Bring Your Character To Life, Andrew Scorah [grave mercy .txt] 📗

CHARACTERISATION

PERSONALITY TYPES FOR WRITERS
We all have trouble coming up with our characters and giving them a personality, I discovered this set of 16 personality traits that are extremely useful in helping to develop our characters whether good or bad. All so included within these pages, other information which could prove useful in the aid of building our characters.
The five primary methods of characterization are:
1) Dialogue: the syntax, accents, diction within the speech of a character can hint to important details regarding the character's nationality, heritage, upbringing, moral standings, social skills, and overall personality.
2) Physical Actions/Reactions: The character's actions and reactions to the plot events and other characters is shown in the prose of literature and often positioned in such a way to determine a writer's style. Contemporary writers like to situate particular actions/reactions in between dialogue and throughout the prose whereas centuries-old writers used to include mostly exposition with little dialogue. Overall, the actions/reactions of the character allows the reader to observe the character's body language and interpret the character's personality instead of being blatantly told what the character is like, as was often done in the past.
3) Physical traits/characteristics: Writers tend to choose or only describe the physical attributes/flaws of a character that are symbolically significant to the character and the story. Again, in past centuries, writers would often dump information in blocked paragraphs for the reader to sift through but more contemporary writers use the technique of only drawing attention to the most telling characteristics of a character's physical appearance so as to allow the reader to make inferences and more easily remember the character.
Example 1: A character with greying hair peppered with black might symbolically signify a dual personality. This could foreshadow a plot event in the future where the character shows both dark and light sides to his personality.
Example 2: A character with a nervous stutter would suggest to the reader that this character is struggling with internal self esteem issues and does not feel comfortable in the large social surroundings. The characteristic stutter is a telling quirk that personifies who this character is as a person.
4) Internal Monologue/Thoughts: The internal thoughts of a character provide insight for the reader into a character's mind, allowing them to experience the character's conflicts and sentiments on a personal level and learn things about him/her that would not have been otherwise obvious within the dialogue or actions.
5) Names: The names given to a character often suggest or symbolize some sort of underlying characteristic or principle within the character's personality. Not all authors choose symbolically significant names but those that do, tend to do so to reinforce the overall theme of the story or the character's overall conflict. Nicknames that are given to characters also apply.
Example 1: The name, Harry Potter, is the most common and unremarkable of the character names within the Harry Potter series. Rowling chose this name in an attempt to both foreshadow an underlying theme that everyday people can achieve remarkable goals and to also allow the reader more able to relate to the character and see him as someone not unlike themselves.

Example 2: A character who practices celibacy might be nicknamed "monk," and this is to both characterize his personality/values and to show the reader how other characters might judge this character.
The most direct of these 5 are the dialogue, actions/reactions, and internal thoughts because they more blatantly inform/show the reader the character's personality traits than the subtle hints symbolized through appearance or names.
PERSONALITY TYPES.
There are sixteen distinct personality types in the currently most widely-accepted Personality Type model. Each type has its own characteristics which can be identified in individual personalities. We have created a profile of each personality type, which provides a guideline for understanding the similarities and differences amongst the types.


ISTJ - The Duty Fulfillers
ESTJ - The Guardians
ISFJ - The Nurturers
ESFJ - The Caregivers
ISTP - The Mechanics
ESTP - The Doers
ESFP - The Performers
ISFP - The Artists
ENTJ - The Executives
INTJ - The Scientists
ENTP - The Visionaries
INTP - The Thinkers
ENFJ - The Givers
INFJ - The Protectors
ENFP - The Inspirers
INFP - The Idealists

Whether you're a young adult trying to find your place in the world, or a not-so-young adult trying to find out if you're moving along the right path, it's important to understand yourself and the personality traits which will impact your likeliness to succeed or fail at various careers. It's equally important to understand what is really important to you. When armed with an understanding of your strengths and weaknesses, and an awareness of what you truly value, you are in an excellent position to pick a career which you will find rewarding.

