16 Characters You Should Have in Your Novel 

What is the process of writing your. Story

Hello mam. Your advices are very nice . One thing I want to know, ....about special tips for writers who want to write on spiritual topics? I am from India, religion Hindu.

How to conclude a story or to continue in a series.

I have a video suggestion: the Enneagram. Vivien, would you recommend combining the Myers-Briggs personality test with the Enneagram method? The Enneagram focusses more on how a person looks at itself and the world related to the lie it told itself in its youth. The nine personality types in the Enneagram also indicate how the character would react depending on what character arc it follows; a type 1 positive change arc would act different compared to a type 2 positive change arc. Does Myers-Briggs offer something like that as well?

You are beautiful and so is your huskie. Thank you so much, I am working on my first novel and your help and literary insights are invaluable.

Magic!

unable to speak freely for some minutes ... Every 5 seconds there is a cut :) The reason why I look for 10 seconds.

Louis Steiner I think he was joking

I know :) but i dont like vidoes where people need a video cut after every sentence.

Louis Steiner its to discard the 'Erms, umm' or maybe 'what else?' In between the sentences making the video shorter but more informative

Max Gray Thanks 😊😊

Max Gray thank you so much!

Where's MBIR? I'm a Meyers-Briggs-Is-Retarded

People like you exasperate me! Your only point of watching MBTI videos in the first place is to undermine their relevance or functionality, with little thought or care into the fact that millions of people have benefitted from this highly detailed personality indicator. No, it's not a true science, but neither is psychology in general and this is one of the most intrinsically comprehensive modes that it comes in. Typically-now I may be completely off base-but typically those whom deny how it's applicable in their own lives are the special snowflakes who hate the concept of something putting them in a box. But guess what we live in our boxes everyday, people belong to millions of different categories addressing an innumerable plethora of specific things, and to throw away all categories for the sake of be different is neither realistic nor conducive to a healthful life.

woah thanks dude

Hehe.

I saw two

Yas

So did i

That husky is distractingly cute

Fruits and vegetables are alive if you eat them "raw"

What's worse is eating a rotting corpse with maggots chewing at its insides. Good source of protein, but I do not recommend it.

Yogurt is extremely good for your gut bacteria, and it's alive, baby. But only the stuff with no added sugar or colors is healthy enough to justify daily consumption.

"Pretty honest people" *see Littlefinger* GURL WHAT?

He DID warn you not to trust him.

My exact thoughts!

I'd say he's actually mostly honest, which I also believe makes him a better liar. I mean, you don't expect a lie from a person who usually tells the truth, right? Also, I'm the same personality type, so hell, this may explain why I love his character so much (book version though. Showfinger is much different). Also I like the dog in the background.

Eclairz 😂😂😂😂 Exactly what I was thinking

Lol I have a set of twins in one of my stories too, and I have the same situation... I think one is an ESTP (adventurer) and the other is an INFP (idealist) xD

Cool! I’m an ENFP :D

It's not that weird, twins are two different individuals.

Not Totally Stupid you predicted corona virus taking all our toilet paper

I'm an INFP (doesn't stand for I need fucking paper in case your getting any ideas)

Thank you!

YES! Haha, thank you for defending me, you kind soul!

+Vivien Reis I would be honored if you check out my channel

agreed!

im with ya siobhan lets getem

siobhan murray amen

The Myers Briggs test can b false you know, it’s not scientific

@@memothat_mexican_junior5009 that's the thing scientific doesn't always mean 100 % accurate. Like she said humans are complicated it's boring if you just use 1 personality trait. Characters will feel one diemensional. This is just a start that makes characters unique. Will find that some people tick more boxes in each one trait. Like me for example out of the 16. I'm 8 of the types.

@@ivanmalau4945 You can't be 8 of the types, that's where cognitive functions come in. you have a dominant and auxiliary and your tertiary and inferior functions are mirrors of those two. for example an INTJ (myself) has Ni Te as dom/aux and Fi-Se as tertiary/inferior. There are really thirty-two types- an INTP for example could prioritise either intution or sensing, as they are dominantly a thinking type (Ti-Ne vs Ti-Si).

