other foot. He might try to act brave or not (like intelligence, bravery is NOT a trait I am trying to describe with this guide), but he is stressing never the less (which IS part of the guide).
He is alone in an environment that isn't friendly which is against his personality type.

Put an Analytical in the same scenes, and because he is an introvert, he gains energy by being alone but loses energy by being on stage in front of a crowd.

*sigh* okay, maybe I twisted your arm a teensy bit there towards the end.