Got Personality?

This past week has been about characters. The blogs I follow have had posts relating to developing character, and the fiction writing book I’m currently reading, Plot versus Character by Jeff Gerke, is covering character development as well.

One of the tools for developing character is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), based on the works of Carl G. Jung and Isabel Briggs Myers. MBTI describes people in terms of their personality type.

You can take a quick quiz yourself and find out your personality type by visiting this page:

Free Personality Type Assessment

PersonalityType.com will try to upsell you on a bunch of stuff, but it doesn’t cost anything just to find out your personality type.

Once you know your personality type, go here to learn more about it:

Personality Type Portraits

PersonalityPage.com also has a questionnaire that you can take to determine your personality type, but it requires a password and is 60 questions long. The cool thing about PersonalityType.com is that they provide the most complete information on personality types I’ve found so far. They give you a lengthy description that includes strengths and weaknesses, and they have additional information regarding careers, relationships, and personal growth. All of it free!

I learned that I’m an INTJ, or “The Scientist.” Those letters stand for Introvert (vs Extrovert), iNtuitive (vs Sensor), Thinker (vs Feeler), and Judger (vs Perceiver). This assessment comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me well.

Personality type makes a good starting point for developing a character. It isn’t everything you need to know, but it is a good framework on which you can layer life experiences and relationships to build a rich character perspective. When you put the resulting character into scenes in your book, you have a good idea of how they will act and react.