Bruh Send It I want someone like her😂

Thank you, thank you!

Apparently so!

right here!

This time I was, and I have to say its pretty much accurate too

Johanna Anuar ME EXACTLY

Me! It's the Mediator type right?

Now I'm intrigued to know some of the HP characters's personalities.... Like Harry, Dumbledore, Lupin and Sirius.... haha

Michal K Thank you!!

Aryan Joshi Haha same, when she said that they are annoying I was like ouch but I've known that I'm annoying for as long as I can remember so I have to agree with her 😂

Aryan Joshi Haha, finally someone else with ENTP results.

Aryan Joshi same! (Also jack sparrow)

I'm INFJ, but, I have a character who got ENTJ.

I thought I was the only ENTP in here

:)

ENFP unite

There is some theory behind the MBTI that you should look into. It was designed by Myers and Briggs, a mother and daughter team, based on the philosophy of Carl Jung, the early psychologist. The 16 types are really based on 8 different "psychological functions' that people use to interact with the world. Extraverted Feeling, for example, interacts with the world as though it's full of relationships and adventures. Introverted Thinking is more about testing out ideas and plans thoroughly in your mind. The way they get 16 types out of these 8 functions is that you pick one of the functions to be your dominant one. Then there are two different ways to pick out what your secondary function will be. The rest of the functions, they theorized, would naturally follow those in a fixed preference order. If you tend to be an Extraverted Sensor, your secondary function has to be introverted (to balance out your extraverted function), and it has to come from the T/F group (to balance out the function you already picked from the N/S group). So you can only pick either Introveted Thinking or Introverted Feeling as your secondary function to Extraverted Sensing. And your third and fourth, so on to your least most preferred functions, will follow from these choices.. You don't have to follow their model at all. Maybe you have a character that prefers both the I and the E of the same group for their primary and secondary functions. They're an EF in tune with relationships and others' needs but also an IF in tune with their own needs. They have hardly developed their T or N or S functions at all. That would imply that their not super logical/planful _and also_ they don't necessarily pay attention well to their surroundings or even have a lot of self-awareness. They're very motivated, but often rush into plans that don't work out how they intended, and just seem to have little common sense or insight. But they are the clear king or queen of affairs of the heart. OR maybe your character is so introverted, both of their primary functions are Introverted. They could be a very rational and planful IT, and a very creative and insightful IN, but have problems implementing any of their great ideas, or sharing them with others. But you'll notice these examples are more extreme and charicatured than the 16 types, not less. The MBTI system is designed to actually give you more balanced and nuanced characters, that do have complex and even contradictory traits, like you were saying. It's not perfect for every character, but I do think it's often a decent start for designing someone that feels like a real human. It's also careful to give pairs of traits that aren't just vices/virtues, but two fully fleshed-out ways of seeing the world with their own unique strengths and weaknesses.

But if you're worried the MBTI isn't "complex enough" to capture the real range of human personality, you should know it's also missing lots of traits. For example, whether the character tends to experience more positive or negative emotions, which had been part of the medieval 4 temperaments/4 humors model, this is added to the MBTI by the Big 5/OCEAN model. Even this tool still misses whether the character is conniving/remorseless/selfish, or has an impulse to honesty and humility and spirituality, something covered by HEXACO. But even that still misses whether your character has a persistent, perseverating, even obsessive impulse, something added by Robert Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory. But Cloninger's TCI has 7 dimensions of personality instead of the original 4 we started with, to make it able to answer all these extra questions. Which means you _really_ can't think of it in terms of "types" of people anymore. Trying to make types the way we typically do with the MBTI would leave us with 128 personality types! And that's just if you force everyone to be one way or the other: Harm Avoidant or Daring, Self-Transcendent or Egoistic, all Black or all White. If you acknowledge that you could also just be in the middle on any of these traits, like how most people are "ambiverts," that would leave you with over 2000 personality types, really! I think that's why the MBTI. Cuz it is a really simple tool most people can learn and carry around in their head. It's reasonably similar to actual modern personality science, just the very abridged version. I think TCI is clearly my favorite, but OCEAN is actually the most popular scientific model, and it only takes one more letter to learn than MBTI. It's much more clearly grouped into pairs of positive/negative traits than any other model I've mentioned, practically every letter represents either a virtue or a vice a character can have (not my favorite aspect of it). But that gives you the unique ability to design groups of characters with many different interacting strengths and weaknesses. It feels weird to add a hero to your group who's disaffected, disorganized, and straight-up lazy, but it can sure inject a lot of drama into your characters' interactions, and fast! Same with adding a dumb one, a rude one, a worrywart, a weirdo... it instantly makes plot points more interesting to write and character voices more distinct. And when you're thinking explicitly in terms of good/bad traits, it makes it easier for you engineer characters that have a few believeable faults, but are still overwhelmingly likeable to most readers.

