I've long been interested in personality theory. Many of these theories discribe people's quirks, languge usage and potential conflicts between them. In my character development I usualy write a Bio that includes their MBTI and in my plot outlining try to set up typical personality conflicts. Has anyone else used MBTI or socionics in the character development? How to do you feel about using personality typing to set up plot events?
Yes, that tends to be how it works... I've never used either of those in character development myself, but if it helps you get a handle on the character and write them believably I see nothing wrong with it. Do you tend to start with the personality type and then build up, or work out what you need them to do, see what type would fit and base their other actions off that?
I did! I worked at fleshing out my main characters and then as a test to myself mostly I saw if I could answer the questionaires that let me plot their personality type. Then I read the comments about the type of behavior one "might" expect of an ESTG etc... and saw it fitted (if my character's reaction to events were consistent.) It was a fun exercise, nothing to do huge re-write about...
I'm also interested in personality theory, but I don't use it as much as I used to. Worry about it too much and it gets in the way of trying to make a decent character. That said, it's' still a good way to structuralize (is that even a word?) the way you see your characters.
I know quite a few people who use this for filling out their characters. I generally don't use it for my main characters, as I've usually already got a good grasp on what I want them to be like--but when you need to add some dimension to an otherwise flat character, I think it can be a useful tool. ALSO.. if you do have a good grasp of your character, but aren't sure how exactly they'd react in a certain situation, personality typing them can help.
