Thread: Personality Typing -- Writing Aid or Hindrance?

Over the past few months, I've found myself extremely interested in the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) which is a personality test of sorts. My question is do any of you go so far in planning your stories as to type your characters and research how those people think, act, and interact with the world?

I'm noticing that I can definitely nail down the types of some of my lead characters in one of my novels, and by knowing how their minds work, I've found it makes it easier to flesh out their characters.

Also, if you do type your characters, what criteria do you use? Is there something better than MBTI? How extensive do you look into your characters' backgrounds?

If you don't type your characters, why not? Is this something you have tried and found either unnecessary, or has the idea not come up yet?

Sounds like you're on to something. How long did it take you to get proficient with MBTI, and how did you learn it (what was your source)?

Nope, I've never used anything like this. I get to know my characters by writing them. But if this works for you, rock on, dude.

Originally Posted by C.M. Aaron

Sounds like you're on to something. How long did it take you to get proficient with MBTI, and how did you learn it (what was your source)?

Well, it started when I took a MBTI test (I'm ISTJ). I started looking more into it, and found a forum named Personality Cafe where you can discuss things with your own personality type or try to see things from other perspectives.

Other than that, if you're interested in learning more, just do a Google search for it. You can also look into breaking it down into different preferences. It's only taken me about two to three months to get to a point where I feel comfortable with my knowledge of it.

The really cool thing about it is that I had a character I had conceived for one of my stories who was more of a disorganized, kind of scatter-brained, albeit brilliant scientist, and when I looked up the description of INTPs, it was exactly how I had seen her acting in my head.

Originally Posted by ankles

Nope, I've never used anything like this. I get to know my characters by writing them. But if this works for you, rock on, dude.

I'm more of a planner, so I find this to be an aid. My problem is sometimes I get so caught up in planning, that I spend more time doing that than actually writing.

Originally Posted by brian_o

I'm more of a planner, so I find this to be an aid. My problem is sometimes I get so caught up in planning, that I spend more time doing that than actually writing.

That's a common problem. Sometimes you just have to set that stuff aside and delve in. The problem I have with planning is that I get bored. If I know who the characters are, and if I know the story already, then I lose interest in writing about them.

And now I'm going to check out this Personality Cafe. I'll probably waste HOURS of my life there!