Support for Indie Authors discussion

Have you ever tried a Briggs-Meyers test for your characters? It was so much fun for me to do with my version of Nietzsche. He is an INTP.

According to the website:
You have distinct preference of Introversion over Extraversion (75%)
You have moderate preference of Intuition over Sensing (31%)
You have strong preference of Thinking over Feeling (87%)
You have slight preference of Perceiving over Judging (13%)

You can try it here: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/j...

That was interesting Dylan. Thanks. My book character was ENTJ.

Austin Great Worth from Austism comes up ESFP (I imagined his family helping him figure the questions out - or flat out answering for him).

•You have moderate preference of Extraversion over Introversion (50%)
•You have strong preference of Sensing over Intuition (100%)
•You have moderate preference of Feeling over Thinking (25%)
•You have slight preference of Perceiving over Judging (12%)

Ha! I do this for almost all my characters, usually once I've written their viewpoint for awhile so I don't mis-type them :) I thought it was a bit funny that my two heroes turned out an INFJ and an ENFJ, while the two main villains were ISTP and ESTP. Another of my (unfinished) stories has a main character who's pretty much my spirit animal, but she's typed as almost my complete opposite--ENFP to my INTJ.
It's definitely a fun exercise, and it brings out some interesting elements to a story that wouldn't be visible otherwise :)

Omg Dylan, I can't believe I never thought of this! I'm going to have to do it when I get more time! ;)

Grace wrote: "It's definitely a fun exercise, and it brings out some interesting elements to a story that wouldn't be visible otherwise :)"

I thought so too. I think it all seemed pretty consistent with how he acts in the story, which made me chuckle.

Funny results. I did it for the two main characters in Red Shadow:

Hunter: INTP (16/66/41/6%)
Suggested career: IT or librarian :)
Counterpart: ESFP (47/31/41/16%)

Witch: ESFP (47/31/41/16%)
Suggested career: Acting, dress making, fashion, fitness.

I guess I hit the nail on the head :)

Zoltán wrote: "Funny results. I did it for the two main characters in Red Shadow:

Hunter: INTP (16/66/41/6%)
Suggested career: IT or librarian :)
Counterpart: ESFP (47/31/41/16%)

Witch: ESFP (47/31/41/16%)
Sugg..."

Hahaha... perhaps a "Conan The Librarian" kind of librarian?

Dylan wrote: "Hahaha... perhaps a "Conan The Librarian" kind of librarian? "

Yup! All those spell books returned late or never at all.
Worst of all... I hardly dare to whisper... they don't even know the Dewey decimal system.

Zoltán wrote: "Dylan wrote: "Hahaha... perhaps a "Conan The Librarian" kind of librarian? "

Yup! All those spell books returned late or never at all.
Worst of all... I hardly dare to whisper... they don't even ..."

Oh, please tell me that's a Weird Al reference. And if not, I'm going to pretend it is anyway!

Dylan wrote: "Zoltán wrote: "Dylan wrote: "Hahaha... perhaps a "Conan The Librarian" kind of librarian? "

Yup! All those spell books returned late or never at all.
Worst of all... I hardly dare to whisper... t..."

Leisure Suit Larry is who it sounds like to me, lol. Either way, someone who looks like they would have problems getting laid. (Not saying Weird Al does, but if he wasn't famous.... He's called Weird Al for a reason...)

It's from an old Weird Al movie. Here is the clip. It's totally worth watching! hahaha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZHoH...

Yup. The reference was made to Weird Al :)

BTW: The funny part in the above test result was the 'librarian' even though, on closer inspection, it's not that far fetched. The character is hundreds of years old, tries to learn anything that may aid his investigations and hunt. He also has an almost perfect memory. His library is simply in his head.

The interesting part was the perfect fit between his suggested interest and the witch's result. Exact to the percentage.

Riley wrote: "Dylan wrote: "Zoltán wrote: "Dylan wrote: "Hahaha... perhaps a "Conan The Librarian" kind of librarian? "

Yup! All those spell books returned late or never at all.
Worst of all... I hardly dare t..."

OMG! Leisure Suit Larry; that game was hilarious!!

Oh this is fantastic!

Mikhail is my bodyguard in True's Love:

ISTJ
Introvert(22%) Sensing(34%) Thinking(28%) Judging(50%)

ISTJs succeed as military and police workers, engineers, auditors, lawyers, surgeons.

