Guest Blog: Julia Stone - The Psychology of Character

Julia Stone is the author of three published psychological suspense novels and is currently working on her fourth. If you’re curious about people and intrigued by why they do what they do then her novels are for you as they focus on why ‘dunnit’ rather than ‘who dunnit’.

Her Little Secret – A modern day Rebecca; a psychotherapist is manipulated by a bereaved client with a hidden objective.

The Accident – A genealogist claims she’s related to a dead stranger and worms her way into the lives of those who knew her.

The Expert Witness – A psychologist with expertise in memory finds her own life-story threatened when her recall of a key event is challenged by a stranger.

Links at https://linktr.ee/julia stone

The Psychology of Personality - Bringing Characters to Life

When you meet someone for the first time you may notice certain things about them: how they look, how they speak, what they say. These are the things we see and hear that tell us something about the person and help us form an impression of what makes them tick. But what sits behind this? When you read novels there are sometimes characters that stay with you long after you’ve closed the book. What is it that brings them to life and makes them leap from the page?

It is not a simple physical description – knowing someone is 5 foot 6 inches tall, has dark dyed hair, pierced ears and green eyes doesn’t tell you much about them as a person. But that same description with a slither of back story makes things more vivid. For example, ‘She’s dyed her hair since her punk rock days, although now the bright pink is replaced with a shade of brown she deems more suitable for her current profession.’ This one sentence not only allows us to estimate her age – she is old enough to have been a punk – and gives us a hint about her personality: she’s could be a bit of a rebel (punk rocker, plus still not embracing the metric system after all these years!) We also know she is in a role that she believes requires some gravitas, implying she takes her professional life seriously. These qualities are personality traits.

Traits are the building blocks of personality; fairly consistent ways of thinking and behaving that can help us describe a person. Psychologists who study personality have identified 5 key traits that can distinguish one person from another that have been named The Big Five:

§  Openness to experience

§  Conscientiousness

§  Extraversion

§  Agreeableness

§  Neuroticism

We are all somewhere on the continuum for each of these traits. Some of us at the extremes of high or low. Others somewhere in the middle without a strong preference, varying our responses depending on the circumstance.

I’m a psychologist and psychotherapist by professional background and I always use this tool to profile my character before I start writing my story. This helps me to get into the character’s mindset, enabling me to think like them when writing a scene – what would they feel, do, say? – rather than thinking from my own perspective.

Once I know the character’s personality I can work backwards to create a meaningful and credible backstory that shows the reader the formative events that led to the beliefs and values that underpin these behaviours. Maybe our heroine became a rebel because she was rejected by the other kids at school; since she wasn’t accepted she decided she would deliberately be different and do things her own way. Or, possibly she was rebelling against overly strict parents. Or, maybe this was an effort to fit in with her peers and follow the trend. It is for me, the author, to make up a backstory that is relevant to the specific story I’m writing; something that explains the character’s beliefs and behaviours in order that everything fits together in a coherent narrative.

Your character’s personality will impact their beliefs and values, how they behave, the way they interact with others, and how they go about reaching their wants and needs.

Once I’ve created a profile for my protagonist against these traits, it helps me to answer questions like:

§  What they do that shows these characteristics?

§  What beliefs and values they hold that reflect their profile?

§  Are there circumstances where they behave differently? Why?

§  What similarities/differences are there to other characters?

§  What’s in their backstory that illustrates how these traits developed?

If you would like more information on the Big 5 contact me at julia@juliastonewriter.com  or for more information on psychology and writing sign up for my readers club newsletter at https://juliastonewriter.com/. Finally, you can find me on Facebook by searching for JuliaStoneWriter and Instagram Julia.Stone.Writer.