How to use this site for character development and fiction writing?
It is amazing how often fictional characters can be typed to fit my theories, even though I know nobody has written one fictional movie with these in mind yet. (Okay one girl is at least working on something at the moment but I don’t know how far she’s gotten, but…) Fiction writers are often very intuitive when it comes to psychology and rarely create characters that are psychologically irrational. Therefore, I do not wish to suggest that you take a certain, rigid personality type and disregard your own instinct while working on a new character, but rather I wish to point out aspects about the type of a character that you might have otherwise missed, and deepen your empathic understanding of the even the character you don’t like yourself (the antagonist), and who you want to see suffer in the end. If you want to make a character suffer, you’ll also have to know what would make that character (and people like them) truly feel the sting.
- First, have an idea of what you want to work with or study. Some basic ideas of what the character is like, what their motivations are, and what they want out of life more than anything.
- Figure out which type describes them better (if not perfectly) the Young Soul* or the Old Souls* type. (That’s your job for day one. It’s a long post.)
- Figure out whether they are an androphile, a gynephile, or a gynandrophile by their non-sexual gender preference. This will give you an idea of how they behave during a social gathering, who they avoid, who they gravitate to, and who they hang out with and why when they can choose freely.
- Figure out what is their ideal relationship form of a committed, (marriagelike) relationship, and what happens when they don’t realize they are not naturally monogamous but try to be. This also casts an interesting overleaf to their behavior even if your story isn’t a relationship drama.
- Figure out the conflicts of what they think they should want to be a good person and the things they truly want; what kind of a role they are trying to force themselves to play, and what natural wishes pull them the other way.
- What kind of relationships (long read) mess up his or her life? Are they in the wrong relationship? Which is their bonding ideal (quick read)?
- Are your characters possibly planning a wedding anytime soon? That will screw up their day so bad…
- A common theme in a lot of fiction is the parent-child relationship, usually, in art, from the perspective of a Old Souls* child and the Young Soul* parent(s) – the linked post should help you to understand the perspective of the Young Soul* thinking parent, rather than portray them solely as being evil… (There’s a danger, however, the Young Soul*, upon being understood, believe they are right, and your work might encourage them…)
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*) Term changed after this post was originally written. Fractions of old terms may exist elsewhere in the post. Read about term updates.
**) Narcissists are Young Souls left alone to survive and they're doing their best. Their emotional age ranges from 3 to 17 -year old. The younger, the more severe the narcissism.
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