Kenny same though

Geli Sounds interesting, but also very complicated. It's probably a good idea to look into that, at least to scratch the surface, even if I plan to design my characters without any specific models.

I've taken several of these tests, including the Myers-Briggs test, and they've always been either a poor fit at best or so vague that I expect I'd fit into any of the other categories about equally as well. I tried the Myers-Briggs test again just now for a character, and I see the value of answering the questions to give you a clearer idea of how they think and act, but the result I got in the end didn't match the character in the slightest.

It gives me a kick every time they teleport. Gives you something to look at other than my blabbering face :)

but dogs are already distracting when not teleporting=-p lol

The dog is adorable.

Samee

:D

champions, UNITE

i used to be an intp but i took the test again and am a enfp now somehow :')

Right here! ENFPs are the best!

Right here!

Why hello :)

INFJ here as well! =)

Cool :)

What's that stand for again?

I'm one!

I'm INFJ. I've ready many times that we're the rarest personality type.

thor horst Hah.

Same here. Just about any NF or NT type. The closest exception so far is ISTP.

For some reason I have a character who's an ISTJ. And I'm INFP. How in hell did that happen?

Maybe because you either know one in real life or can relate to some things. Look into the things that make each type. Fi, Ne, Si, Te is the INFP and ISTJ is Si, Te, Fi, Ne. Your character probably is probably a more organized, more bossy, less sympathetic version of yourself. See if any of your other characters share variations of the things that make up INFP. Kind of like how I've got an ISTP. He's a lot more blunt, less considerate of others emotions earlier in his life resentful of a lot of things, such as coming to meetings and relying on others. Hates to be told what to do, but as any individual "person" learns and overcomes a number of those things over time. Plus pairing him up against an ENFJ makes for a lot of interesting clashes, sparks, as well as mutual resentment, love, respect and admiration of eachother.

My character, Julian, is indeed a very meticulous, dominant leader-type with a sensitive soul but a lot of trouble with empathy. He can relate, he just has trouble expressing that he can, often coming off as unfeeling or intruding because he tries to help - that is, when he's not being mistaken for an arrogant jerk. Julian is pretty order-oriented, meaning that he also doesn't like it when people break rules. He's inflexible on that point. One of his quirks is that, as he's a very skilled healer and magician, he can't tolerate any scarring wounds made to his face. His arms, legs, chest, and throat are a nightmare of scars (he was beaten and whipped as a child and because he's immortal he can't die, though he retains the scars of the wounds that should've killed him) but his face is as pristine and good-looking as it was when he was just sixteen.

I heard 2% of the general population are INFJ, I feel special-

Some of mine are too :)

Same, I just did the test and apparently that's me...

There's a lot of contributions to the field of psychology that weren't made by psychologists. However, as a personality inventory for real-world use, it's pretty choppy. It's a black/white personality inventory with four primary sliding personalities. It's also a test with pretty bad reliability, so it's not actually that useful for determining personality. It's an archaic inventory based on Jungian theory (the sole psychology founder that I deem worse than Freud). HOWEVER: As a tool for writing, you can use the stereotypes it gives to help build a character around them. I just wouldn't trust a test to give you accurate, lasting, or meaningful results.

