The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator- Part II, A Tool For Character Development

In the first part of this article, we covered that the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, also known as MBTI, is a questionnaire designed to identify the dominant traits in your personality. Based on these traits you can determine what would be the main motivations, values, needs, and interest of that individual. This questionnaire was started by Katharine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers when Katharine wrote this theory trying to understand her characters. Thanks to her work many authors have used this questionnaire to define the personality and traits of their characters. In this second part of the article we will expose the reasons you should use this technique for character development:

• Character Consistency: By assigning one of the 16 personalities of the MBTI results to your character, you will identify their traits. If they’re an extrovert or an introvert. Are they intuitive or do they follow common sense? Do they trust their head or heart? Prone to judgment or perception? This will help you see who they are as people and predict how they would react to situations. Thanks to this you will be able to write your characters more consistently since you are developing their psyche not just their actions.
• Write Authentic Character Arcs: By understanding their goals and values, you can write believable flaws and virtues, including what challenges they would really be facing. For example, an introvert wouldn’t have the same obstacles as an extroverted, but that doesn’t mean the latter doesn’t have their own battles to face. In doing this, you will be able to write a consistent and authentic character arc.
• Make Them More Realistic And Relatable: When you write characters keeping their psychology in mind, you end up writing them more realistically. They are no longer simply pawns in your story that do the things that need to be done so that the story can progress; instead, they are people who reason and can act irrationally. In developing their personality and psyche you’ll make them more human, and as a result more relatable.
• Help You Write Interesting Conflict: This counts for both internal and external conflict. You can quickly write internal struggles that show a persona conflict the character is going through when you know what their psychological traits are. This ties perfectly with point number three about character arcs. However, it’s not just about internal conflict. As I’m sure you know, sometimes you can clash with people just because your personalities clash. This creates for a fascinating dynamic between characters, especially if they’re in the same teams. An impulsive person would disagree with somebody that needs to plan a situation. When writing your characters, keep these interactions in mind whenever you’re establishing their traits.

The MBTI is a great tool to add to your character profiles. If you were to look at some books, especially young adult ones you can see authors that use this technique. We recommend browsing through our online library www.hublmedia.com for books to read and analyze the psychological traits of their characters.