Personality details?

[Tonstad39]

I made the mistake of signing up for a detailed RP, y'know one of those "Have your character's backstory be two paragraphs long" RPs? I made the mistake of signing up to one of those & now I'm struggling with how I'm supposed to make my character's personality two paragraphs long. It also requires the personality be two to three paragraphs long, he also wants quality AND quantity so it's  basically an assignment for an English class. Long story short, how am I supposed to make my character's personality two paragraphs long? (I'm mostly a short reply RPer if you're wondering.)

 

[Abyss]

Well you don't need to have a ton of different personality traits in order to fill out a couple of paragraphs; just pick a few traits and flesh them out a bit (how does this character demonstrate their anger, or happiness? What made them develope these behaviours, etc)  Also, everyone's definition of what a paragraph is seems to vary quite a bit, so he might not be looking for as much work as you think he is.


For ways to do these things as well as other role playing advice I really suggest you take a look at Springhole.net it's a great site that answers a lot of these types of questions.


I hope that helps!

 

[QuirkyAngel]

I can understand what you're going through. The personality section has never been my favorite part of writing a cs either.


What I do, when I'm utterly lost about what to write, is start organizing. Pick 3 traits for your character. Write five sentences explaining about how your character fits into that trait. Do that for all three traits. Then you should have 3 paragraphs.

 

[Tonstad39]

I sighned out of the RP if you are all curious

 

[QuirkyAngel]

That's too bad. 


Did you not like the rp? Or was it the detailed part that deterred u?

 

[Tonstad39]

That's too bad. 


Did you not like the rp? Or was it the detailed part that deterred u?

The details deterred me, I'm a short reply RPer and having things in the CS be more than a paragraph is insanity to me!

 

[cadence]

I am the opposite of a lot of people. I love writing the personality! It's backgrounds and histories I hate writing so very much.


Like (whatever the person name is idefk) said above, just pick a few positive and negative traits and spread it out a bit. Just describe how they're kind, how they're rude. Blah. Blah. Blah.

 

[Phantom Thief of Hearts]

what sort of rps are you into?

 

[Pyosimros]

Quick tip which helps to add a little more things to your personality, take a Myers-Briggs personality test as your character - I suppose that's the best way to explain it. After taking it, read through the things and see what you would agree your character would behave like. It just gives more ideas I suppose. OR Y'KNOW, YOU COULD JUST COPY PASTE THE THING, which I'm not stopping you from doing. >.>

 

[OnceDarkness]

Quick tip which helps to add a little more things to your personality, take a Myers-Briggs personality test as your character - I suppose that's the best way to explain it. After taking it, read through the things and see what you would agree your character would behave like. It just gives more ideas I suppose. OR Y'KNOW, YOU COULD JUST COPY PASTE THE THING, which I'm not stopping you from doing. >.>

Ooooohh! MBTI! Now that we're talking about that, let's talk about our types assuming you took the quiz, but here is my feedback regarding the MBTI quiz for characters.


Yes, it helps but all in all, MBTI is just another classification system, so it helps. Don't rely heavily on it because people deviate from the supposed behavior of their type.


Here's the basic stereotypical outline of the types


The NT's are the mad scientists


The SJ's are the conservatives


The NF's are the emotional people


The SP's are the gamblers

 

[Saccharine Cyanide]

Oh, I love this Briggs-Meyer test idea. I just took it for my mad scientist character and he did, in fact, get ENTP-A.  Pretty spot on.


Another option is that you can use a random personality generator and tweak it where necessary. It can help you avoid pigeonholing your characters into the same personality, too.

 

[Sunbather]

Well, I'm the exact opposite. I cannot join an RP that has less than a paragraph per reply, or else I feel irritated. To me, detail comes with the character idea. I usually have a few traits I want to play/explore, and build off of that. I find it really motivating to completely detail out a real, genuine, believable personality that is then exposed to the scenario and changes gradually.

 

[QuirkyAngel]

I am the opposite of a lot of people. I love writing the personality! It's backgrounds and histories I hate writing so very much.

Like (whatever the person name is idefk) said above, just pick a few positive and negative traits and spread it out a bit. Just describe how they're kind, how they're rude. Blah. Blah. Blah.

That's not especially odd. I know plenty of people who prefer writing personality to background/history, which often require greater length and more thought. I'm the one that's a little quirky. I can easily churn out a made up history for my characters with decent length, but when it comes to personality--for some reason--I struggle to describe their personality the way I imagine it. In the end, I usually just settle on a couple of stand out traits that my character has and emphasize on those.

 I find it really motivating to completely detail out a real, genuine, believable personality that is then exposed to the scenario and changes gradually.

I can appreciate this. It's also the reason I find writing a character's personality so difficult. Personality isn't stagnant the same way a character's history or background is. Real people respond to different scenarios differently, which may not adhere to the original personality described. Personalities can also change as you stated. Usually gradually, but when the situation is traumatic enough, it can also be a very sudden change. In short, I find personalities very complicated. That's why when I'm writing the personality section I feel (probably inaccurately) that I'm trapping them in a cage that is their "personality". 

 

[RoyalPhoenix32]

@QuirkyAngel Same here. I feel like I've 'trapped' my characters in a set in stone personality that doesn't fit them when a certain situation calls for an emotional response if they are indifferent towards everyone. That's why I feel like placing them in a way that reflects me in a way. I don't feel like setting them in stone as every person can and will get attached to their characters (I know I do, one too many times crying because my character died).

 

[thoughtless]

I have a few steps that I always go through whenever I making characters.

• Pick 1-2 Positive traits, 1-2 Negative traits, and 1-2 Neutral traits
  
  
  Neutral traits are a lot more subjective than the other two, but it shouldn't be too hard to come up with a trait that leans more to the neutral side of things. Whenever I'm picking traits I always resort to using this website since it's a very, very large list. And if you want you could always copy and paste the traits into a randomizer and whatever you get you go with for your character. This helps whenever you're one of the people who usually get stuck making very similar characters (and trust me, I am one of those people).
  

[*]Pick traits that are contradictory.

• 
  As many in this thread have already said, people tend to act differently in different situations and so writing a personality seems to dictate how they should act in every situation. Purposely picking traits that contradict one another will allow you to be more flexible with your character, and it makes your character more realistic since people in real life do have contradictory traits. Another way to get past using the whole personality to dictate how a character acts in one situation would be to only write your personality based off of how your character acts in normal circumstances. Then in some google document or notepad, come up with circumstances, and then dictate how your character acts in those specific circumstances. Or brainstorm it in your head, just make sure that it's something you keep in mind while roleplaying to avoid making your character always act the same.
  

[*]Write 2-6 sentences about each trait.

• 
  
  Really, that's the easiest and shortest way to do it. I'm someone who often writes five paragraphs for personality as I like to be very detailed, but that'd be more than insanity to you so this is a way to accomplish two paragraphs. After you have written your 2-6 sentences for each trait, combine those sentences into two-three paragraphs and then go back and edit them to make sure that they flow correctly when you read them.
  

Hopefully, that helped you out a bit

 

[OnceDarkness]

Oh, I love this Briggs-Meyer test idea. I just took it for my mad scientist character and he did, in fact, get ENTP-A.  Pretty spot on.


Another option is that you can use a random personality generator and tweak it where necessary. It can help you avoid pigeonholing your characters into the same personality, too.

ENTP = Mad scientist is a stereotype, take it from an ENTP himself.