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Original post by Fournicolas
\Annoyed? Hell, not at all!! It only seemed, well, curious, trying to state the obvious. Ok, maybe it's not that obvious for everybody, but I thought it ought to be. Why would anyone believe that ANYTHING cannot happen? Mostly, people act for reasons, and those reasons are quite often hidden in their own personnal existences. It means that, when you write about someone, you should know him (or her) intimately. At least, as intimately as yourself.
It's been my experience that most people don't know themselves intimately. Also, a personality type system is a, well, systematic way of knowing other people including characters. And that's generally the point of education, to make people look at things in a more effective systematic way rather than the haphazard instinctive way that the average person, and especially artistic types like writers, thinks about personality.
(So that also answer's technogoth's question about why I didn't use examples of existing characters instead. Plus the fact that character is conveyed in a lot of little places throughout a story which makes it hard to summarize, and any example character I picked many people would not have been familiar with. I could have used Jung's archetypes instead, but I dislike them and think they are useless and obstructive when people get caught up in that hero-monomyth theory of writing and try to actually base characters on them. I could also have used astrological signs or enneagrams but I like the Keirsy system best because it is the most orderly - to create a character you need only make 4 binary choices, and theoretically every character ought to be one of these 16 possible types.)
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And, out of interest for YOUR thought processing, why did you assume that the banter everyone would write would be between themselves and someone else? Why can't people write about other people, in your opinion?
Huh? I didn't assume that. I said people could write the banter scene between any two character types as long as they were different from each other. And I recommended that they choose two characters who were only different in one or two aspects rather than being complete opposites.
I do assume that people who have not studied personality understand their own mind best. Also writing is a solitary hobby, most writers are introverts, and introverts usually do not understand other people that well. So, many writers find it easier and more satisfying to write from their own point of view than some hypothetical other person's. The whole Mary Sue phenomenon is evidence for this. One of the major motivations for writing fiction is that you want to experience safe adventures and escape the unpleasant real world, so you create a character based on yourself, usually with some wish-fulfilling improvements like stunning good looks or magic powers or a loyal telepathic pet, and put this version of yourself into a more interesting world populated by fascinating love interests and opportunities for you to be a hero and be admired. But I certainly believe that some people naturally develop an understanding of the different ways different people think, and that others have studied character personality as part of learning how to write well. And I have seen some writers succeed very well at writing a character whose personality is completely different from their own, so it's definitely a skill which can be learned.
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Let's say you were to write a discussion between a male Sergeant and a female Corporal, arguing about wether or not they should take the platoon out of their hiding. What makes you think that the sarge is going to scream for running? or that he will be the one actually trying to calm down the men, and remain calm and silent? Is that because he is a leader? Well, he may be in command, but sometimes, leaders are more of a thinking type than of an exalted type. SO the whole point of the test was only to let people participating in this contest know that there are people who actually think different? I just can't understand why they did not take the time to actually write something about that...
I don't see that your example actually has anything to do with your conclusion here. A seargent could theoretically be any of the 16 personality types; some would be more likely than others because some are more inclined to like an orderly military environment and some are better at dealing with subordinates, and some are more likely to accept the responsibilities of leadership. But basically, the man's job is irrelevant. The important thing is what role the author wants him to play in the story. Is he supposed to be comically incompetent, charismatic but short-sightedly leading people into trouble, a loner who wants to avoid his leadership responsibilities, or what? If you know what role you want him to play, it should be easy to figure out his personality type, which may give you more insight into how he thinks or, if you already understand that, just provide a rule of thumb to keep his character consistent throughout the story. If you don't know what role you want him to play, or know something but not everything about how you want him to be, browsing through the 16 types you can find one which resonated and use it as a guideline to finish figuring the character out, to help you figure out how the character would think and act in a particular circumstance, and again to help you keep the character consisten throughout the story.