ISTJs generally have the following traits:

Value tradition, security, and peaceful living
Will work long and hard to fulfill duties
Can be depended on to follow through on tasks
Loyal and faithful
Stable, practical and down-to-earth
Family-minded
Dislike doing things which don't make sense to them
Dislike abstract theory, unless they see the practical application
Natural leaders
Prefer to work alone, but work well in teams when necessary
Extremely observant, they take in facts via their senses and store them internally
Vast, rich inner store of facts which they rely on to understand problems which they encounter in their lives
Profound respect for facts and concrete information
Make decisions objectively, applying logic and rational thinking
Dislike change, unless they are shown it's benefit in a concrete way
Have strong opinions about the way things should be done
Appreciate structured, orderly environments
Have very high standards for their own behavior and the behavior of others
Not naturally in-tune with other people's feelings
Able to accomplish almost anything if they put their minds to it
Community minded "good citizens"

ISTJs have one character trait which puts them at a definite advantage in terms of career success - Perserverance. An ISTJ can do almost anything that they have decided to do. However, there are areas in which they will function more happily and naturally. An ISTJ will do best in a career in which they can use their excellent organizational skills and their powers of concentration to create order and structure. ISTJs seem to fit extremely well into the Management and Executive layer of the corporate business world.

The following list of professions is built on our impressions of careers which would be especially suitable for an ISTJ. It is meant to be a starting place, rather than an exhaustive list. There are no guarantees that any or all of the careers listed here would be appropriate for you, or that your best career match is among those listed.

Possible Career Paths for the ISTJ:

Business Executives, Administrators and Managers
Accountants and Financial Officers
Police and Detectives
Judges
Lawyers
Medical Doctors / Dentists
Computer Programmers or Systems Analysts
Military Leaders

ESTJs generally have the following traits:

Natural leaders - they like to be in charge
Value security and tradition
Loyal
Hard-working and dependable
Athletic and wholesome
Have a clear set of standards and beliefs which they live by
No patience with incompetence or inefficiency
Excellent organizational abilities
Enjoy creating order and structure
Very thorough
Will follow projects through to completion
Straight-forward and honest
Driven to fulfill their duties

ESTJs have a lot of flexibility in the types of careers that they choose. They are good at a lot of different things, because they put forth a tremendous amount of effort towards doing things the right way. They will be happiest in leadership positions, however, because they have a natural drive to be in charge. They are best suited for jobs which require creating order and structure.

The following list of professions is built on our impressions of careers which would be especially suitable for an ESTJ. It is meant to be a starting place, rather than an exhaustive list. There are no guarantees that any or all of the careers listed here would be appropriate for you, or that your best career match is among those listed.

Possible Career Paths for the ESTJ:

Military leaders
Business Administrators and Managers
Police / Detective work
Judges
Financial Officers
Teachers
Sales Representatives

ISFJs generally have the following traits:

Large, rich inner store of information which they gather about people
Highly observant and aware of people's feelings and reactions
Excellent memory for details which are important to them
Very in-tune with their surroundings - excellent sense of space and function
Can be depended on to follow things through to completion
Will work long and hard to see that jobs get done
Stable, practical, down-to-earth - they dislike working with theory and abstract thought
Dislike doing things which don't make sense to them
Value security, tradition, and peaceful living
Service-oriented: focused on what people need and want
Kind and considerate
Likely to put others' needs above their own
Learn best with hands-on training
Enjoy creating structure and order
Take their responsibilities seriously
Extremely uncomfortable with conflict and confrontation

ISFJs have two basic traits which help define their best career direction: 1) they are extremely interested and in-tune with how other people are feeling, and 2) they enjoy creating structure and order, and are extremely good at it. Ideally, the ISFJ will choose a career in which they can use their exceptional people-observation skills to determine what people want or need, and then use their excellent organizational abilities to create a structured plan or environment for achieving what people want. Their excellent sense of space and function combined with their awareness of aesthetic quality also gives them quite special abilities in the more practical artistic endeavors, such as interior decorating and clothes design.

The following list of professions is built on our impressions of careers which would be especially suitable for an ISFJ. It is meant to be a starting place, rather than an exhaustive list. There are no guarantees that any or all of the careers listed here would be appropriate for you, or that your best career match is among those listed.

Possible Career Paths for the