So, bodyguard is pretty much right for his career.
It's quite freaky how spot on this is for a fictional character!

That was fun!
Here's Azi,:
INFJ
Introvert(22%) iNtuitive(3%) Feeling(59%) Judging(6%)
You have slight preference of Introversion over Extraversion (22%)
You have marginal or no preference of Intuition over Sensing (3%)
You have distinct preference of Feeling over Thinking (59%)
You have slight preference of Judging over Perceiving (6%)

Rain, the protagonist of my Rain Experience trilogy.

•You have moderate preference of Extraversion over Introversion (56%)
•You have slight preference of Intuition over Sensing (22%)
•You have moderate preference of Feeling over Thinking (28%)
•You have slight preference of Perceiving over Judging (22%)

ENFPs are both "idea"-people and "people"-people, who see everyone and everything as part of a cosmic whole. They want to both help and to be liked and admired by other people, on both an individual and a humanitarian level.

I'd say most of the description is fairly accurate to his character.

A friend of mine, who is an educational psychologist reckons one of my heroes is on the autistic spectrum, and his wife has Munchousens syndrome by proxy.

But she could be pulling my chain...

@Jane: Well, autism is not something you either have or don't have. It's a continuous spectrum. Many have slight autistic background and nobody will ever notice in a lifetime. Her diagnosys may be just what you wanted to achieve with your character, even if inconsciously.

As long as she was not hinting at you :P

Sure have. It is a great way to know your characters.
My MC is INFJ, just like me. Go figure ;)

Never thought of that, what a good idea. I have designed characters to express Jungian archetypes, though. I am an INFJ who has long studied Jung

Thanks for this idea. The central character of my novel came up as ENTJ, and it suits him perfectly.

Kylie wrote: "Sure have. It is a great way to know your characters.
My MC is INFJ, just like me. Go figure ;)"

Funny, my current character and I are the same way. Two peas in a pod we are. :)

I did a test for all the main characters in my books. They came out pretty much as I expected. Two of my main characters are like me, which is not surprising, considering the way I wrote them. Funny though, their love interests are almost the opposite. Very interesting.

I highly recommend it. It's a wonderful and interesting way to get insight into your characters.

I am also an INFJ but have never thought to do this for my characters. Interesting thought!

I do this all the time for my characters, as well as full astrology charts, DnD style alignment and Hogwarts Houses. Can help define what a character's choice might be in a stiff situation.

Here's an interesting site where you can paste text (best 2,000 to 6,000 words) and it will analyse the personality of the writer (or presumably the character from your novel if you paste such quotes):

https://personality-insights-livedemo...

I pasted examples of my own writing from my blog and included no quotes from any one else (just over 6,000 words)

The analysis was as follows:

"You are inner-directed and skeptical.
You are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. You are independent: you have a strong desire to have time to yourself. And you are unconcerned with art: you are less concerned with artistic or creative activities than most people who participated in our surveys.
Your choices are driven by a desire for efficiency.
You are relatively unconcerned with tradition: you care more about making your own path than following what others have done. You consider helping others to guide a large part of what you do: you think it is important to take care of the people around you."

Not too bad considering I am an INFJ, but "sceptical" would have far better been replaced with "critical". Where it completely went wrong was " And you are unconcerned with art: you are less concerned with artistic or creative activities than most people who participated in our surveys." as most of what I pasted was about the techniques and aesthetics of a number of named artists and I discussed modern and ancient art!

So "mileage might vary", but well worth a try. The results are almost instantaneous, btw.

I thought this was a really interesting idea and just tried the Briggs-Meyers test for three of my major characters - and the results were eerily accurate. They even made me think of some possible character development ideas.

Which then made me wonder - has anyone ever started with one of these personality types and then created a character from that?

I was perturbed after it analysed my Twitter profile; it made me sound like the worst kind of Slytherin. I'm nice really!

E.M. wrote: "I thought this was a really interesting idea and just tried the Briggs-Meyers test for three of my major characters - and the results were eerily accurate. They even made me think of some possible ..."

No, not that accurate. I always do the 'Ninja Turtle' personality types on characters before writing them. (Or, more classically known as the 4 humours)

Later, while examining all of the characters in my novel because of this thread I ended up noticing that they all fit into one of the BM spots, with only a single double, and those were the twins that acted alike, Subconsciously, I had done it without realizing I had. Which fits into my own BM type pretty exactly. :)