Yeah. If I wanna know what is correct for myself, I go to someone educated (I'm a bit logistician in that way), but for my characters, it's nice to to use as a tool. And to shuffle around to give them some built in contradictions.

Studying as a communications major in college I can confirm that this is a theory that was taught in 200 courses. It could probably fall into psychology as well. It's a concept that is relatively basic. This was a great refresher as it has been a number of years.

What’s been said here is actually wrong. It is used by psychologists. It is based on work of Carl Jung, Frued’s most famous student. Of course it was not created by psychologists. Psychologists did not exist at the time that these two women were researching this and their gender was a huge barrier to entry in the field. It does mirror the OCEAN factors that psychological research says are the best predictors of personality. You and the others are right that there is a lot of research that proves that personality is terrible at predicting future behavior. Those could be the basis for your belief that psychologists disregard them. That flaw though is not limited to this test. It applies to every personality type system ever created. There are plenty of good reasons for knowing your personality and those of other people. None of which rely on predicting future behavior. The MBTI has a lot of research behind it that is constantly growing. There are a lot of good books on how it feels to be a certain type like Personality Type by Lenore Thomson and others that are about how other types appear to other people like Type Talk by Otto Kroeger or how different types use objects, body language, and diction like Please Understand Me II by David Keirsey.

@@cameronfreeman5592 Wow, I don't know how you can say that Jung is worse than Freud, but I respect your opinion haha

You're so welcome! Thank you for watching and commenting :)

Same

Goddess Lee hell yesss😀

Yep same here!

same

Take the test. :) www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test I've taken it multiple times, pretending I'm my characters.

This makes me so happy to hear! I'm so glad you found my channel :)

I've definitely got some of the devil's advocate too...everyone around me says I should have been a lawyer. I kind of like to argue :)

Vivien Reis Used to want to be one, before I got hurt... then things changed.

+J.R. Handley And then the writing bug bit us 😎

Vivien Reis Who knew, yeah? LOL!! What started as therapy became so much more for me.

I believe 2 personalities put together is called joint-personality. I’m an ENTJ and ESTJ

Absolutely!

Allen Hill As someone who studied MBTI for more than a year, I can tell you he is definitely an ENTP and definitely not an Idealist.

