Personalities have to be one of, if not the, most important parts of character creation and development. Aside from it gives life to your character, it helps you determine their goals, perspectives in life, morals, values, beliefs, and so much more that lets you understand this character whenever you put them in the spotlight in this roleplaying world.
As much as it can be the most exciting to read and follow, some people still struggle to come up or write their characters’ personalities. Either they have no idea how to put their ideas into words or they’re not satisfied of their current idea—we all stand in the same ground, and this thread will exist in hoping to help you create personalities.
Base your building on personality tests.
Personality tests, as you know, can help you understand yourself more as well as determine what your reasons and perspectives are—which are what your characters should not lack.
The most popular basis when doing this method is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which you can do so by answering the following questions:
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How does your character act or feel about being around people? Do they like it, or does it drain their energy fast? Can they last a day without talking to anyone, or are they going to be fine with it? Or maybe they’re both and in between?
This will determine if your character is an introvert or an extrovert, and you can always expand it from there. Also, just a reminder—there are different types of introverts and extroverts, though you can hopefully determine them by answering the next ones. -
How does your character process information? Do they live in the now or do they tend to think about the future? Are they more realistic or imaginative? Does your character enjoy facts or do they try to find deeper meanings?
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How does your character decide? Do they consider the reasons through logical analysis or by weighing other people’s perspectives? Truth or Love? Is your character insensitive or sympathetic?
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How do they live their life? How do they approach life? Are they organized? Do they follow some kind of structured plan? Or is your character prefer to be more
Remember that you don’t need to answer all of the questions above to form your personality. Use them as a prompt instead. And there will always be an “in between,” though don’t make it too neutral, that would be impossible.
There are still a lot of tests and the likes you can base your character from. You can even also inspire personalities by choosing Zodiac signs and read over their stereotypical traits!
Inspire yourself from the FC you chose.
Sometimes, finding an FC first is a good way to start your personality.
The picture above, though it may not be the same as others, gives off the gentle, down-to-earth trait to me. I can expand the personality from then on!
Write it down.
If you already have an idea, write down the adjectives or those ideas and develop from there. Sometimes, you already have the idea but you just can not put them into words. What I do to solve this is that I jot down those raw ideas in a paper, or just on the document right away, and try to give more depth to that.
For example, I jot down these words:
I can organize those adjectives and try to make a whole paragraph out of them. This is effective, and can even give you more ideas as you go on!
Don’t think about how many paragraphs you have to give.
It’s not really uncommon to get intimidated by how others’ personalities are so detailed and long. You want to do that but you can’t because you just can’t! You don’t need to be intimidated by others—give us what you have in your own style of telling.
You don’t need to give us every details of your character’s personality. To be honest, all your readers need is just enough to understand. Do not—and never—stress about writing long paragraphs. This is also better because you will still have room for more personality as you RP on.
Give Flaws and Weaknesses.
Give your character insecurities. Give your character fears. This makes your characters more realistic, and it’s always a good thing because they just become more and more interesting especially if they’re going to reach the part when they’ll be conflicted by something. Don’t be afraid to make flawed characters. This is their crucial part to development, as how Michael Esser would say.
Though don’t just give them random flaws. These flaws should have reasons… and certainly don’t just make their whole personality negative.
Inspire yourself from the real world.
The world is colorful. People around you have different personalities and traits that you can definitely use to create your fictional one! Or you can even also inspire them from existing films and tv-shows, but make sure not to create a clone of them because that might be plagiarism (I think).
You don’t need to limit yourself to one person to inspire yourself to create one character. You can take a lot of traits that go well with each other from different people. I tend to be observant about my surroundings, and I admit having strong first impressions about people. These first impressions can be flourished into a whole personality. Everything is inspiration, really.
Do the backstory first.
A really effective way to create personality is to do your backstory first, or at least list your raw idea. As you grow, you develop through experience. This goes the same with your fictional character, too. Think about how the events in their life affected them.
And connecting to this tip…
Make sure your personality is reasonable.
Don’t make an exaggerated cold character even though the people around them are loving and sunny and make sure they’re always happy. When creating a character, always make sure the traits you’ve listed down is in line with their whole life. It makes your character more realistic that way. Always give a reason as much as possible to whatever is in your character.
@RPers, I do hope this thread is going to be helpful for you! If you have your own tips and advice, do share them below! It would be much appreciated