Let’s start by looking at exactly what “SF” means: S = “Sensing.” Essentially, this means these people weigh experience over dreams/ideas (iNtuitive). F = “Feeling.” This means they weigh emotion over logic (Thinking). So… emotional experiences strongly effect these people. If you were to write/read about someone in which personal history played a role in their villainhood, I’d say these type work well. They’re probably not going to be your “cold/emotionless” type villains, however, because they’re Feeling types. Quite the opposite, expect more passionate villains (either internally or externally). Now, before I try to “villainize” each of these, I’d like to put out a disclaimer that this is just my opinion, and that I don’t believe _anyone_ is “pure evil.” Though, this _is_ coming from an INFP, aka the “idealist” … Let’s start with ESFJ villains, because they actually have a fairly common “villain” form: the bratty high school bully girl, oftentimes (though not necessarily) rich. ESFJs can get _really_ caught up in other’s opinions of them, their status, or their popularity. So much so that they might put others down to bring themselves up… and as social types (extroverted/and or feeling people tend to be the social ones), they’re usually quite adept at this. If they’re envious of someone, it can be even worse. Another way ESFJ’s could be villainized is in their possessiveness and overbearingness. For example, the parent who refuse to see things their child’s way or acknowledge fault. ESFJs are bad acknowledging faults, and I think this relates to their concern with other’s perception. They also make good “bandwagon” villains for this reason-someone who does wrong simply because it’s what’s “in.” ISFJs also can let their emotions get to them in a negative way. They, too, care about how they are perceived, and so tend to take things personally. And they internalize and repress their feelings, hurting themselves in the process. This, combined with their tendency to care too much about others, can lead to serious letdowns when confronted with failure, rejection, or criticism. They can become dangerously embittered, or “snap.” The other form of ISFP villain is similar to the ISFJ villain… they don’t like change, and this can apply to laws/societal rules/etc… So, they can be a “traditionalist” villain: they don’t want disorder or change, even for the better… so, a pro-slavery person who’s for it because “that’s the way it is/has been” could be this type… even if they don’t agree to it. They get bogged down/disheartened easily, and can be too accepting. ISFPs are competitive and enjoy thrill; they want to be the best (similar to the ESFJs desire to be popular, it’s about perception). This can be very good when a person uses it to better themselves and to find the motivation to actually accomplish things… but, like most things, is awful when taken too far. Such as the person willing to cheat to win, possibly even cheat in way that seriously harms others… that’s when it gets really bad/could be considered downright villainous. (cheating can vary, after all: it’s one thing to beat others by poisoning them, another to bribe a scorer). So, ISFP could be the person who will not stop at anything to win… even violence. As feeling types, they’d probably hate themselves though and find not _truly_ winning and hurting others to be empty, and this may lead to a worsening of behavior in seeking fulfillment. (Or it could lead to them realizing they need to be better, but you said “pure evil,” so I’ll assume you’re not interested in that.) Since they enjoy a thrill, competition, cheating, and scamming all have added appeal, too. Another possible ISFP villain could be con-artist of some sort. Although introverts, they are often charming, so this lends well to con. Lastly, here’s my take on “villainizing” ESFPs… ESFPs also like a thrill, possibly more so than a ISFPs; they also are big pleasure-seekers. And like the SFs, they may be willing to put others down in serving their desires. So, a playboy or temptress is good example of ESFP villains: they enjoy the thrill of passion/love/lust, and greatly enjoy the physical pleasures… they may be willing to use others in their quest for passionate, yet false pleasure. Playing the game of love until they get to the physical step and the physical pleasures… and then leaving that person broken, as they have now taken maximum enjoyment from them (no fun/excitement is settling down). Or, alternatively, you could go for the pleasures of wealth, where I think these characters also fit: a gold-digger or a con-artist, enjoy the pleasures of the wealth they obtained and enjoying their methods of obtaining it, because of the thrill. So, hedonistic and lustful types. Since these ESFPs are Extroverted and Feeling, they are quite adept at this thrillful, lustful, and greedy manipulation of others. They seem charming, and hid their true intent.Hope this helped, ‘cuz I’ll admit finding villain “types” that fit these personality types was a little hard; most of them don’t fit the common “big bad evil boss” types.

Wow thanks and the last line did really hit hard, because I was trying to make them in to the “big bad evil boss” types. This gave me another perspective and gave me a lot more ideas. Thanks for the time and effort, and I can guarantee you that you gave me the answers I need In case your wondering, Im trying to creating a group of 16 villains each having the different personality, hence the question. good day!

How about Scar in the lion king? He is acting from experience of being pushed down and acts on the emotions of being seen as less than his brother. He acts truly from his past emotional experience.

awesome turtle all these fucking you tubers are doing it these days. It's like they can't talk for more than 7 seconds... Cut

it takes a lot of time to script and practice and re-record to get a single piece... or you can go crazy and build a teleprompter

You're so very welcome!

I'm also INFP-T taken various MB tests since 90's - consistent. One thing I learned from www.16personalities.com that I didn't know was INFP are likely to be writers. Studied physics, always had creative high tech career...much involved writing technical specifications...now I'm learning to write science fiction...it wasn't meant as a compliment when I was told early on that one of my stories read like a technical specifications (although secretly I took it as such). Fiction is more of a challenge.

Sean Lynch Yeah, I saw that INFP's are super creative. For me, I feel I'm so creative that I can never focus on anything that isn't some form of art. Physics kills me. Hahaha! And ooooh! Science fiction? Do you already have a story in mind?